January 27, 2022 • 38 mins
In episode 21 discover how to become harder to kill with world leading nutritional biochemist and health optimisation expert Shawn Wells.
The discussion covers many interesting themes from Shawns book the Energy Formula such as boosting resilience, optimising energy and strategies to live a long healthy energised life.
There are so many gems of wisdom shared during this show which can support you in reframing how you feel about stress and adversity so that you can use it to your power.
We explore the world of plant medicine and how it offers immense benefits for personal expansion and growth.
This was a really fun discussion and i am so sure you are going to find lots of value from Shawns incredible knowledge and experience in this field.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Barnes (00:03):
Hey, this is Chris and you're listening to
Amplified wellness podcast. Morepeople than ever are realising
that they possess the potentialfor far greater states of health
and human flourishing. On thisshow, I sit down with the best
biohackers health optimizationexperts, integrative doctors and
healers. We discuss and tacklereal life health challenges,
(00:28):
offering listeners powerfulsolutions and strategies to
support in becoming your verybest version. Hey guys, and
welcome to Amplified wellnesspodcast. I'm your host Chris
Barnes. Today I'm absolutelythrilled with my guest. He is a
nutritional biochemist, one ofthe world's leading experts in
this field is a healthoptimization expert as well. He
(00:50):
has formulated over 500supplements and cosmeceuticals
and has over 10 novelingredients patented has been
referred to as the ingredientologists. I'd like to welcome
Mr. Shawn wells. How are youdoing Shawn?
Shawn Wells (01:06):
I'm great. Thanks for having me on.
Chris Barnes (01:08):
absolutely a pleasure, mate. I have recently
read your book, the energyformula. And I must say it's an
absolutely ComprehensiveResource mate like there is so
much in there for anyone whetheryou're a seasoned bio hacker or
somebody completely new to theworld of health optimization,
you pretty much left no stoneunturned in that book mate. For
(01:30):
anyone looking to live a longhealthy, energised life this
books amazing. Well done withthat.
Shawn Wells (01:36):
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that. Chris,let me flip this a little bit
and ask you what about the booklike really connected with you
or resonated with you?
Chris Barnes (01:49):
Good question. , I've actually recently had one
of your colleagues, one of yourfriends, Melissa grill Peterson
on the episode. Yeah, awesome,awesome lady, and awesome
guests. And we went intohealthspan, and lifespan and
longevity and all the goodiesinvolved in that area. And in
particular, we touched onstress, and eustress the good
(02:11):
type of stress. But one thingthat I guess it's been pressing
in my life, and in my network offriends is what you reference in
the book, the allostatic loadthe stress bucket, which I want
to dive into in a little bit.
just understanding our stressbucket and how that kind of
overflows into otherphysiological aspects of our
life. I'm a bit of a biohacker.
(02:35):
Myself, I love ice bathes andsauna and all these things. But
I have found that over theyears, when I've probably not
managed my stress as well, I'vebeen hammered a little bit by
experimenting on my body innegative aspects, which I'd like
to get you advice on as we goalong. So probably one of the
biggest things that stood out tome just a better understanding
(02:55):
of our stress load and how thatcan impact and, and I guess to
be more aware of that status,before we go on, just experiment
on yourself.
Shawn Wells (03:04):
. Yeah, for sure.
And that's called Yeah,allostatic load, like you said,
and that's our stress bucket.
And that's the technical termfor it. And if you can imagine
in the book, I have a diagramwith this bell curve. And on one
side, there's like hormeticstress, right? Like, there's the
eustress that you're talkingabout the good stress that's
going up the left side of thatcurve, where the more stress
(03:28):
that you add, the moreadaptation you get, right, and
the healthier it is. And like inthe middle down, the meat of
that bell curve is theGoldilocks zone. But then as you
start heading down the otherside of the curve, on the right
hand side, it's distress. Sothis is to your point that
(03:49):
you're talking about before thatat some point, even things that
are normally we think of ashealthy stress is as hormetic
stress is as you stress is endup becoming distresses. Why
because our buckets overflowingright, we only have so much room
in the stress bucket, theallostatic load. So when that
(04:11):
bucket is overflowing, anystress becomes bad stress. So
this is like the situation whereto your point where you know, it
could be cold plunges or redlight or saunas or ketogenic
diet or extended fasting or youknow, working out at the gym and
high intensity intervaltraining. These can all be too
(04:33):
much if you just lost your jobif you know your grandmother
just died, your dog is you know,sick or you've got stuff going
on at work or you just gotdivorced or you know, like these
things like normally can beokay. But in these cases, it can
end up being distressed isespecially when you start
stacking, and a great way tolook at this and metric that we
(04:55):
have available to us is HRVheart rate variability. So if
you have a one terrible. Noweven like, I believe the Apple
iWatch, and the Samsung Gearwatch or whatever, I think they
even track them now too. Butyeah, Garmin, exactly, oura
ring, Garmin Phoenix bio strap,you know, these devices have
(05:16):
been well known for heart ratevariability and tracking all
that. And that tells you,essentially your readiness, like
when the heart rate variabilityis wider, we're more resilient,
we have more room, we have moreability to bounce back, when
that heart rate is tighter inresponse, then we're less
(05:37):
resilient. And so that's whatthis is, is essentially
tracking. And that's what allthis is, we're talking about
resilience and resilience is theidea of being harder to kill.
Now we're more easy to kill ourstress buckets are very small.
And whereas hundreds of yearsago, maybe even 20 years ago,
(05:59):
our stress buckets were a lotbigger. Why? Because we're in
artificial light with in ourartificial boxes with artificial
air, eating artificial food,watching an artificial life on
an artificial floor, like youknow, it's just the whole thing
is not reality. And we're notgetting exposed to the things we
should be getting exposed to,you know, both positive and
(06:22):
somewhat negative. Like I don'teven think of viruses or
bacteria as bad like or eventhat there's good or bad
bacteria, like the quote unquotegood bacteria Foster's your
immune system andneurotransmitters and all these
things in the gut, the gut brainaxis, and that's awesome. But
the quote unquote bad bacteriais a stress right of hormetic
(06:44):
stress that keeps us strong. Sothey're serving us. We need
these viral and bacterialchallenges we need to be out and
about otherwise we become weak.
We have low allostatic load, wehave a small stress bucket when
we're in isolation, when we'renot hugging people when we're
not putting our feet and handsin the dirt when we're not
(07:04):
touching doorknobs of bathroomstalls and you know, whatever.
Like all these things thatnormally when food falls on the
floor, we don't need it anymore.
Everything needs to besanitised. And yeah, this
sanitised world is making usweak, we are not able to like my
dog can drink out of the lakeand eat her own poop. You know,
(07:28):
it's like, don't get COVID dothat. It's like we're wondering
why that when we're so isolatedwhen we're under like
fluorescent light, and we'reeating junk food. And all of
this is happening, why we're,you know why we're so prone to
all these things. And it'sbecause you might have the
allostatic load that we used to
Chris Barnes (07:48):
really, really good points there. I've got a
friend that gets hammered. Justgoing out in the sun here on the
Gold Coast. We'll go to thebeach for a few hours and then
go home and absolutely crushedfrom that. Probably a good good
indication of a small stresspocket.
Shawn Wells (08:05):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it is a stress. And so
like, especially depending onlike how fair your skin is, when
you're literally burning theskin. And you're causing, like
photo oxidation. I do thinksunlight is good, but it depends
when and how much and howintensely and you know, all of
that, like you have to factorthat in. And it's just like
(08:26):
working out where it's like youdon't like go in there and pick
up like the heaviest barbell inthe place and do a squat like,
like you work your way up to it.
It's the same with cold plunges.
It's the same with exposure tolight. It's the same with all of
these things with extendedfasting, you don't do like a 72
(08:47):
hour fast like your first timeout. Right? Like it's like
otherwise, it can be too muchstress for the body. Like you
have to adapt to this stuff. Soyeah, absolutely.
Chris Barnes (09:00):
So for somebody in a situation where their buckets
overflowing with stress, theywant to start to introduce some
hormetic activities like coldplunges sauna, should they just
do really, really shortintervals of that? Or should
they just wait and try and getthat stress level down a little
bit more before they introducehormetic stresses?
Shawn Wells (09:22):
It's a good question. And it's one of those
things where I would again, lookat the HRV. And like, see how
you feel, I mean, you don'talways want to just go by
metric. Like you also want tojust check in with yourself and
have self awareness. You startaligning that potentially with a
metric, but it's not just metricbased, like, you know, some
people like wake up refreshed,but their aura ring says they
(09:44):
have a crap sleep score. Sothey're like, Ah, God, I feel
terrible, that you were like,you know, it's like, don't let
the metric override how youactually feel. It's just data
points, you know, so it's justan insight but I I think it's a
it's a worthwhile question like,you know, it's titration, if you
will, of like, your readiness,your recovery, and how much of a
(10:11):
hormetic stress you want to do,like, you don't want to
necessarily stack a bunch ofthem, or you don't want to,
like, do too much of one. Soit's, if you're feeling ready,
and you're feeling good, yeah,you can stack a bunch, you know,
or you could do one for a verylong time. But, and maybe if
you're not feeling that great,maybe just limit it to like one
thing. And you could pick theone thing that you've kind of
(10:33):
adapted to that actually, is ahormetic stress, but it's like a
mental de stress. Like for me,like for example, fasting, like,
there's points when it can feellike it's too much. And it's
stressful, like, and I'm likefighting it, you know what I
mean? It's still like amazing,like, what it does mean, I still
do it, but like when I do a coldplunge, actually, like there's
(10:56):
there's the initial shock, butlike, I feel amazing the rest of
the day, you know what I mean?
And I get that too, like when Iwork out kind of in that right?
Goldilocks zone, I feel that waytoo, like where I just have a
glow for like three hours. Andit's like that's worth it. You
know what I mean? So it's like,it's also kind of understanding
(11:16):
you and how this affects you.
There's bio individuality, whichI cover in the book, like that
experiment chapter is a lot onthat biodiversity bio
individuality.
Chris Barnes (11:27):
Yeah, it's a really good point, actually,
because you do stress theimportance of experimentation in
your book. So people shouldreally just kind of become more
aware of their own bodies andjust experiment a bit. And if
it's tipping them over the edgejust regress a little bit more,
if they're feeling good, push ita bit more. Be like, yeah,
that's it.
Shawn Wells (11:46):
That's really, essentially. And that's where
you're really growing yourbucket. Yeah.
Chris Barnes (11:52):
For people struggling with resilience. Is
there any particular hormeticstressor that you feel is better
than the other? Or are they allequally yes and beneficial.
Shawn Wells (12:02):
The number one is covered in my growth chapter,
the g of energy. And that's themindset of resilience. That's
the stoic mindset, the obstacleis the way when you have a
resilient mind, and you believethat adversity makes you
stronger, that adversity issomething that is great in your
(12:25):
life, not a struggle, not anoverwhelm, not something that
you should avoid, or shortcut,but it's what literally makes
not only you stronger, but iswhat makes life worth living is
that stress, and you turn itinto a positive stress, you feel
like the universe is alwaysworking for you that you either
(12:46):
win, or you learn, which meansyou win or you win. There is no
losing, there is no, that it's aloss, and I feel terrible, and,
and that this was all fornothing. That's never the case.
It's never the case, you win oryou learn something important
Chris Barnes (13:03):
. How would you ingrain that mindset into people
that have traditionally justviewed stress as a really
negative outcome? They're alwayslosing, do they need to start to
journal recite little mantrasevery day to try and shift that,
or is there a strategy you canrecommend?
Shawn Wells (13:22):
That's a great point. And I believe that inner
work is going to be soessential, because at the core
is your truth. And when I'vedone a lot of plant medicine
work in that's what it's aboutis like dissolving the ego
turning off the default modenetwork, so that you can get
into your truth and understandwho you really are. Because a
(13:45):
lot of times the ego Yes, it'sprotecting, but it's also
preventing the ego is the greatstoryteller. It's the great
reframe. And sometimes reframingis a powerful tool. It's the
most powerful tool for reallysuccess. I mean, that's mental
resilience. But reframing cansometimes be done negatively.
(14:06):
And reframing can work againstyou. Sometimes these constructs
that build up by the ego istelling stories that aren't
necessarily true, and thatyou're starting to believe and
project out on others. And wespend time distracted so we can
avoid the truth. Becausesometimes there's work to be
done. But there's a lot lesswork on the other side of it if
(14:28):
you do it. It is important tounderstand that stress is
important acutely, but it's nothealthy chronically that we
should seek states of ease, byand large, with periods of
stress. And when you're not instates of ease by and large,
(14:50):
you're in states of disease, andyou don't want to be there and
that's where disease happens. Soto me doing that inner work
being self aware They're kind oflike I was just talking about
with the metric of HRV. That'slike a lack of self awareness.
If you just say, Oh, my sleepscore is this from HRV is this.
And that's the truth. The truthis, when you are feeling, that's
(15:13):
the truth, these numbers can bea guide, they can be helpful.
But the truth is, like whatyou're feeling, and if you're
not in tune with yourself,you're not in a healthy state,
mentally or physically. Sothat's what happens when you do
you know, meditation, when youdo therapy, or plant medicine
work or journaling, like you'retalking about, there's a lot of
(15:36):
like, it's quiet time whereyou're connecting with self, and
you're getting to your truth.
And a lot of times, we're doingthe, you know, distracted
behaviours of like watching TV,YouTube, Tiktok. And like, you
know, whatever, we're avoidingthat dialogue with self, because
if anyone talked to you, likeyou talk to you, you wouldn't be
(15:56):
their friend. You need to changethat inner dialogue. And instead
of having it be the harshestcritic, or ignoring yourself, to
someone that's their own bestadvocate. And there's a friendly
dialogue often
Chris Barnes (16:14):
so valuable. You mentioned in your book, and just
a minute ago about yourexperience with plant medicine.
How was that experience becauseit's something that I personally
haven't experienced, but I knowa lot of people swear by it, how
did that change you and yourawareness ?
Shawn Wells (16:33):
I've been through probably 30 different journeys,
like it's something I've I'vereally gone down the rabbit hole
of, I've used a lot of differentplant medicines. I mean, I'm a
biochemist, I'm a scientist. AndI've also have a history of of
trauma and suicidal thoughts andanxiety and depression and
autoimmune issues, braintumours, you know, like, there's
(16:55):
a lot that's been going on withme in my life, you know,
searching for transformation,searching for answers. And this
gave me a lot of them, I spent alot of my life with insecurity
with impostor syndrome, withbeing like this wounded driven
entrepreneur, that was seekingexternal validation for love,
(17:16):
instead of giving it to myself.
Like being in this space, again,turning off that default mode
network, that ego, that'sliterally preventing, like I'm
saying, that's it has all theseconstructs, like, if you're just
in therapy, or just on like anSSRI, your body's like the
ultimate ninja, like avoiding,dealing with conflict, avoiding
(17:37):
dealing with the truth. But whenyou're in this day, you just you
face it head on, and you see it,you feel it, you deal with it,
you move through it. And it'ssuch a release, it's such a
renewal of self and soul to liketo go through that process. And
your physiology changes as aresult. I mean, like, the body
(18:01):
knows the score holds the score.
I mean, that's literally like,traumas held in your body, like
held in your muscles held inyour musculoskeletal frame. Like
there's just, it's held there.
So like, I mean, think aboutwhat do we do when we're unsure?
When we're trying to makeourselves small, like we, you
(18:21):
know, we protect ourselves, we,like, you know, shrink down,
like, you know, and cover ourstomach and cross our arms, and
we're rejecting anything fromthe outside and we're protecting
our core from being penetratedor, you know, whatever. And
that's like, the way that wehold ourselves. But what do we
do when we're, when we're lovingwhen we're open? Like, we
(18:42):
literally like the whole frameopens up, right? Like, your
whole, like, thoracic area, likeopens up and when people when
like, even blind people liketheir arms are raised, and
you're completely open. So it'sjust totally different
physiologically. You know, thoseare things that I experienced
that like my physiology changed,my relationships changed and
(19:04):
most importantly, myrelationship with self changed
that I learned to love myself.
And the other thing that happensin plant medicine is not only
turning off the default modenetwork, but like you enhance
neuroplasticity, it's likegreatly increase so BDNF brain
derived neurotrophic factor isincreased, so that you can
(19:28):
rewire you know neurons thatfire together, wire together. So
like, over time, that's whyconditioning creates your
realities. But this is kind ofundoing that conditioning. So
that you can like Michael Pollantalks about like throwing fresh
snow over like the ski tracks,so that you can go down a new
(19:48):
path instead of the same path.
And so it allows you to rewireand create new behaviours as a
result.
Chris Barnes (19:56):
super fascinating.
Is there anything that listenersif they were wanting to go down
that rabbit hole, as youmentioned, should be aware of
with plant medicine. Is theresome really core cirterias?
Shawn Wells (20:05):
Oh, absolutely.
criterias Yeah, they're notwithout risks, like, it's a very
important one to get the properplant medicine. So working with
the proper facilitator, youknow, ideally, it's in a legal
situation, but if not, andyou're pursuing it, at least
have like a very trainedfacilitator that has a lot of
(20:25):
experience that, you know,people that have experience with
them. And then too, they've satdown with you for hours, and
talk through your mentalhistory, your physical history,
and can provide you safety, ifyou're not feeling safe, you
will not be able to lean intothese experiences, it's so
(20:47):
critical. And part of that iswhat they call set and setting
your mindset going in. And thenthe setting around you, the
environment has to likefacilitate safety. All of this
has to feel safe, thefacilitators, the environment,
like how you feel going intothis, like, if you feel like
something's way off, you don'tgo into it. Like, it's just the
(21:08):
wrong thing at the wrong timedoesn't mean it's always wrong.
It just means right now, it'swrong for you and your body,
this into your body. That's selfawareness. So it's like with the
people I've worked with, we didwe talk for hours, I filled out
hours and hours with the forms,before we even went into it. And
then we did intention settingfor hours we did, you know, yoga
(21:31):
and breath work for hours. Andthen we took the plant medicine.
And then they facilitated thejourney with one guy who's an
emergency room, nurse, and thenanother lady that's a trained
facilitator and therapist. Andthen on the other side of that
we do facilitation work, it'simportant that it's not just
(21:52):
integration work, it's importantthat you don't just leave it
there with just the journey.
It's like now what do you dowith it? How do you process it?
Like, where's the follow up theaccountability. So that's really
important that all those piecesare there. And then the people
even that are in the room, ifyou're doing it with multiple
(22:13):
people like that sets the energyin tone, like so, if there's
people that feel off to you ortrigger you, you know, that can
be wrong. So all of this isreally important. And you know,
the right dose for you isimportant. It's not just like,
Oh, I'm a bigger guy. So I takemore, it's not actually like
that like, and again, like ifyou feel safe, and you have some
(22:35):
experience, like in time yourdose is actually go down,
because you're safer. Andbecause you can lean in more and
they don't need to overpoweryou. I've been able to lower my
doses lower and lower and lowerover time. So yeah, it's
something to definitely workwith the right people on if
someone needs help on this, youknow, DM me, I do a clubhouse
(22:57):
every week to like where we talkthrough a lot of this stuff that
I enjoy as well that I mentionedon my social media on Instagram.
Chris Barnes (23:05):
Awesome, we will definitely share all those
handles before we finish up aswell so people can reach out and
connect with you. Because that'ssuper, super valuable advice
there. Awesome, Shawn. So one ofthe big key principles in your
book, enhancing energy, that'sdefinitely an area that pre pre
pandemic. Everyone was soexhausted low on energy, I
(23:26):
think, post pandemic we're stillcoming out the other end, but I
think it's just been amplified.
What are some of the biggestareas or from your experience?
What are the biggest mistakespeople are making? That are just
depleting their energy? Wow, bigquestion.
Shawn Wells (23:42):
yeah, I mean, it's so many things. Wow. It's just
it's literally so many thingsthat I can think of sleep is one
of the biggest, you know, wedon't have proper sleep hygiene,
where we're going to bed at thesame time every night. For good
circadian rhythm. We don't setup what's called a sleep
fortress, your bedroom shouldrevolve around sleep.
(24:04):
Secondarily sex, you know,that's like relationship, but
like, it's not aboutconversations and especially
arguments. It's not about havingyour office computer in there,
whatever and work. It's notabout having a TV in their cell
phone in their tablets in theirthat bedroom needs to be about
sleep when it's conditioningthat I was just talking about
(24:26):
before. And you need tocondition yourself that that
room is a place of truerelaxation, and nothing else.
And so that's critical. All thisblue light exposure that we're
getting as junk light is massiveand the impact it's having on us
like blocking melatonin isreleased and not allowing us to
feel sleepy. So we're getting,you know, blue light from the
(24:49):
TVs from the laptops from thetablets, the cell phones and all
these devices that are in ourfaces with super bright light,
and it's blocking the release ofmelatonin them metabolic health
87% of Americans at least aremetabolically unhealthy. And you
(25:09):
know, there's one high glycemiccarbohydrate throughout the
diet, there's too many caloriesbeing consumed. There's terrible
fats, these vegetable oils thatare highly highly inflammatory
that are being consumed thingslike canola oil, cottonseed,
sunflower, safflower, vegetableoil, which would include some
(25:32):
corn and soybean, you know, allof these things are pro
inflammatory. And then you addto it like the maltodextrin,
sugar, high fructose corn syrup,the multiple calories, the lack
of exercise, and sedentarynature, it's been shown that
doing these exercises Max, justmoving for like five minutes
(25:53):
every hour is more potent thangoing to the gym for an hour
every day. Meaning your bodyevery hour for a little bit is
more potent, because beingsedentary is the worst thing for
your body. You don't get theblood flow, you don't get the
lymph moving, you actually getyour musculoskeletal system
(26:14):
including the fascia, adaptingto that seated position wants to
make you as low energy aspossible to be efficient. So
literally changing your bodyshape by tightening up muscles
and changing the bone structureand changing the fascia to keep
you in the seated position.
That's completely unnatural inevolutionary history. So finding
(26:34):
ways to just move around likecrawl, you know up your stairs
or crawl around on the carpet orroll around if you have a kid or
a dog or you know, out in theyard, doing planks, doing push
ups, doing sit ups, doing airsquats, you know, whatever it is
like move your body throughoutthe day, of course, it would
help to do resistance exercisethat's been shown, you know, to
(26:57):
have great benefit, but movingyour body is even more critical.
Another big one, when it comesto metabolic health is just
moving after a meal. Becauseblood sugar tends to spike
obviously after your meal,especially if it contains
carbohydrate. And if you'remetabolically dysfunctional,
meaning your insulin resistance,you're overweight etc. And
(27:20):
you're not moving after a meal,then that glucose is going to
sit around your blood andinsulin is going to stay
elevated, which leads to allkinds of dysfunction. So just
moving for 15 minutes upregulate something called glute
for translocation to put glucoseinto the cell so it can be used
for energy. So your insulinisn't elevated and you feel more
(27:41):
energised, and everything isbetter inflammations down,
glucose is down, insulin isdown, etc, just by taking a
simple walk with your spouse oryour dog or whatever, for a
couple of minutes. You know,those are just like some big
simple ones that like peoplearen't doing like, basically,
it's like, living life withintention. It's that simple,
(28:03):
that like, life doesn't happento you, life happens for you and
you are sovereign, you cancontrol your destiny. And once
you believe you're no longer avictim, and that you are in fact
sovereign and control your path,that's when everything can
change. And that's when you seelike, you know, a good morning
(28:23):
routine take place, that's whenyou see like the sleep hygiene
take place, that's when you seethe moving the body or going to
the gym take place, healthierhabits and not getting wasted
all the time. And, you know, allof these kinds of things, that's
when you see that take place.
And by the way, withpsychedelics, you see, even just
one use of psychedelics, whenyou compare those that haven't
(28:45):
done them, there was a 1/3decrease in diabetes and heart
attacks, there's a 50% decreasein depression. And one of the
biggest reasons is becausestress is so high, like going
back to our our stress bucket.
And people might think we're notas stressed as we used to be,
but our stress bucket so muchsmaller. So in a way we are,
(29:06):
we're all maxed out. And it'sbecause we're also distracted
with our cell phones. Andthere's something called task
switching. Because we're notmultitaskers we're task
switchers. And when you'redistracted and burning through a
lot of brain ATP, you're in astate of sympathetic nervous
(29:27):
system, and in a state of kindof like chaotic panic if you
will, when you're in this, likenon focused, non productive
state, and you're switching backand forth and you feel
overwhelmed despite you notaccomplishing anything and this
is a problem with like the levelof distraction that we have in
(29:48):
our lives with the with theemails and the you know,
messaging and and Tik Tok andall this stuff, is that we're
stuck in this mode where we feeloverwhelmed, and were using up a
lot of brain energy. So it'simportant to do like a detox as
well, a digital detox.
Chris Barnes (30:08):
100% really, really useful point, say, Shawn,
your a master formulator, whatwould be your number one energy
supplement that you'd recommendclean energy that's not going to
create crushes, like caffeineand all these energy drinks to
help people feel a little bitmore kind of sparked during the
day.
Shawn Wells (30:28):
Yeah, a few answers there. So people that know me
know I patented teacrine andDynamine, learn, literally, I
think 500 700 products,something like that. But those
are two methyl Xanthine 's thatare in that kind of caffeine
family that don't have thehabituation adaptation. Issues
(30:48):
that caffeine has caffeine kindof has diminishing effects over
time, you have to take more andmore to get the same effects.
Plus caffeine has other issueswhere some people are fast
metabolizers and slowmetabolizers, the fast
metabolizers can have thecaffeine and go straight to that
kind of thing. A slowmetabolizers like me have all
the side effects where it justhangs around. And you don't
(31:11):
really get the benefit. Youknow, you get the anxiety and
the brain fog and the irritationand sleep disruption but you
don't get much of the benefit.
My newest ingredient is adownstream metabolite of
caffeine that solves a lot ofthis like where you don't have
the slow or fast metabolizerissues. And it's highly
dopaminergic. So what that meansis one is neuro protective to
(31:35):
it's like not only protectingthe brain, but like making you
feel more productive, and focus.
And then even cooler, like youget this feeling of confidence
and swagger if you will, likewhere you just feel like feeling
good feeling yourself, like feelconfident. And it's called para
(31:58):
Xanthine is that downstreammetabolite. And it really solves
a lot of caffines issues and oneups all its benefits. Like we
were about to round studies inright now. Yeah, 30 patents in
and it's really, reallyexciting.
Chris Barnes (32:13):
Is it to market yet?
Shawn Wells (32:16):
to a bunch of partners right now. So it'll be
in q1 2022 So probably in aboutthree
Chris Barnes (32:25):
Paraxanthine.
Awesome.
Shawn Wells (32:31):
the other ingredient I definitely
mentioned like probably mynumber one for health is it's an
ingredient that I've worked onto cope dihydroberberine and so
people that know anti ageing andand metabolic dysfunction know,
and certainly insulinresistance, no Metformin, the
(32:52):
drug is so popular for antiageing and type two diabetes,
insulin resistance etc.
Berberine has been shown tooutperform Metformin head to hit
Berberine has bioavailabilityissues, some GI distress issues,
etc. So dihydroberberine is whatBerberine converts into in the
gut. And what's really cool islike it's about five times more
(33:15):
bioavailable and hangs aroundtwice as long, so you only need
to take 100 mgs about twice aday versus Berberine, where you
have to take 500 mgs three timesa day, and you get GI distress
and sometimes some issues. So,there's dihydroberberine really,
like out does Berberine andmetformin pretty dramatically.
(33:35):
And to me, like, yes, if you'remetabolically dysfunctional,
this can be a massive answer foryou. But even for people that
are metabolically functional andlean and in great shape and have
low insulin levels and highinsulin sensitivity, they still
see benefit the further youdrive down insulin, the higher
(33:56):
like GH and growth factors andand basically anti ageing in
general is telomere length andDNA methylation and all that
kind of stuff is related toinsulin levels. So dihydrate
Berberine, I think is the mostimportant ingredient that anyone
can take when it comes todisease states, biological
(34:17):
ageing, over chronologicalageing, etc.
Chris Barnes (34:24):
It's amazing. So it's really effective at mopping
up high blood sugar. So anyonethat's kind of been levelling
pretty high and blood sugarshould be on dihydroberberine
daily
Shawn Wells (34:35):
100% Just
Chris Barnes (34:36):
or titrating ?
Shawn Wells (34:37):
Yeah, yep. 100%
Chris Barnes (34:39):
Awesome. Awesome.
That's amazing. I haven't seendihydroberberine right. I guess
readily available in Australia.
We can definitely get BerberineIs it becoming more available?
Shawn Wells (34:50):
Yeah, it's new.
It's under the brand name glucoVantage. It's in probably 15
products right now but it's notlike you know as widely
available as As Berberine is anI don't know and Australia might
might take a little while. Yeah.
Chris Barnes (35:04):
Yeah. Yeah.
Amazing. Sean, absolutepleasure, mate connecting with
you and sharing those valuablegems for any of our listeners
that want to find out more aboutwho you are plant medicine,
anything in your book, where arethe best places they can reach
you? Yeah, so
Shawn Wells (35:21):
energy formula.com Has the book with all the links
for the audible, which has myvoice, the hardcover, which is
about 400 pages, full colourfront to back with 60, full
colour diagrams, these resourcehacks pages with all the
devices, that formulator cornerwhich has all the supplements,
stacks, and ingredients anddoses and brands, has quizzes in
(35:45):
there to assess like, whereyou're at, like, where you
started, and how you've improvedand has all the citations, the
books loaded up and then thereis an ebook version. And if you
go to the energy formula.com,you get the hidden chapter on
natural movement, like I wastalking about before. With that
ancestral movement movementthroughout the day exercise
snacks, there's a fasting forenergy guide, there's a recipe
(36:08):
books, a bunch of free stuffthat comes with it.
shawnwells.com, shawn has all mynewsletters and just all free
information, I have all kinds ofguides on there that are
anywhere from 15 to 30 pagesfully cited all of its free, on
like, you know, the best ketosupplement stacks and how to
(36:28):
like fast and you know, what'sthe best immune health stacks
and all this kind of stuff. I'mon Instagram at shawn wells, .
And you know, I have tonnes ofamazing info. They're like great
infographics practically everyday, I answer all my DMs. So if
anyone has any questions here, Iwill answer them there. You
(36:50):
know, you can look me up onclubhouse and YouTube and other
things. But yeah, I would loveto see, see people get the book
and follow me on Instagram. Andthat would be wonderful. And I'm
here to answer any questionsthat they have.
Chris Barnes (37:05):
It really is a thorough book with so many gems
in there. I'm somebody thatloves to kind of take a lot of
different vitamins andexperiment on my body. And
there's some really great advicein there. So anyone listening, I
definitely encourage you to goand get the energy formula by
Shawn wells, you will not besorry with that mate absolute
pleasure having you on amplifiedwellness. Thank you so much for
(37:26):
taking time out of your busy dayto jump on and share those gems.
Yeah, I love
Shawn Wells (37:30):
Yeah, I love that.
Thank you, Chris. You know,maybe I can come back on another
time. We can talk more. Yeah,this was a fun conversation. I
really appreciate it.
Chris Barnes (37:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love to have you back onthe show. And I'm sure listeners
would love to learn more aboutyour experience as well, mate.
So thanks again. Have an amazingday, and we'll connect down the
line.
Shawn Wells (37:48):
All right. Thanks, brother.
Chris Barnes (37:51):
Hey, everyone, thanks for listening. I hope you
got a lot out of this show.
Please subscribe to the podcastto keep up to date with the
latest episodes. This is a realpassion project of mine. And I
always appreciate your thoughts,feedback reviews. If you have a
moment to drop a review on Applepodcasts. That would be great.
And thank you very much inadvance. You can find all of my
other content and resources onChris Barnes wellness.com.au And
(38:15):
other than that, stay amplified
Hey, this is Chris and you're listening to
Amplified wellness podcast. Morepeople than ever are realising
that they possess the potentialfor far greater states of health
and human flourishing. On thisshow, I sit down with the best
biohackers health optimizationexperts, integrative doctors and
healers. We discuss and tacklereal life health challenges,
(00:28):
offering listeners powerfulsolutions and strategies to
support in becoming your verybest version. Hey guys, and
welcome to Amplified wellnesspodcast. I'm your host Chris
Barnes. Today I'm absolutelythrilled with my guest. He is a
nutritional biochemist, one ofthe world's leading experts in
this field is a healthoptimization expert as well. He
(00:50):
has formulated over 500supplements and cosmeceuticals
and has over 10 novelingredients patented has been
referred to as the ingredientologists. I'd like to welcome
Mr. Shawn wells. How are youdoing Shawn?
Shawn Wells (01:06):
I'm great. Thanks for having me on.
Chris Barnes (01:08):
absolutely a pleasure, mate. I have recently
read your book, the energyformula. And I must say it's an
absolutely ComprehensiveResource mate like there is so
much in there for anyone whetheryou're a seasoned bio hacker or
somebody completely new to theworld of health optimization,
you pretty much left no stoneunturned in that book mate. For
(01:30):
anyone looking to live a longhealthy, energised life this
books amazing. Well done withthat.
Shawn Wells (01:36):
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that. Chris,let me flip this a little bit
and ask you what about the booklike really connected with you
or resonated with you?
Chris Barnes (01:49):
Good question. , I've actually recently had one
of your colleagues, one of yourfriends, Melissa grill Peterson
on the episode. Yeah, awesome,awesome lady, and awesome
guests. And we went intohealthspan, and lifespan and
longevity and all the goodiesinvolved in that area. And in
particular, we touched onstress, and eustress the good
(02:11):
type of stress. But one thingthat I guess it's been pressing
in my life, and in my network offriends is what you reference in
the book, the allostatic loadthe stress bucket, which I want
to dive into in a little bit.
just understanding our stressbucket and how that kind of
overflows into otherphysiological aspects of our
life. I'm a bit of a biohacker.
(02:35):
Myself, I love ice bathes andsauna and all these things. But
I have found that over theyears, when I've probably not
managed my stress as well, I'vebeen hammered a little bit by
experimenting on my body innegative aspects, which I'd like
to get you advice on as we goalong. So probably one of the
biggest things that stood out tome just a better understanding
(02:55):
of our stress load and how thatcan impact and, and I guess to
be more aware of that status,before we go on, just experiment
on yourself.
Shawn Wells (03:04):
. Yeah, for sure.
And that's called Yeah,allostatic load, like you said,
and that's our stress bucket.
And that's the technical termfor it. And if you can imagine
in the book, I have a diagramwith this bell curve. And on one
side, there's like hormeticstress, right? Like, there's the
eustress that you're talkingabout the good stress that's
going up the left side of thatcurve, where the more stress
(03:28):
that you add, the moreadaptation you get, right, and
the healthier it is. And like inthe middle down, the meat of
that bell curve is theGoldilocks zone. But then as you
start heading down the otherside of the curve, on the right
hand side, it's distress. Sothis is to your point that
(03:49):
you're talking about before thatat some point, even things that
are normally we think of ashealthy stress is as hormetic
stress is as you stress is endup becoming distresses. Why
because our buckets overflowingright, we only have so much room
in the stress bucket, theallostatic load. So when that
(04:11):
bucket is overflowing, anystress becomes bad stress. So
this is like the situation whereto your point where you know, it
could be cold plunges or redlight or saunas or ketogenic
diet or extended fasting or youknow, working out at the gym and
high intensity intervaltraining. These can all be too
(04:33):
much if you just lost your jobif you know your grandmother
just died, your dog is you know,sick or you've got stuff going
on at work or you just gotdivorced or you know, like these
things like normally can beokay. But in these cases, it can
end up being distressed isespecially when you start
stacking, and a great way tolook at this and metric that we
(04:55):
have available to us is HRVheart rate variability. So if
you have a one terrible. Noweven like, I believe the Apple
iWatch, and the Samsung Gearwatch or whatever, I think they
even track them now too. Butyeah, Garmin, exactly, oura
ring, Garmin Phoenix bio strap,you know, these devices have
(05:16):
been well known for heart ratevariability and tracking all
that. And that tells you,essentially your readiness, like
when the heart rate variabilityis wider, we're more resilient,
we have more room, we have moreability to bounce back, when
that heart rate is tighter inresponse, then we're less
(05:37):
resilient. And so that's whatthis is, is essentially
tracking. And that's what allthis is, we're talking about
resilience and resilience is theidea of being harder to kill.
Now we're more easy to kill ourstress buckets are very small.
And whereas hundreds of yearsago, maybe even 20 years ago,
(05:59):
our stress buckets were a lotbigger. Why? Because we're in
artificial light with in ourartificial boxes with artificial
air, eating artificial food,watching an artificial life on
an artificial floor, like youknow, it's just the whole thing
is not reality. And we're notgetting exposed to the things we
should be getting exposed to,you know, both positive and
(06:22):
somewhat negative. Like I don'teven think of viruses or
bacteria as bad like or eventhat there's good or bad
bacteria, like the quote unquotegood bacteria Foster's your
immune system andneurotransmitters and all these
things in the gut, the gut brainaxis, and that's awesome. But
the quote unquote bad bacteriais a stress right of hormetic
(06:44):
stress that keeps us strong. Sothey're serving us. We need
these viral and bacterialchallenges we need to be out and
about otherwise we become weak.
We have low allostatic load, wehave a small stress bucket when
we're in isolation, when we'renot hugging people when we're
not putting our feet and handsin the dirt when we're not
(07:04):
touching doorknobs of bathroomstalls and you know, whatever.
Like all these things thatnormally when food falls on the
floor, we don't need it anymore.
Everything needs to besanitised. And yeah, this
sanitised world is making usweak, we are not able to like my
dog can drink out of the lakeand eat her own poop. You know,
(07:28):
it's like, don't get COVID dothat. It's like we're wondering
why that when we're so isolatedwhen we're under like
fluorescent light, and we'reeating junk food. And all of
this is happening, why we're,you know why we're so prone to
all these things. And it'sbecause you might have the
allostatic load that we used to
Chris Barnes (07:48):
really, really good points there. I've got a
friend that gets hammered. Justgoing out in the sun here on the
Gold Coast. We'll go to thebeach for a few hours and then
go home and absolutely crushedfrom that. Probably a good good
indication of a small stresspocket.
Shawn Wells (08:05):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it is a stress. And so
like, especially depending onlike how fair your skin is, when
you're literally burning theskin. And you're causing, like
photo oxidation. I do thinksunlight is good, but it depends
when and how much and howintensely and you know, all of
that, like you have to factorthat in. And it's just like
(08:26):
working out where it's like youdon't like go in there and pick
up like the heaviest barbell inthe place and do a squat like,
like you work your way up to it.
It's the same with cold plunges.
It's the same with exposure tolight. It's the same with all of
these things with extendedfasting, you don't do like a 72
(08:47):
hour fast like your first timeout. Right? Like it's like
otherwise, it can be too muchstress for the body. Like you
have to adapt to this stuff. Soyeah, absolutely.
Chris Barnes (09:00):
So for somebody in a situation where their buckets
overflowing with stress, theywant to start to introduce some
hormetic activities like coldplunges sauna, should they just
do really, really shortintervals of that? Or should
they just wait and try and getthat stress level down a little
bit more before they introducehormetic stresses?
Shawn Wells (09:22):
It's a good question. And it's one of those
things where I would again, lookat the HRV. And like, see how
you feel, I mean, you don'talways want to just go by
metric. Like you also want tojust check in with yourself and
have self awareness. You startaligning that potentially with a
metric, but it's not just metricbased, like, you know, some
people like wake up refreshed,but their aura ring says they
(09:44):
have a crap sleep score. Sothey're like, Ah, God, I feel
terrible, that you were like,you know, it's like, don't let
the metric override how youactually feel. It's just data
points, you know, so it's justan insight but I I think it's a
it's a worthwhile question like,you know, it's titration, if you
will, of like, your readiness,your recovery, and how much of a
(10:11):
hormetic stress you want to do,like, you don't want to
necessarily stack a bunch ofthem, or you don't want to,
like, do too much of one. Soit's, if you're feeling ready,
and you're feeling good, yeah,you can stack a bunch, you know,
or you could do one for a verylong time. But, and maybe if
you're not feeling that great,maybe just limit it to like one
thing. And you could pick theone thing that you've kind of
(10:33):
adapted to that actually, is ahormetic stress, but it's like a
mental de stress. Like for me,like for example, fasting, like,
there's points when it can feellike it's too much. And it's
stressful, like, and I'm likefighting it, you know what I
mean? It's still like amazing,like, what it does mean, I still
do it, but like when I do a coldplunge, actually, like there's
(10:56):
there's the initial shock, butlike, I feel amazing the rest of
the day, you know what I mean?
And I get that too, like when Iwork out kind of in that right?
Goldilocks zone, I feel that waytoo, like where I just have a
glow for like three hours. Andit's like that's worth it. You
know what I mean? So it's like,it's also kind of understanding
(11:16):
you and how this affects you.
There's bio individuality, whichI cover in the book, like that
experiment chapter is a lot onthat biodiversity bio
individuality.
Chris Barnes (11:27):
Yeah, it's a really good point, actually,
because you do stress theimportance of experimentation in
your book. So people shouldreally just kind of become more
aware of their own bodies andjust experiment a bit. And if
it's tipping them over the edgejust regress a little bit more,
if they're feeling good, push ita bit more. Be like, yeah,
that's it.
Shawn Wells (11:46):
That's really, essentially. And that's where
you're really growing yourbucket. Yeah.
Chris Barnes (11:52):
For people struggling with resilience. Is
there any particular hormeticstressor that you feel is better
than the other? Or are they allequally yes and beneficial.
Shawn Wells (12:02):
The number one is covered in my growth chapter,
the g of energy. And that's themindset of resilience. That's
the stoic mindset, the obstacleis the way when you have a
resilient mind, and you believethat adversity makes you
stronger, that adversity issomething that is great in your
(12:25):
life, not a struggle, not anoverwhelm, not something that
you should avoid, or shortcut,but it's what literally makes
not only you stronger, but iswhat makes life worth living is
that stress, and you turn itinto a positive stress, you feel
like the universe is alwaysworking for you that you either
(12:46):
win, or you learn, which meansyou win or you win. There is no
losing, there is no, that it's aloss, and I feel terrible, and,
and that this was all fornothing. That's never the case.
It's never the case, you win oryou learn something important
Chris Barnes (13:03):
. How would you ingrain that mindset into people
that have traditionally justviewed stress as a really
negative outcome? They're alwayslosing, do they need to start to
journal recite little mantrasevery day to try and shift that,
or is there a strategy you canrecommend?
Shawn Wells (13:22):
That's a great point. And I believe that inner
work is going to be soessential, because at the core
is your truth. And when I'vedone a lot of plant medicine
work in that's what it's aboutis like dissolving the ego
turning off the default modenetwork, so that you can get
into your truth and understandwho you really are. Because a
(13:45):
lot of times the ego Yes, it'sprotecting, but it's also
preventing the ego is the greatstoryteller. It's the great
reframe. And sometimes reframingis a powerful tool. It's the
most powerful tool for reallysuccess. I mean, that's mental
resilience. But reframing cansometimes be done negatively.
(14:06):
And reframing can work againstyou. Sometimes these constructs
that build up by the ego istelling stories that aren't
necessarily true, and thatyou're starting to believe and
project out on others. And wespend time distracted so we can
avoid the truth. Becausesometimes there's work to be
done. But there's a lot lesswork on the other side of it if
(14:28):
you do it. It is important tounderstand that stress is
important acutely, but it's nothealthy chronically that we
should seek states of ease, byand large, with periods of
stress. And when you're not instates of ease by and large,
(14:50):
you're in states of disease, andyou don't want to be there and
that's where disease happens. Soto me doing that inner work
being self aware They're kind oflike I was just talking about
with the metric of HRV. That'slike a lack of self awareness.
If you just say, Oh, my sleepscore is this from HRV is this.
And that's the truth. The truthis, when you are feeling, that's
(15:13):
the truth, these numbers can bea guide, they can be helpful.
But the truth is, like whatyou're feeling, and if you're
not in tune with yourself,you're not in a healthy state,
mentally or physically. Sothat's what happens when you do
you know, meditation, when youdo therapy, or plant medicine
work or journaling, like you'retalking about, there's a lot of
(15:36):
like, it's quiet time whereyou're connecting with self, and
you're getting to your truth.
And a lot of times, we're doingthe, you know, distracted
behaviours of like watching TV,YouTube, Tiktok. And like, you
know, whatever, we're avoidingthat dialogue with self, because
if anyone talked to you, likeyou talk to you, you wouldn't be
(15:56):
their friend. You need to changethat inner dialogue. And instead
of having it be the harshestcritic, or ignoring yourself, to
someone that's their own bestadvocate. And there's a friendly
dialogue often
Chris Barnes (16:14):
so valuable. You mentioned in your book, and just
a minute ago about yourexperience with plant medicine.
How was that experience becauseit's something that I personally
haven't experienced, but I knowa lot of people swear by it, how
did that change you and yourawareness ?
Shawn Wells (16:33):
I've been through probably 30 different journeys,
like it's something I've I'vereally gone down the rabbit hole
of, I've used a lot of differentplant medicines. I mean, I'm a
biochemist, I'm a scientist. AndI've also have a history of of
trauma and suicidal thoughts andanxiety and depression and
autoimmune issues, braintumours, you know, like, there's
(16:55):
a lot that's been going on withme in my life, you know,
searching for transformation,searching for answers. And this
gave me a lot of them, I spent alot of my life with insecurity
with impostor syndrome, withbeing like this wounded driven
entrepreneur, that was seekingexternal validation for love,
(17:16):
instead of giving it to myself.
Like being in this space, again,turning off that default mode
network, that ego, that'sliterally preventing, like I'm
saying, that's it has all theseconstructs, like, if you're just
in therapy, or just on like anSSRI, your body's like the
ultimate ninja, like avoiding,dealing with conflict, avoiding
(17:37):
dealing with the truth. But whenyou're in this day, you just you
face it head on, and you see it,you feel it, you deal with it,
you move through it. And it'ssuch a release, it's such a
renewal of self and soul to liketo go through that process. And
your physiology changes as aresult. I mean, like, the body
(18:01):
knows the score holds the score.
I mean, that's literally like,traumas held in your body, like
held in your muscles held inyour musculoskeletal frame. Like
there's just, it's held there.
So like, I mean, think aboutwhat do we do when we're unsure?
When we're trying to makeourselves small, like we, you
(18:21):
know, we protect ourselves, we,like, you know, shrink down,
like, you know, and cover ourstomach and cross our arms, and
we're rejecting anything fromthe outside and we're protecting
our core from being penetratedor, you know, whatever. And
that's like, the way that wehold ourselves. But what do we
do when we're, when we're lovingwhen we're open? Like, we
(18:42):
literally like the whole frameopens up, right? Like, your
whole, like, thoracic area, likeopens up and when people when
like, even blind people liketheir arms are raised, and
you're completely open. So it'sjust totally different
physiologically. You know, thoseare things that I experienced
that like my physiology changed,my relationships changed and
(19:04):
most importantly, myrelationship with self changed
that I learned to love myself.
And the other thing that happensin plant medicine is not only
turning off the default modenetwork, but like you enhance
neuroplasticity, it's likegreatly increase so BDNF brain
derived neurotrophic factor isincreased, so that you can
(19:28):
rewire you know neurons thatfire together, wire together. So
like, over time, that's whyconditioning creates your
realities. But this is kind ofundoing that conditioning. So
that you can like Michael Pollantalks about like throwing fresh
snow over like the ski tracks,so that you can go down a new
(19:48):
path instead of the same path.
And so it allows you to rewireand create new behaviours as a
result.
Chris Barnes (19:56):
super fascinating.
Is there anything that listenersif they were wanting to go down
that rabbit hole, as youmentioned, should be aware of
with plant medicine. Is theresome really core cirterias?
Shawn Wells (20:05):
Oh, absolutely.
criterias Yeah, they're notwithout risks, like, it's a very
important one to get the properplant medicine. So working with
the proper facilitator, youknow, ideally, it's in a legal
situation, but if not, andyou're pursuing it, at least
have like a very trainedfacilitator that has a lot of
(20:25):
experience that, you know,people that have experience with
them. And then too, they've satdown with you for hours, and
talk through your mentalhistory, your physical history,
and can provide you safety, ifyou're not feeling safe, you
will not be able to lean intothese experiences, it's so
(20:47):
critical. And part of that iswhat they call set and setting
your mindset going in. And thenthe setting around you, the
environment has to likefacilitate safety. All of this
has to feel safe, thefacilitators, the environment,
like how you feel going intothis, like, if you feel like
something's way off, you don'tgo into it. Like, it's just the
(21:08):
wrong thing at the wrong timedoesn't mean it's always wrong.
It just means right now, it'swrong for you and your body,
this into your body. That's selfawareness. So it's like with the
people I've worked with, we didwe talk for hours, I filled out
hours and hours with the forms,before we even went into it. And
then we did intention settingfor hours we did, you know, yoga
(21:31):
and breath work for hours. Andthen we took the plant medicine.
And then they facilitated thejourney with one guy who's an
emergency room, nurse, and thenanother lady that's a trained
facilitator and therapist. Andthen on the other side of that
we do facilitation work, it'simportant that it's not just
(21:52):
integration work, it's importantthat you don't just leave it
there with just the journey.
It's like now what do you dowith it? How do you process it?
Like, where's the follow up theaccountability. So that's really
important that all those piecesare there. And then the people
even that are in the room, ifyou're doing it with multiple
(22:13):
people like that sets the energyin tone, like so, if there's
people that feel off to you ortrigger you, you know, that can
be wrong. So all of this isreally important. And you know,
the right dose for you isimportant. It's not just like,
Oh, I'm a bigger guy. So I takemore, it's not actually like
that like, and again, like ifyou feel safe, and you have some
(22:35):
experience, like in time yourdose is actually go down,
because you're safer. Andbecause you can lean in more and
they don't need to overpoweryou. I've been able to lower my
doses lower and lower and lowerover time. So yeah, it's
something to definitely workwith the right people on if
someone needs help on this, youknow, DM me, I do a clubhouse
(22:57):
every week to like where we talkthrough a lot of this stuff that
I enjoy as well that I mentionedon my social media on Instagram.
Chris Barnes (23:05):
Awesome, we will definitely share all those
handles before we finish up aswell so people can reach out and
connect with you. Because that'ssuper, super valuable advice
there. Awesome, Shawn. So one ofthe big key principles in your
book, enhancing energy, that'sdefinitely an area that pre pre
pandemic. Everyone was soexhausted low on energy, I
(23:26):
think, post pandemic we're stillcoming out the other end, but I
think it's just been amplified.
What are some of the biggestareas or from your experience?
What are the biggest mistakespeople are making? That are just
depleting their energy? Wow, bigquestion.
Shawn Wells (23:42):
yeah, I mean, it's so many things. Wow. It's just
it's literally so many thingsthat I can think of sleep is one
of the biggest, you know, wedon't have proper sleep hygiene,
where we're going to bed at thesame time every night. For good
circadian rhythm. We don't setup what's called a sleep
fortress, your bedroom shouldrevolve around sleep.
(24:04):
Secondarily sex, you know,that's like relationship, but
like, it's not aboutconversations and especially
arguments. It's not about havingyour office computer in there,
whatever and work. It's notabout having a TV in their cell
phone in their tablets in theirthat bedroom needs to be about
sleep when it's conditioningthat I was just talking about
(24:26):
before. And you need tocondition yourself that that
room is a place of truerelaxation, and nothing else.
And so that's critical. All thisblue light exposure that we're
getting as junk light is massiveand the impact it's having on us
like blocking melatonin isreleased and not allowing us to
feel sleepy. So we're getting,you know, blue light from the
(24:49):
TVs from the laptops from thetablets, the cell phones and all
these devices that are in ourfaces with super bright light,
and it's blocking the release ofmelatonin them metabolic health
87% of Americans at least aremetabolically unhealthy. And you
(25:09):
know, there's one high glycemiccarbohydrate throughout the
diet, there's too many caloriesbeing consumed. There's terrible
fats, these vegetable oils thatare highly highly inflammatory
that are being consumed thingslike canola oil, cottonseed,
sunflower, safflower, vegetableoil, which would include some
(25:32):
corn and soybean, you know, allof these things are pro
inflammatory. And then you addto it like the maltodextrin,
sugar, high fructose corn syrup,the multiple calories, the lack
of exercise, and sedentarynature, it's been shown that
doing these exercises Max, justmoving for like five minutes
(25:53):
every hour is more potent thangoing to the gym for an hour
every day. Meaning your bodyevery hour for a little bit is
more potent, because beingsedentary is the worst thing for
your body. You don't get theblood flow, you don't get the
lymph moving, you actually getyour musculoskeletal system
(26:14):
including the fascia, adaptingto that seated position wants to
make you as low energy aspossible to be efficient. So
literally changing your bodyshape by tightening up muscles
and changing the bone structureand changing the fascia to keep
you in the seated position.
That's completely unnatural inevolutionary history. So finding
(26:34):
ways to just move around likecrawl, you know up your stairs
or crawl around on the carpet orroll around if you have a kid or
a dog or you know, out in theyard, doing planks, doing push
ups, doing sit ups, doing airsquats, you know, whatever it is
like move your body throughoutthe day, of course, it would
help to do resistance exercisethat's been shown, you know, to
(26:57):
have great benefit, but movingyour body is even more critical.
Another big one, when it comesto metabolic health is just
moving after a meal. Becauseblood sugar tends to spike
obviously after your meal,especially if it contains
carbohydrate. And if you'remetabolically dysfunctional,
meaning your insulin resistance,you're overweight etc. And
(27:20):
you're not moving after a meal,then that glucose is going to
sit around your blood andinsulin is going to stay
elevated, which leads to allkinds of dysfunction. So just
moving for 15 minutes upregulate something called glute
for translocation to put glucoseinto the cell so it can be used
for energy. So your insulinisn't elevated and you feel more
(27:41):
energised, and everything isbetter inflammations down,
glucose is down, insulin isdown, etc, just by taking a
simple walk with your spouse oryour dog or whatever, for a
couple of minutes. You know,those are just like some big
simple ones that like peoplearen't doing like, basically,
it's like, living life withintention. It's that simple,
(28:03):
that like, life doesn't happento you, life happens for you and
you are sovereign, you cancontrol your destiny. And once
you believe you're no longer avictim, and that you are in fact
sovereign and control your path,that's when everything can
change. And that's when you seelike, you know, a good morning
(28:23):
routine take place, that's whenyou see like the sleep hygiene
take place, that's when you seethe moving the body or going to
the gym take place, healthierhabits and not getting wasted
all the time. And, you know, allof these kinds of things, that's
when you see that take place.
And by the way, withpsychedelics, you see, even just
one use of psychedelics, whenyou compare those that haven't
(28:45):
done them, there was a 1/3decrease in diabetes and heart
attacks, there's a 50% decreasein depression. And one of the
biggest reasons is becausestress is so high, like going
back to our our stress bucket.
And people might think we're notas stressed as we used to be,
but our stress bucket so muchsmaller. So in a way we are,
(29:06):
we're all maxed out. And it'sbecause we're also distracted
with our cell phones. Andthere's something called task
switching. Because we're notmultitaskers we're task
switchers. And when you'redistracted and burning through a
lot of brain ATP, you're in astate of sympathetic nervous
(29:27):
system, and in a state of kindof like chaotic panic if you
will, when you're in this, likenon focused, non productive
state, and you're switching backand forth and you feel
overwhelmed despite you notaccomplishing anything and this
is a problem with like the levelof distraction that we have in
(29:48):
our lives with the with theemails and the you know,
messaging and and Tik Tok andall this stuff, is that we're
stuck in this mode where we feeloverwhelmed, and were using up a
lot of brain energy. So it'simportant to do like a detox as
well, a digital detox.
Chris Barnes (30:08):
100% really, really useful point, say, Shawn,
your a master formulator, whatwould be your number one energy
supplement that you'd recommendclean energy that's not going to
create crushes, like caffeineand all these energy drinks to
help people feel a little bitmore kind of sparked during the
day.
Shawn Wells (30:28):
Yeah, a few answers there. So people that know me
know I patented teacrine andDynamine, learn, literally, I
think 500 700 products,something like that. But those
are two methyl Xanthine 's thatare in that kind of caffeine
family that don't have thehabituation adaptation. Issues
(30:48):
that caffeine has caffeine kindof has diminishing effects over
time, you have to take more andmore to get the same effects.
Plus caffeine has other issueswhere some people are fast
metabolizers and slowmetabolizers, the fast
metabolizers can have thecaffeine and go straight to that
kind of thing. A slowmetabolizers like me have all
the side effects where it justhangs around. And you don't
(31:11):
really get the benefit. Youknow, you get the anxiety and
the brain fog and the irritationand sleep disruption but you
don't get much of the benefit.
My newest ingredient is adownstream metabolite of
caffeine that solves a lot ofthis like where you don't have
the slow or fast metabolizerissues. And it's highly
dopaminergic. So what that meansis one is neuro protective to
(31:35):
it's like not only protectingthe brain, but like making you
feel more productive, and focus.
And then even cooler, like youget this feeling of confidence
and swagger if you will, likewhere you just feel like feeling
good feeling yourself, like feelconfident. And it's called para
(31:58):
Xanthine is that downstreammetabolite. And it really solves
a lot of caffines issues and oneups all its benefits. Like we
were about to round studies inright now. Yeah, 30 patents in
and it's really, reallyexciting.
Chris Barnes (32:13):
Is it to market yet?
Shawn Wells (32:16):
to a bunch of partners right now. So it'll be
in q1 2022 So probably in aboutthree
Chris Barnes (32:25):
Paraxanthine.
Awesome.
Shawn Wells (32:31):
the other ingredient I definitely
mentioned like probably mynumber one for health is it's an
ingredient that I've worked onto cope dihydroberberine and so
people that know anti ageing andand metabolic dysfunction know,
and certainly insulinresistance, no Metformin, the
(32:52):
drug is so popular for antiageing and type two diabetes,
insulin resistance etc.
Berberine has been shown tooutperform Metformin head to hit
Berberine has bioavailabilityissues, some GI distress issues,
etc. So dihydroberberine is whatBerberine converts into in the
gut. And what's really cool islike it's about five times more
(33:15):
bioavailable and hangs aroundtwice as long, so you only need
to take 100 mgs about twice aday versus Berberine, where you
have to take 500 mgs three timesa day, and you get GI distress
and sometimes some issues. So,there's dihydroberberine really,
like out does Berberine andmetformin pretty dramatically.
(33:35):
And to me, like, yes, if you'remetabolically dysfunctional,
this can be a massive answer foryou. But even for people that
are metabolically functional andlean and in great shape and have
low insulin levels and highinsulin sensitivity, they still
see benefit the further youdrive down insulin, the higher
(33:56):
like GH and growth factors andand basically anti ageing in
general is telomere length andDNA methylation and all that
kind of stuff is related toinsulin levels. So dihydrate
Berberine, I think is the mostimportant ingredient that anyone
can take when it comes todisease states, biological
(34:17):
ageing, over chronologicalageing, etc.
Chris Barnes (34:24):
It's amazing. So it's really effective at mopping
up high blood sugar. So anyonethat's kind of been levelling
pretty high and blood sugarshould be on dihydroberberine
daily
Shawn Wells (34:35):
100% Just
Chris Barnes (34:36):
or titrating ?
Shawn Wells (34:37):
Yeah, yep. 100%
Chris Barnes (34:39):
Awesome. Awesome.
That's amazing. I haven't seendihydroberberine right. I guess
readily available in Australia.
We can definitely get BerberineIs it becoming more available?
Shawn Wells (34:50):
Yeah, it's new.
It's under the brand name glucoVantage. It's in probably 15
products right now but it's notlike you know as widely
available as As Berberine is anI don't know and Australia might
might take a little while. Yeah.
Chris Barnes (35:04):
Yeah. Yeah.
Amazing. Sean, absolutepleasure, mate connecting with
you and sharing those valuablegems for any of our listeners
that want to find out more aboutwho you are plant medicine,
anything in your book, where arethe best places they can reach
you? Yeah, so
Shawn Wells (35:21):
energy formula.com Has the book with all the links
for the audible, which has myvoice, the hardcover, which is
about 400 pages, full colourfront to back with 60, full
colour diagrams, these resourcehacks pages with all the
devices, that formulator cornerwhich has all the supplements,
stacks, and ingredients anddoses and brands, has quizzes in
(35:45):
there to assess like, whereyou're at, like, where you
started, and how you've improvedand has all the citations, the
books loaded up and then thereis an ebook version. And if you
go to the energy formula.com,you get the hidden chapter on
natural movement, like I wastalking about before. With that
ancestral movement movementthroughout the day exercise
snacks, there's a fasting forenergy guide, there's a recipe
(36:08):
books, a bunch of free stuffthat comes with it.
shawnwells.com, shawn has all mynewsletters and just all free
information, I have all kinds ofguides on there that are
anywhere from 15 to 30 pagesfully cited all of its free, on
like, you know, the best ketosupplement stacks and how to
(36:28):
like fast and you know, what'sthe best immune health stacks
and all this kind of stuff. I'mon Instagram at shawn wells, .
And you know, I have tonnes ofamazing info. They're like great
infographics practically everyday, I answer all my DMs. So if
anyone has any questions here, Iwill answer them there. You
(36:50):
know, you can look me up onclubhouse and YouTube and other
things. But yeah, I would loveto see, see people get the book
and follow me on Instagram. Andthat would be wonderful. And I'm
here to answer any questionsthat they have.
Chris Barnes (37:05):
It really is a thorough book with so many gems
in there. I'm somebody thatloves to kind of take a lot of
different vitamins andexperiment on my body. And
there's some really great advicein there. So anyone listening, I
definitely encourage you to goand get the energy formula by
Shawn wells, you will not besorry with that mate absolute
pleasure having you on amplifiedwellness. Thank you so much for
(37:26):
taking time out of your busy dayto jump on and share those gems.
Yeah, I love
Shawn Wells (37:30):
Yeah, I love that.
Thank you, Chris. You know,maybe I can come back on another
time. We can talk more. Yeah,this was a fun conversation. I
really appreciate it.
Chris Barnes (37:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love to have you back onthe show. And I'm sure listeners
would love to learn more aboutyour experience as well, mate.
So thanks again. Have an amazingday, and we'll connect down the
line.
Shawn Wells (37:48):
All right. Thanks, brother.
Chris Barnes (37:51):
Hey, everyone, thanks for listening. I hope you
got a lot out of this show.
Please subscribe to the podcastto keep up to date with the
latest episodes. This is a realpassion project of mine. And I
always appreciate your thoughts,feedback reviews. If you have a
moment to drop a review on Applepodcasts. That would be great.
And thank you very much inadvance. You can find all of my
other content and resources onChris Barnes wellness.com.au And
(38:15):
other than that, stay amplified
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