October 24, 2025 • 34 mins
Tony Crescenzo, Marine Corps veteran and CEO of Intelligent Waves and Peak Neuro
What if healing trauma didn't require endless therapy sessions or medication? Tony Crescenzo, Marine Corps veteran and CEO of Intelligent Waves and Peak Neuro, reveals a groundbreaking approach that's changing lives.
After eight years in the Marines and time working undercover for Naval Investigative Service, Crescenzo battled PTSD for decades. "I was one of those veterans who goes from zero to FU in about 10 seconds," he admits with candid honesty. His journey from combat to corporate America ultimately led him to discover neuroacoustic brainwave entrainment—a technology that would transform not only his life but the lives of countless veterans, first responders, and elite athletes.
The science is fascinating yet approachable. Unlike traditional psychotherapy that requires verbally processing trauma, this technology uses specific sound frequencies to entrain the brain into beneficial states. The prefrontal cortex quiets down, rumination stops, and the body processes trauma somatically rather than narratively. "You may observe the event that caused your trauma like watching a movie, but the emotion dissolves. Your body essentially digests it," Crescenzo explains.
The results speak volumes. A Navy SEAL with 21 traumatic brain injuries went from three hours of fragmented sleep to six uninterrupted hours in just 30 days. Headaches disappeared, brain fog lifted, and EEG measurements showed actual neurological restructuring. Perhaps most remarkably, users don't become dependent on the technology—the brain undergoes permanent trait-level changes, eliminating the need for ongoing medication or therapy.
Ready to experience this transformation yourself? The Peak Neuro app offers free trials with exercises for sleep, stress reduction, and cognitive enhancement. As Crescenzo powerfully reminds us: "If you're struggling, don't struggle alone. Whatever happened is over and your body's here, but your mind is there. Bring your mind with you and we can help you do that."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, how are you?
This is the MindfullyIntegrative Show and this is Dr
Damaris Maria Grossman, andtoday we have an amazing guest
President and CEO, tonyCrescenzo.
I hope I said that correct, buthe is the CEO of Intelligent
Waves, but also Peak Neuro, andhe has so much to talk to you
about what he's done forveterans, for amazing things in
his company.
(00:22):
There's a lot that I feel likeI can't even say so.
Thank you so much, tony.
If that's okay, I can call youTony, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Please, it's a pleasure to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
So first off I always ask what's a little fun fact?
Someone may not know about you.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, I spent most of my post-Marine Corps time,
until I was too old, climbingmountains.
I'm a very experienced Alpinemountaineer.
I've been on every peak inevery continent.
The highest peak in everycontinent except for the
Himalayas.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Wow, oh my goodness, I'm lucky if I can get up like
one hill.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, I'm old now and my knees are bad.
If you're a veteran and you'relistening to this, your knees
are probably bad too, that is,if you can hear me, because
you're probably half deaf.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Oh no, and then so do you still do like rucking, like
you rock with, like the pack.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Not so much anymore.
My literally my knees, as I gotolder, started to get worse and
worse and worse, and now thatall my friends are having knee
replacements, I'm trying toavoid it at the last possible
moment.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh no, okay, maybe some some stem cell or a
regenerative shots in there.
Exactly, yeah, some stem cellor whichever good shots in there
.
Exactly, yeah.
So I really appreciate youbeing on the show, taking the
time to kind of let the audienceknow a little bit about you and
a little bit about yourbusiness.
You have two areas of yourbusiness, but you know, first
tell them you know what you doand what you like worked on, and
(01:39):
then kind of you know, soyou're a veteran too.
So from veteran to veteran, youknow I I'm so glad for you to
be on the show and to you know,kind of talk to those about the
hard work that you've been doing, not just for veterans but for
others.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Thank you and thank you for your service.
You've certainly served a lotmore recently than I have.
I go my time in the MarineCorps goes back to Beirut, to
that era where it was muchdifferent open sights on rifles
and no sappy plates or any ofthe fun stuff that people have
today.
So I spent eight years in theUnited States Marine Corps, some
of it in some reallyinteresting situations.
Three years working undercoverfor what I think your listeners
(02:18):
would know as NCIS but isactually called NIS.
Back in the day on a drug andfraud investigation that, in me,
created what I found out manyyears later was a pretty nasty
case of PTSD.
Many people think that PTSD isjust for military veterans.
Certainly not true, and anybodywho suffered trauma can have
(02:41):
symptoms of PTSD, includingfirst responders, police who
work undercover.
I didn't have much of an issuewhen I was downrange in the
Marine Corps.
It didn't bother me very muchto be deployed.
But what my first wife, secondwife and daughter would tell you
is my subsequent time workingundercover with NIS apparently
had a very negative effect on me.
I was one of those veterans whogoes from zero to FU in about
(03:04):
10 seconds the guy you don'twant to get a car with, because
if somebody cuts them off it'son and, as I said, my first and
second wife would both agreeit's probably not fun to sleep
with me, given the nightmares.
That all changed for me aboutfour years ago.
I spent literally 30 yearsdealing with some of the
outcomes of my service, alongwith some of my close friends.
(03:24):
So, as you mentioned earlier,I'm the president and CEO of
Intelligent Waves.
When I got out of the MarineCorps I wound up.
My last duty station was inGarden City, new York.
I was on independent duty.
I was recruited by a technologycompany in New York City, in
Manhattan, that was run by threeof the craziest people you'd
ever want to meet in your life.
(03:44):
They taught me so many things.
It was an incredible experience.
I would have never imagined Icould have a transition like
that and for those of you whoare veterans who listen to this
and you've probably been throughsome transition training back
in the day, transition consistedof the sergeant major walking
in your barracks and saying takeoff that uniform and go home,
(04:10):
and that was pretty much it.
So my original transition outof the Marine Corps was writing
pill bottle quality control codeat Merck, the pharmaceutical
company up in Rahway, new Jersey, not too far from where you're
at, and if you've seen thebuilding, it's 300 yards long.
It's a manufacturing center andan office building, and I had
just gotten out of the MarineCorps.
I was probably three months out.
I was a sergeant when I was inthe Marine Corps and everything
that you think a Marine sergeantis I probably was.
(04:31):
One thing to keep in mind isthat even today, the Marine
Corps doesn't have HR.
If you have interpersonalproblems at work, it usually
involves some exercise behind abuilding or a squad bay,
followed by a beer and maybechanging your clothes.
And I wound up working with agentleman who was not a very
nice person.
He was very condescending to alot of people, went on for quite
(04:51):
a while and this is, by the way, before the era of cell phones
and at one point I looked at himand I said listen, if you talk
to me like that again, I'm goingto knock you out.
I said it in a much moreforceful way, with some more
strong language, and I guess hedidn't believe me because he's
from Jersey and he was kind of acondescending guy.
So I wound up chasing himthrough the building, all the
(05:13):
way through the building outinto the parking lot where he
got in his BMW because, ofcourse, he drove a BMW and drove
away.
And I thought, oh yeah, this isthe day where my career takes a
turn, and now I'm going todeliver packages for UPS.
This is the day where my careertakes a turn and now I'm going
to deliver packages for UPS.
Unfortunately, I think UPSwould have hired me with a
background check where I gotfired from my last job for
beating somebody up.
Anyway, he flew out of theparking lot.
(05:33):
He actually went to the officeand spoke to our boss.
Half hour later I got a phonecall and I walk in the boss's
office and he's got this funnylook on his face and he said
come and sit down and tell mewhat happened.
And I said the guy was kind ofa jerk to people for months and
months and I warned him twiceand he didn't listen.
And my boss said well, you know, I know you just got out of the
military and Marines are alittle bit different than other
(06:00):
people and I know you wouldn'thave hurt him.
And I said oh no, if I'd, he iskind of an asshole.
So we just fired him, go backto work and try not to hurt
anybody.
And I thought to myself am I oncandid camera?
What just happened?
And it turned out that my bosswas a Vietnam veteran Air Force,
retired Air Force colonel, 31combat missions in Vietnam.
But for him, where would I be?
(06:24):
If not for his understanding,his background, his ability to
see in me some things in himself, I certainly would have changed
careers pretty quickly then,and that really was a
transformative point in my life.
I wound up working for thatcompany for a little bit longer.
It was sold in the largest M&Atransaction of that year.
(06:45):
I was fortunate enough to comedown here to Washington DC in
the early 90s, worked for someof the world's largest software
companies in the technologybusiness and eventually found
myself back in the defensecontracting space where I
started a company when I was 33.
I sold it and went through astring of venture-backed and
private equity-backed CEO rolesand eventually got to the point
(07:09):
now where I like to think ofmyself as a very expensive
janitor.
I typically come into one-ownercompanies that are looking to
transition, say, from aservice-disabled veteran-owned
business into a full and openbusiness, or a small business to
a large business or turnaroundsfor private equity firms.
And so Intelligent Wavesstarted by an army veteran, an
amazing, amazing man, who spentsome time, a couple of tours
(07:32):
down range in Iraq, worked onthe joint IED defense program,
grew the company to a very, verygood size and then was looking
for some transition leadershipto bring the company into a much
larger organization.
So I've been here for aboutfive years and the work we do is
really interesting.
Probably 85% to 90% of our workis classified above top secret,
(07:55):
which makes it interesting forme because, as the CEO of the
company, even if you have asecurity clearance, you might
not have a need to know.
So while I know basically whatwe do, no one in our company
knows everything that we do.
But we do a lot of work incyber defense.
We're the cyber defenders ofthe US court system.
We do work primarily in DOD, inthe Air Force, army, navy,
(08:17):
marine Corps.
We do work for our specialoperations community, for the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency,ditra.
Most of our work is done byformer military or civilians who
work for the government, who goback into jobs that they've
already done in downrange and inthe military and then
(08:37):
essentially take off a greensuit and put on a blue suit.
So we're very close to themission, always have been, and
part of the work we do issupporting the F-35 program.
The F-35 is a very interestingaircraft and the pilots who fly
them are extremely interestingpeople.
You might think of a fighterjet as something you get into,
you fly up in the sky, shootsome guys down and come home.
But the average F-35 mission isabout 15.7 hours about 15.7
(09:07):
hours, and many of those pilotsmight be sitting in their
kitchen having breakfast onemorning in Nellis Air Force Base
in Las Vegas, get on a planeseven in the morning, fly to the
other side of the earth, engagein a very high stress mission,
come home over severalrefuelings and tankings, land
that aircraft, maybe six, seveno'clock in the evening, and on
the way home their spouse callsand says, hey, we got to go to a
PTA meeting, no problem.
So imagine what it's like tocome back from that level of
(09:29):
stress and then have to engagein a regular life like everybody
else.
So we do things likecommunication via modulated
light, right, an F-35 is astealth aircraft Can't see it,
hear it.
It's not on infrared, it's noton radar, very hard to detect.
But the minute they key amicrophone they create radio
frequency energy.
So we're capable of replacingthings like wingtip lights and
(09:52):
drogue lights and refuelingaircraft to pass data and
information that can't beintercepted, can't be jammed
among other very interesting andclassified things that the
company does.
But as part of that program, wewere asked to support the Air
Force Fighter Weapons School,the version of Top Gun with
(10:13):
physical human performance right.
The F-35 creates a very high Genvironment.
It's very tough on your bodyand the people that we brought
on to do that.
Actually their resumes includeCirque du Soleil and worldwide
wrestling, so a very interestingcrew of people.
Several years ago I was at anexercise called Northern Edge up
in Alaska and getting abriefing from our human
performance team, who told usthat they wanted to look at
things like cognitive humanperformance, downregulation,
(10:35):
stress, et cetera.
And as we started to look atthat, we discovered a technology
.
We spoke with a man who'd beenworking on this kind of
technology for 31 years.
It's neuroacoustic brainwaveentrainment.
And what does that really mean?
Well, you know, everyone has aphysiology, a biology, a
psychology and a neurology, andyour neurology is your
(10:57):
electrical system.
It's how your brain works whenyou engage in thought and
cognition.
It takes about 12 watts ofenergy to power a thought and
that 12 watts is comprised ofoxygen, atp, acetylcholine,
glucose, and that's themetabolic cost to have a thought
.
So imagine you're a war fighter, you're a pilot, you're making
(11:20):
very fast decisions under highstress and those thoughts eat up
an awful lot of those resourcesin your biology, your neurology
, your physiology.
So we looked at how can weattenuate, how can we enhance
cognition, how can we deal withsleep?
Sleep is an interesting ifyou're a veteran, nobody sleeps
(11:40):
in the military.
You're lucky if you get acouple of hours sleep.
The problem with that is sleephas everything to do with
cognition.
There are two types of sleepslow, wave sleep, which is the
slowest, lowest level of sleepyou can get into.
It's below your dreams andthat's physically restorative.
And when you think about howyour body restores itself, it
primarily uses your lymph system.
(12:02):
Right, you've got a lymph nodeall over your body and that
collects all of the junk thatyou accumulate in the course of
a day and deposits it in yourliver kidneys and it would be
cleaned or excreted.
But where's the lymph node inyour head?
You don't have one.
Your brain doesn't have a lymphnode.
So how does your brain cleanitself?
Well, when you engage inslow-wave sleep that is the
(12:23):
deepest, deepest, non-dreamsleep your glymphatic cells in
your brain actually shrink, andthey shrink so much that they
create a vacuum and they pullcerebral spinal fluid up through
your spinal cord, over yourcorpus colossum.
It soaks into your brain andwhen you wake up, the longer you
sleep, the longer your deepsleep, the longer it soaks in.
(12:43):
When you wake up, those cellsexpand, push the cerebral spinal
fluid down your spinal column,into your kidneys and your lymph
nodes, and that's how yourbrain cleans itself.
So, poor sleep, poor recovery,whether that's emotional
recovery in NREM or it'sphysical recovery in slow-wave
sleep.
So we've done things likereverse engineer sleep into a
(13:05):
series of brainwaves that we canentrain.
You put on a set of headphones,listen for 30 minutes and over
the course of weeks to months,you're training your body,
you're training your neurologyto achieve higher levels of
sleep.
I am, at this point in my lifeand in this podcast, a
64-year-old man.
The average 64-year-old mangets somewhere between 18 and
(13:27):
22% restorative sleep in anevening.
After six months of using thetechnology myself, I now get 47
to 51% of my sleep isrestorative, which means that I
can get half the sleep and getjust as much recovery, and
that's been true across theboard for all age groups.
We're actually, I'm sorry, goahead please.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
No, that's amazing.
No, I don't want to cut you off.
Go keep talking.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So we work with our work around.
This has morphed into not justworking with the military, but
we work with Division I andprofessional sports teams.
We work with veterans and firstresponders.
We're working with a veterannow who's anonymous, but I will
tell you after one month.
This is a gentleman, 24 yearsas a Navy SEAL, both officer and
(14:12):
enlisted, been downrange, 11years of his life in combat, 21
traumatic brain injuries,concussions.
He's a former Division Ifootball player, sleeping three
hours an evening and it'sfragmented it's not all in a row
, brain fog, very hard toremember names, not the most
(14:32):
profoundly fun retirement forsomeone who's given that much to
his country.
In 30 days of using thistechnology, which is as simple
as, as I said, listening toearphones.
You can go to the app store anddownload versions of this and
try it for yourself.
His sleep is now gone.
In 30 days it's doubled inlength six hours uninterrupted,
(14:53):
and the only reason it's sixhours is he got an old dog that
has to go to the bathroom, so itwakes him up every morning.
He has no more headaches, verylittle brain fog, and we look at
we're actually measuring thisthrough EEGs.
So every two weeks he comes in,we give him an EEG and we're
seeing trait level changes inhis neurology where his PTSD is
(15:16):
resolving, his TBIs are almostresolved and over the course of
about six months we're going tosee that that gets pretty much
erased.
So not only does it build, doesit repair, issues like PTSD,
but it builds resilience in yourneurology that prevents PTSD.
So when we talk about trauma andwe talk about resolving trauma,
the number one methodology, thenumber one thing that people do
(15:40):
when they've suffered atraumatic event, is to go to
psychotherapy, and psychotherapyis talk therapy, and talk
therapy is about narrative.
Narrative means I have anautobiography and 30 years ago,
30, 36 years ago, I was involvedin some things that made an
imprint on me and I now have torationalize how those things
(16:02):
that happened to me fit into myautobiography, which requires me
in psychotherapy to sit downand talk about it.
And you're a veteran like I am.
There's a lot of things thatveterans, excuse me, don't want
to talk about, especially withnon-veterans, and anyone who
suffered trauma doesn'tnecessarily want to revisit that
trauma.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
So if we think of psychotherapy as very complex.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's like oh, I don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Oh my God.
Yeah, if we think aboutpsychotherapy as narrative and
meaning making, that's asemantic way to resolve trauma.
It's talking about it.
It's finding some structure inthe grammar and the words and
the experience, some structurein the grammar and the words and
the experience.
What we do is we do somethingthat's very radically different
Through the program that we'veput together over the course of
(16:46):
about six months.
What we're doing is we'recreating a brain state, a level
of consciousness that's verydifferent than a traumatic state
.
So for most veterans you knowI'm on a couple of veterans
boards I do a lot of work withveterans who are transitioning
or have transitioned and arehaving some problems around this
(17:07):
area.
What that looks like as opposedto meaning making and narrative
is, this technology pretty muchsuppresses the executive frontal
as a prefrontal cortex,dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
It suppresses your ability tocreate narrative, in other words
, brainwaves.
If you're familiar with them,you have five different kinds of
brainwaves delta, theta, alpha,beta, gamma.
(17:29):
Delta is very low.
That's your deep sleep.
That's also, if you're aBuddhist monk, your sort of
meditative state, and so istheta state, and so is theta.
Alpha is a light meditativestate.
Beta is your normal cognition,and gamma is integration and
also anxiety.
So when we get into theserumination loops and if you're
listening to this and you'veever walked out of a room full
of people and thought toyourself, why did I say that?
(17:50):
And you can't put it aside orsomeone says something to you
and you say to yourself, man,what did they really mean?
And you're laying in bed atnight six hours later.
That's rumination.
That's your prefrontal cortexlocked in a rumination loop that
you can't get out of and itkeeps you awake and it creates
stress for you.
Cortisol gets released.
It's not a fun thing.
What we do is we essentiallyshut down your brain's ability
(18:13):
to even process narrative.
We suppress the front part ofyour brain, we suppress beta and
gamma and we open up theanticular cingulate cortex,
which is right up here in theparietal part of your brain, and
the occipital cortex, and whatthat does is we flood it with
very slow wave, very soothingbrainwaves, and what it creates
is a somatic way to processtrauma.
(18:36):
So, while you may observe theevent that caused your trauma,
you may see it like a movie orfeel it like a memory.
You're not going to build anarrative.
You're going to sort of seeflashes.
Emotions will come by, butyou'll be completely divorced
from them part of yourautobiography.
(19:03):
But the emotion that came withit doesn't.
The emotion dissolves.
Your body essentially digestsit.
It's a way of using your body tosemantically resolve and
dissolve trauma in your life andwhat that brings you to is a
place of equanimity.
And when you get to the placeof equanimity, if a new trauma
occurs, your ability to dealwith it and bounce back quickly
becomes much more enhanced, tothe point where, over the course
(19:25):
of about six months, when welook at some of the trials that
we've done, we're seeing peoplehave literally three or four
minutes of drag after atraumatic event and they go
right back to equanimity.
So it's an interesting way totrain your brain, your mind,
your states of consciousness todeal not just with life's little
(19:46):
things but with life's bigthings and to heal yourself, as
opposed to thinking thatsomebody from the outside, some
drug, is going to do that foryou.
Most veterans get prescribedantidepressants for their PTSD
and they hate it.
It puts 27 panes of glassbetween you and the rest of the
world and no one likes that.
(20:06):
And after this gentleman thatwe're talking about is 30 days,
we have another trial that we'redoing on someone that's six
months, you find these people tobe two or three standard
deviations above the normativepopulation and our ability to
handle stress.
So we make that available tothe military, make it available
to first responders, and nowit's essentially available to
(20:26):
everybody through our Peak Neurosubsidiary.
And if you're interested intrying it, go to the App Store,
go to Google Play and look forPeak Neuro P-E-A-K-N-E-U-R-O and
you can download it there.
You can go to peakneurocom andlook at it.
It's a free trial, doesn't work.
Throw it away.
So far we haven't had anyonewho hasn't come back and really
thought that was an amazingthing.
(20:47):
And there are exercises therefor sleep, for cognition, one of
the side effects that we'restill exploring right now.
In a six-month longitudinaltrial we worked on in sleep, we
discovered that one of the sideeffects is neuroplasticity and
if you're not familiar with thatterm, it's really your brain's
ability to wire neurons togetherin new and inventive ways.
(21:10):
It's the way to adapt, it'slearning.
So when you think about thingslike artificial intelligence
artificial intelligenceeverybody's afraid of.
But let me tell you nothing tobe afraid of, it's still a lot
dumber than my ex-wife.
I'm sorry if that offended myex-wife she's actually a lovely
person loops.
(21:42):
It gives you the opportunity toget out in front of it, to find
the root cause in the self, notin your physical self but in
your for lack of a better way tosay it your soul, your
spiritual self.
If you, like me, haveexperienced a near-death
experience, you may have peoplewho do that all the time.
It just kind of changes yourworldview, the way you see
things.
But you find that in a worldwhere we're still stuck in
(22:04):
Newtonian physics andmaterialism, that you find a
post-quantum, post-materialistview of what you are and who you
really are.
So the kind of interestingoutcome is it doesn't matter if
you're a knuckle dragon marineor a delta force operator.
That state of consciousnessthat will help you achieve is
analogous and very similar to aTibetan monk who's in Buddhist
(22:26):
practice and you're going tofeel that way.
It's a very interesting way forus who have served and who have
had some resolution to this topay back to others who are still
kind of going through thatprocess.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
This sounds pretty profound.
I think we just spoke brieflyabout the need of like that way
of thinking and kind of gettingout, of getting back, I guess,
the calmness.
As a veteran myself, I justbriefly said, hey, I didn't have
a choice but to learn some ofthis and I would definitely like
to check out your peak neuro.
I think it's so important forthose, not just those that have
(23:02):
been exposed in the veteransector or military sector, but,
like you said, anyone in somemanner has had some, especially
now in this day and age.
I feel like there's some sortof traumatic or social stressors
in lives, that the anxiety hasbeen turned up.
So I can imagine it beingeffective for a variety.
You know, just like a spectrumright and trying to calm that
(23:24):
mind right From all this chaos.
It's just, it's, it's profound.
How much people will need, youknow, need need.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So it's.
That's really well said.
It's kind of ironic.
When you look at an EEG, youlook neurologically at PTSD.
Ptsd, traumatic brain injuryand depression all look almost
identical on an EEG.
They involve asynchrony in thefront of the brain, they involve
overactive beta and gamma inthe front of the brain and they
(23:51):
get resolved in very much thesame way.
So what you get is an abilityto return to the self that you
were before the trauma.
The only difference is thatwhatever you learned in it you
keep and whatever's not for yougoes away.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, that's beautifully said.
I think it's important forthose listening to know that the
story isn't the full story,right, or there is a room to
manage and room to change, and Ithink that those listening can
get a tidbit to know that you'resaying that they can improve or
(24:28):
they can get past this and partof the technology that you have
been working on and also thosecan really, you know, benefit
from it.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
That's absolutely true If you're a veteran first
responder and you've ever hadthose dark thoughts.
I've had them too, and I'm surethat many of the people who
listen to this have had them too.
And I don't have them anymore.
And I don't have them anymorenot just because of the
technology, but I will tell youthat I don't use the technology
anymore.
I don't listen to the sleepsounds and it has made trait
(25:00):
level changes in my neurobiologyto allow me to just live my
life without having a crutch.
And that includes drugs.
And we talked a little bitearlier about PTSD.
A lot of veterans will engagein years of either psychotherapy
or a lot of veterans are tryingpsychedelics now, and what
those psychedelics are doing isaffecting your neurology.
They're affecting your defaultmode network, and it's as a
(25:23):
temporary fix.
Hey listen, whatever works foryou works, but as a permanent
fix.
You can train your brain to dothat yourself.
You don't have to rely on anoutside pharmacological support
infrastructure.
You just don't have to do it.
You can learn how to do ityourself.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I think it's a really important point because I feel
like as a person and you knowcan definitely gauge on the I
don't take any medicationsmyself, you know maybe on the
supplements and the natural sideand can definitely tell you
that you know we were given manyof options, right, every single
pill you could think of, andnone of it can work.
But it does take work and Ithink the conversation has to be
(26:06):
one to step and talk to someonelike you and listen to this
podcast, if you are listening,to ask for help, to come and get
the resources needed and thennot to be afraid to know that
those answers are, you know,available to them.
Now how I think I about myquestion is more of those
individuals that obviously theyhave the answers, you know you
help them, do you have to kindof do tune-ups for them?
You know, like long-term, youknow, maybe not everybody is
(26:27):
necessarily cured but managedmore of a management kind of
like a management diabetesmanagement of other yeah, I love
that.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
That's a great question and we're all, we're
all works in progress, right?
All of us Right.
The funny thing is it's it'snot like exercise, right?
So when you exercise your body,if you do pushups all day,
you're going to get a prettygood looking chest and you're
going to get some good lookingarms, but eventually you're not
going to get any more progressand you're maybe going to want
to look at how do I work on mylegs or my neck or losing weight
(26:59):
.
Your consciousness exists onmany different dimensions,
whether that's just dealing withstress, or it's sleep, or it's
creating higher cognition,intuition, learning more.
So for me, as I went throughthis program myself and I'm
still I guess I would say I'mone of the crash test dummies
(27:19):
that we use to test this stuffon.
It's not just about downregulation, it's about up
regulation, it's about sleep,it's about cognition.
It's also about allowing peopleto find comfort in altered
states.
So if you'd like to learn howto meditate and you don't want
to sit there and try and thinkof nothing because trying to
think of nothing is thinking ofsomething it can be very
(27:41):
daunting.
So you know, if you're a TMpractitioner and you got to say
that mantra over and over again.
I can tell you that you canachieve some very interesting
states of consciousness just byusing the meditation pieces of
this that will give you.
It will let you think ofnothing and actually enjoy it
and watch what happens as itgoes by.
(28:02):
So to be in it but not of it.
And for me, when I got past thewanting to be in, what did my
wife say to me?
We'd been married five years.
My wife looked at me and saidyou've been in more fights than
all the men I've ever datedcombined.
And I would say to her I neverstarted a fight in my life.
And she'd say no, I watch whatyou do.
You get them all pissed off.
They swing at you.
Then you knock them out and gohome and say, well, he started
(28:24):
it.
So I had to supplement, not withbar fighting anymore.
Now I'm a pickleball guy, butit allows you to sort of pick
and choose what you want to do.
In a week we'll be startingtrial at Columbia University
with some of the cognitivepsychology professors and the
president and provost of theuniversity, and that's mostly
about sleep.
(28:44):
But sleep leads to bettercognition and neuroplasticity,
and neuroplasticity is aboutlearning, and the more you learn
actually, the more fun it is.
So, but, by the way, if you'renot a trivia buff, columbia
University is the country'soldest teacher's college, which
is why we're working with them.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
That's amazing.
I love it.
Oh yeah, I'm a big.
I can talk about sleep, tons ofsleep, not having sleep, having
sleep.
I talk about sleep hygiene.
We can go on that, no it'sreally like I said.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It's like exercise.
You're going to exercisedifferent parts of your brain to
achieve different things.
I've been involved in it nowfor three and a half years and I
haven't even gotten, I haven'teven scratched the surface of
all the things you can do withit.
So good news is, once you getto the part where you're
sleeping well, you'll continueto sleep well.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
And so far I haven't needed a touch-up, but from time
to time I'll throw theheadphones on just to see if it
has any impact.
Oh, I wonder how.
I probably will need it notjust to sleep sometimes, but
then I still have a little one.
So those intermittent nights Ineed a few minutes.
I need a few minutes to getback to my REM sleep.
So I can't wait to check it out.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
In about a month we're going to release a version
for students children,elementary school, middle school
and high school that reallyfocuses on getting them to sleep
, keeping them asleep andenhancing their neuroplasticity.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Oh, I can't wait.
You need to reach out to meagain.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
You go to the app store, you go to the website,
look for it.
It'll be out relatively shortly.
The interesting thing is thatyour brain changes a lot until
you get into your sort of mid tolate 20s.
So we have to really focus ontargeting this and for Division
I athletes, for fighter pilots,for specific cohorts of folks,
we can actually tailor thesesignals to someone's specific
(30:30):
neurology.
People's neurological systemsare as varied as the looks that
everyone has.
You might have an identicaltwin somewhere on the planet,
but for the most part, we're alljust a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
That's fascinating.
I can't wait for it to come out.
I find that there's a lot hereGlad for you to dive in.
I feel like you have to be onagain to have another
conversation with me.
Thank you, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I feel like you have to be on again to have another
conversation with me.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
What key point would your or what fun like thing that
you want to have, a takeawayfor someone to know, or you know
, obviously, to reach out to youon the peak neuro, but what
else?
Those are something that youwant to kind of tell someone
before we go, obviously.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Thank you.
I would tell you this If you're, if you're listening to this
podcast and you're strugglingand you'd like to reach out,
call Damaris, send her a text,send her an email, reach out
through this program and shewill get you in touch with me.
Absolutely.
I grew up in South Philadelphia, in the neighborhood that Rocky
(31:32):
runs in.
When Rocky was made, my dad wasa mechanic.
My mom was a secretary.
I came from a very blue-collarbackground.
I've been fortunate to have alot of success in my life, both
in business and in life.
I find myself at this age at aplace where it's really about
giving back now, and so my goalbetween now and the time that I
step off this planet, is to payit forward, just like the folks
(31:55):
who made it possible for me todo it.
So if you're struggling, don'tstruggle alone, because you
could never be alone.
It only feels that way.
Whatever happened is over andyour body's here, but your mind
is there.
Bring your mind with you and wecan help you do that.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Well, that's beautifully said.
Thank you so much.
I know that someone is going tohear this, whether they're a
veteran or they're just someonethat just needs to be heard, you
know they need a voice, like weall do, yeah.
Yeah, thank you again for beingon and I look forward to having
you on again, maybe in anotheraspect of the conversation.
(32:34):
But can you let them know yourwebsites that they can reach you
and connect with you?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Sure, it's wwwpeakneuro all one word dot
com, Easy to find.
Right on the website You'll seelinks to the App Store or
Google Play for a free trial ofthe product.
You can try it.
It's not the full version of it, but what's in there is not
dumbed down or toned down.
They are production levelexercises that you will feel
(33:01):
differently the first time youtry one.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
That's amazing.
I can't wait.
I'm going to have it in theshow notes for those to check in
and I really thank you forbeing on the show and taking the
time for the audience to hearall your beautiful words and for
all the insight.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you for having me andthanks for your service.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Oh, thank you, you too, and thank you all for
making sure you have a mindfulway each and every day and for
making the time to give yourselfsome time and space.
Have a good day, guys.
Hi, how are you?
This is the MindfullyIntegrative Show and this is Dr
Damaris Maria Grossman, andtoday we have an amazing guest
President and CEO, tonyCrescenzo.
I hope I said that correct, buthe is the CEO of Intelligent
Waves, but also Peak Neuro, andhe has so much to talk to you
about what he's done forveterans, for amazing things in
his company.
(00:22):
There's a lot that I feel likeI can't even say so.
Thank you so much, tony.
If that's okay, I can call youTony, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Please, it's a pleasure to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
So first off I always ask what's a little fun fact?
Someone may not know about you.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, I spent most of my post-Marine Corps time,
until I was too old, climbingmountains.
I'm a very experienced Alpinemountaineer.
I've been on every peak inevery continent.
The highest peak in everycontinent except for the
Himalayas.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Wow, oh my goodness, I'm lucky if I can get up like
one hill.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, I'm old now and my knees are bad.
If you're a veteran and you'relistening to this, your knees
are probably bad too, that is,if you can hear me, because
you're probably half deaf.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Oh no, and then so do you still do like rucking, like
you rock with, like the pack.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Not so much anymore.
My literally my knees, as I gotolder, started to get worse and
worse and worse, and now thatall my friends are having knee
replacements, I'm trying toavoid it at the last possible
moment.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh no, okay, maybe some some stem cell or a
regenerative shots in there.
Exactly, yeah, some stem cellor whichever good shots in there
.
Exactly, yeah.
So I really appreciate youbeing on the show, taking the
time to kind of let the audienceknow a little bit about you and
a little bit about yourbusiness.
You have two areas of yourbusiness, but you know, first
tell them you know what you doand what you like worked on, and
(01:39):
then kind of you know, soyou're a veteran too.
So from veteran to veteran, youknow I I'm so glad for you to
be on the show and to you know,kind of talk to those about the
hard work that you've been doing, not just for veterans but for
others.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Thank you and thank you for your service.
You've certainly served a lotmore recently than I have.
I go my time in the MarineCorps goes back to Beirut, to
that era where it was muchdifferent open sights on rifles
and no sappy plates or any ofthe fun stuff that people have
today.
So I spent eight years in theUnited States Marine Corps, some
of it in some reallyinteresting situations.
Three years working undercoverfor what I think your listeners
(02:18):
would know as NCIS but isactually called NIS.
Back in the day on a drug andfraud investigation that, in me,
created what I found out manyyears later was a pretty nasty
case of PTSD.
Many people think that PTSD isjust for military veterans.
Certainly not true, and anybodywho suffered trauma can have
(02:41):
symptoms of PTSD, includingfirst responders, police who
work undercover.
I didn't have much of an issuewhen I was downrange in the
Marine Corps.
It didn't bother me very muchto be deployed.
But what my first wife, secondwife and daughter would tell you
is my subsequent time workingundercover with NIS apparently
had a very negative effect on me.
I was one of those veterans whogoes from zero to FU in about
(03:04):
10 seconds the guy you don'twant to get a car with, because
if somebody cuts them off it'son and, as I said, my first and
second wife would both agreeit's probably not fun to sleep
with me, given the nightmares.
That all changed for me aboutfour years ago.
I spent literally 30 yearsdealing with some of the
outcomes of my service, alongwith some of my close friends.
(03:24):
So, as you mentioned earlier,I'm the president and CEO of
Intelligent Waves.
When I got out of the MarineCorps I wound up.
My last duty station was inGarden City, new York.
I was on independent duty.
I was recruited by a technologycompany in New York City, in
Manhattan, that was run by threeof the craziest people you'd
ever want to meet in your life.
(03:44):
They taught me so many things.
It was an incredible experience.
I would have never imagined Icould have a transition like
that and for those of you whoare veterans who listen to this
and you've probably been throughsome transition training back
in the day, transition consistedof the sergeant major walking
in your barracks and saying takeoff that uniform and go home,
(04:10):
and that was pretty much it.
So my original transition outof the Marine Corps was writing
pill bottle quality control codeat Merck, the pharmaceutical
company up in Rahway, new Jersey, not too far from where you're
at, and if you've seen thebuilding, it's 300 yards long.
It's a manufacturing center andan office building, and I had
just gotten out of the MarineCorps.
I was probably three months out.
I was a sergeant when I was inthe Marine Corps and everything
that you think a Marine sergeantis I probably was.
(04:31):
One thing to keep in mind isthat even today, the Marine
Corps doesn't have HR.
If you have interpersonalproblems at work, it usually
involves some exercise behind abuilding or a squad bay,
followed by a beer and maybechanging your clothes.
And I wound up working with agentleman who was not a very
nice person.
He was very condescending to alot of people, went on for quite
(04:51):
a while and this is, by the way, before the era of cell phones
and at one point I looked at himand I said listen, if you talk
to me like that again, I'm goingto knock you out.
I said it in a much moreforceful way, with some more
strong language, and I guess hedidn't believe me because he's
from Jersey and he was kind of acondescending guy.
So I wound up chasing himthrough the building, all the
(05:13):
way through the building outinto the parking lot where he
got in his BMW because, ofcourse, he drove a BMW and drove
away.
And I thought, oh yeah, this isthe day where my career takes a
turn, and now I'm going todeliver packages for UPS.
This is the day where my careertakes a turn and now I'm going
to deliver packages for UPS.
Unfortunately, I think UPSwould have hired me with a
background check where I gotfired from my last job for
beating somebody up.
Anyway, he flew out of theparking lot.
(05:33):
He actually went to the officeand spoke to our boss.
Half hour later I got a phonecall and I walk in the boss's
office and he's got this funnylook on his face and he said
come and sit down and tell mewhat happened.
And I said the guy was kind ofa jerk to people for months and
months and I warned him twiceand he didn't listen.
And my boss said well, you know, I know you just got out of the
military and Marines are alittle bit different than other
(06:00):
people and I know you wouldn'thave hurt him.
And I said oh no, if I'd, he iskind of an asshole.
So we just fired him, go backto work and try not to hurt
anybody.
And I thought to myself am I oncandid camera?
What just happened?
And it turned out that my bosswas a Vietnam veteran Air Force,
retired Air Force colonel, 31combat missions in Vietnam.
But for him, where would I be?
(06:24):
If not for his understanding,his background, his ability to
see in me some things in himself, I certainly would have changed
careers pretty quickly then,and that really was a
transformative point in my life.
I wound up working for thatcompany for a little bit longer.
It was sold in the largest M&Atransaction of that year.
(06:45):
I was fortunate enough to comedown here to Washington DC in
the early 90s, worked for someof the world's largest software
companies in the technologybusiness and eventually found
myself back in the defensecontracting space where I
started a company when I was 33.
I sold it and went through astring of venture-backed and
private equity-backed CEO rolesand eventually got to the point
(07:09):
now where I like to think ofmyself as a very expensive
janitor.
I typically come into one-ownercompanies that are looking to
transition, say, from aservice-disabled veteran-owned
business into a full and openbusiness, or a small business to
a large business or turnaroundsfor private equity firms.
And so Intelligent Wavesstarted by an army veteran, an
amazing, amazing man, who spentsome time, a couple of tours
(07:32):
down range in Iraq, worked onthe joint IED defense program,
grew the company to a very, verygood size and then was looking
for some transition leadershipto bring the company into a much
larger organization.
So I've been here for aboutfive years and the work we do is
really interesting.
Probably 85% to 90% of our workis classified above top secret,
(07:55):
which makes it interesting forme because, as the CEO of the
company, even if you have asecurity clearance, you might
not have a need to know.
So while I know basically whatwe do, no one in our company
knows everything that we do.
But we do a lot of work incyber defense.
We're the cyber defenders ofthe US court system.
We do work primarily in DOD, inthe Air Force, army, navy,
(08:17):
marine Corps.
We do work for our specialoperations community, for the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency,ditra.
Most of our work is done byformer military or civilians who
work for the government, who goback into jobs that they've
already done in downrange and inthe military and then
(08:37):
essentially take off a greensuit and put on a blue suit.
So we're very close to themission, always have been, and
part of the work we do issupporting the F-35 program.
The F-35 is a very interestingaircraft and the pilots who fly
them are extremely interestingpeople.
You might think of a fighterjet as something you get into,
you fly up in the sky, shootsome guys down and come home.
But the average F-35 mission isabout 15.7 hours about 15.7
(09:07):
hours, and many of those pilotsmight be sitting in their
kitchen having breakfast onemorning in Nellis Air Force Base
in Las Vegas, get on a planeseven in the morning, fly to the
other side of the earth, engagein a very high stress mission,
come home over severalrefuelings and tankings, land
that aircraft, maybe six, seveno'clock in the evening, and on
the way home their spouse callsand says, hey, we got to go to a
PTA meeting, no problem.
So imagine what it's like tocome back from that level of
(09:29):
stress and then have to engagein a regular life like everybody
else.
So we do things likecommunication via modulated
light, right, an F-35 is astealth aircraft Can't see it,
hear it.
It's not on infrared, it's noton radar, very hard to detect.
But the minute they key amicrophone they create radio
frequency energy.
So we're capable of replacingthings like wingtip lights and
(09:52):
drogue lights and refuelingaircraft to pass data and
information that can't beintercepted, can't be jammed
among other very interesting andclassified things that the
company does.
But as part of that program, wewere asked to support the Air
Force Fighter Weapons School,the version of Top Gun with
(10:13):
physical human performance right.
The F-35 creates a very high Genvironment.
It's very tough on your bodyand the people that we brought
on to do that.
Actually their resumes includeCirque du Soleil and worldwide
wrestling, so a very interestingcrew of people.
Several years ago I was at anexercise called Northern Edge up
in Alaska and getting abriefing from our human
performance team, who told usthat they wanted to look at
things like cognitive humanperformance, downregulation,
(10:35):
stress, et cetera.
And as we started to look atthat, we discovered a technology
.
We spoke with a man who'd beenworking on this kind of
technology for 31 years.
It's neuroacoustic brainwaveentrainment.
And what does that really mean?
Well, you know, everyone has aphysiology, a biology, a
psychology and a neurology, andyour neurology is your
(10:57):
electrical system.
It's how your brain works whenyou engage in thought and
cognition.
It takes about 12 watts ofenergy to power a thought and
that 12 watts is comprised ofoxygen, atp, acetylcholine,
glucose, and that's themetabolic cost to have a thought
.
So imagine you're a war fighter, you're a pilot, you're making
(11:20):
very fast decisions under highstress and those thoughts eat up
an awful lot of those resourcesin your biology, your neurology
, your physiology.
So we looked at how can weattenuate, how can we enhance
cognition, how can we deal withsleep?
Sleep is an interesting ifyou're a veteran, nobody sleeps
(11:40):
in the military.
You're lucky if you get acouple of hours sleep.
The problem with that is sleephas everything to do with
cognition.
There are two types of sleepslow, wave sleep, which is the
slowest, lowest level of sleepyou can get into.
It's below your dreams andthat's physically restorative.
And when you think about howyour body restores itself, it
primarily uses your lymph system.
(12:02):
Right, you've got a lymph nodeall over your body and that
collects all of the junk thatyou accumulate in the course of
a day and deposits it in yourliver kidneys and it would be
cleaned or excreted.
But where's the lymph node inyour head?
You don't have one.
Your brain doesn't have a lymphnode.
So how does your brain cleanitself?
Well, when you engage inslow-wave sleep that is the
(12:23):
deepest, deepest, non-dreamsleep your glymphatic cells in
your brain actually shrink, andthey shrink so much that they
create a vacuum and they pullcerebral spinal fluid up through
your spinal cord, over yourcorpus colossum.
It soaks into your brain andwhen you wake up, the longer you
sleep, the longer your deepsleep, the longer it soaks in.
(12:43):
When you wake up, those cellsexpand, push the cerebral spinal
fluid down your spinal column,into your kidneys and your lymph
nodes, and that's how yourbrain cleans itself.
So, poor sleep, poor recovery,whether that's emotional
recovery in NREM or it'sphysical recovery in slow-wave
sleep.
So we've done things likereverse engineer sleep into a
(13:05):
series of brainwaves that we canentrain.
You put on a set of headphones,listen for 30 minutes and over
the course of weeks to months,you're training your body,
you're training your neurologyto achieve higher levels of
sleep.
I am, at this point in my lifeand in this podcast, a
64-year-old man.
The average 64-year-old mangets somewhere between 18 and
(13:27):
22% restorative sleep in anevening.
After six months of using thetechnology myself, I now get 47
to 51% of my sleep isrestorative, which means that I
can get half the sleep and getjust as much recovery, and
that's been true across theboard for all age groups.
We're actually, I'm sorry, goahead please.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
No, that's amazing.
No, I don't want to cut you off.
Go keep talking.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
So we work with our work around.
This has morphed into not justworking with the military, but
we work with Division I andprofessional sports teams.
We work with veterans and firstresponders.
We're working with a veterannow who's anonymous, but I will
tell you after one month.
This is a gentleman, 24 yearsas a Navy SEAL, both officer and
(14:12):
enlisted, been downrange, 11years of his life in combat, 21
traumatic brain injuries,concussions.
He's a former Division Ifootball player, sleeping three
hours an evening and it'sfragmented it's not all in a row
, brain fog, very hard toremember names, not the most
(14:32):
profoundly fun retirement forsomeone who's given that much to
his country.
In 30 days of using thistechnology, which is as simple
as, as I said, listening toearphones.
You can go to the app store anddownload versions of this and
try it for yourself.
His sleep is now gone.
In 30 days it's doubled inlength six hours uninterrupted,
(14:53):
and the only reason it's sixhours is he got an old dog that
has to go to the bathroom, so itwakes him up every morning.
He has no more headaches, verylittle brain fog, and we look at
we're actually measuring thisthrough EEGs.
So every two weeks he comes in,we give him an EEG and we're
seeing trait level changes inhis neurology where his PTSD is
(15:16):
resolving, his TBIs are almostresolved and over the course of
about six months we're going tosee that that gets pretty much
erased.
So not only does it build, doesit repair, issues like PTSD,
but it builds resilience in yourneurology that prevents PTSD.
So when we talk about trauma andwe talk about resolving trauma,
the number one methodology, thenumber one thing that people do
(15:40):
when they've suffered atraumatic event, is to go to
psychotherapy, and psychotherapyis talk therapy, and talk
therapy is about narrative.
Narrative means I have anautobiography and 30 years ago,
30, 36 years ago, I was involvedin some things that made an
imprint on me and I now have torationalize how those things
(16:02):
that happened to me fit into myautobiography, which requires me
in psychotherapy to sit downand talk about it.
And you're a veteran like I am.
There's a lot of things thatveterans, excuse me, don't want
to talk about, especially withnon-veterans, and anyone who
suffered trauma doesn'tnecessarily want to revisit that
trauma.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
So if we think of psychotherapy as very complex.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's like oh, I don't want to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Oh my God.
Yeah, if we think aboutpsychotherapy as narrative and
meaning making, that's asemantic way to resolve trauma.
It's talking about it.
It's finding some structure inthe grammar and the words and
the experience, some structurein the grammar and the words and
the experience.
What we do is we do somethingthat's very radically different
Through the program that we'veput together over the course of
(16:46):
about six months.
What we're doing is we'recreating a brain state, a level
of consciousness that's verydifferent than a traumatic state
.
So for most veterans you knowI'm on a couple of veterans
boards I do a lot of work withveterans who are transitioning
or have transitioned and arehaving some problems around this
(17:07):
area.
What that looks like as opposedto meaning making and narrative
is, this technology pretty muchsuppresses the executive frontal
as a prefrontal cortex,dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
It suppresses your ability tocreate narrative, in other words
, brainwaves.
If you're familiar with them,you have five different kinds of
brainwaves delta, theta, alpha,beta, gamma.
(17:29):
Delta is very low.
That's your deep sleep.
That's also, if you're aBuddhist monk, your sort of
meditative state, and so istheta state, and so is theta.
Alpha is a light meditativestate.
Beta is your normal cognition,and gamma is integration and
also anxiety.
So when we get into theserumination loops and if you're
listening to this and you'veever walked out of a room full
of people and thought toyourself, why did I say that?
(17:50):
And you can't put it aside orsomeone says something to you
and you say to yourself, man,what did they really mean?
And you're laying in bed atnight six hours later.
That's rumination.
That's your prefrontal cortexlocked in a rumination loop that
you can't get out of and itkeeps you awake and it creates
stress for you.
Cortisol gets released.
It's not a fun thing.
What we do is we essentiallyshut down your brain's ability
(18:13):
to even process narrative.
We suppress the front part ofyour brain, we suppress beta and
gamma and we open up theanticular cingulate cortex,
which is right up here in theparietal part of your brain, and
the occipital cortex, and whatthat does is we flood it with
very slow wave, very soothingbrainwaves, and what it creates
is a somatic way to processtrauma.
(18:36):
So, while you may observe theevent that caused your trauma,
you may see it like a movie orfeel it like a memory.
You're not going to build anarrative.
You're going to sort of seeflashes.
Emotions will come by, butyou'll be completely divorced
from them part of yourautobiography.
(19:03):
But the emotion that came withit doesn't.
The emotion dissolves.
Your body essentially digestsit.
It's a way of using your body tosemantically resolve and
dissolve trauma in your life andwhat that brings you to is a
place of equanimity.
And when you get to the placeof equanimity, if a new trauma
occurs, your ability to dealwith it and bounce back quickly
becomes much more enhanced, tothe point where, over the course
(19:25):
of about six months, when welook at some of the trials that
we've done, we're seeing peoplehave literally three or four
minutes of drag after atraumatic event and they go
right back to equanimity.
So it's an interesting way totrain your brain, your mind,
your states of consciousness todeal not just with life's little
(19:46):
things but with life's bigthings and to heal yourself, as
opposed to thinking thatsomebody from the outside, some
drug, is going to do that foryou.
Most veterans get prescribedantidepressants for their PTSD
and they hate it.
It puts 27 panes of glassbetween you and the rest of the
world and no one likes that.
(20:06):
And after this gentleman thatwe're talking about is 30 days,
we have another trial that we'redoing on someone that's six
months, you find these people tobe two or three standard
deviations above the normativepopulation and our ability to
handle stress.
So we make that available tothe military, make it available
to first responders, and nowit's essentially available to
(20:26):
everybody through our Peak Neurosubsidiary.
And if you're interested intrying it, go to the App Store,
go to Google Play and look forPeak Neuro P-E-A-K-N-E-U-R-O and
you can download it there.
You can go to peakneurocom andlook at it.
It's a free trial, doesn't work.
Throw it away.
So far we haven't had anyonewho hasn't come back and really
thought that was an amazingthing.
(20:47):
And there are exercises therefor sleep, for cognition, one of
the side effects that we'restill exploring right now.
In a six-month longitudinaltrial we worked on in sleep, we
discovered that one of the sideeffects is neuroplasticity and
if you're not familiar with thatterm, it's really your brain's
ability to wire neurons togetherin new and inventive ways.
(21:10):
It's the way to adapt, it'slearning.
So when you think about thingslike artificial intelligence
artificial intelligenceeverybody's afraid of.
But let me tell you nothing tobe afraid of, it's still a lot
dumber than my ex-wife.
I'm sorry if that offended myex-wife she's actually a lovely
person loops.
(21:42):
It gives you the opportunity toget out in front of it, to find
the root cause in the self, notin your physical self but in
your for lack of a better way tosay it your soul, your
spiritual self.
If you, like me, haveexperienced a near-death
experience, you may have peoplewho do that all the time.
It just kind of changes yourworldview, the way you see
things.
But you find that in a worldwhere we're still stuck in
(22:04):
Newtonian physics andmaterialism, that you find a
post-quantum, post-materialistview of what you are and who you
really are.
So the kind of interestingoutcome is it doesn't matter if
you're a knuckle dragon marineor a delta force operator.
That state of consciousnessthat will help you achieve is
analogous and very similar to aTibetan monk who's in Buddhist
(22:26):
practice and you're going tofeel that way.
It's a very interesting way forus who have served and who have
had some resolution to this topay back to others who are still
kind of going through thatprocess.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
This sounds pretty profound.
I think we just spoke brieflyabout the need of like that way
of thinking and kind of gettingout, of getting back, I guess,
the calmness.
As a veteran myself, I justbriefly said, hey, I didn't have
a choice but to learn some ofthis and I would definitely like
to check out your peak neuro.
I think it's so important forthose, not just those that have
(23:02):
been exposed in the veteransector or military sector, but,
like you said, anyone in somemanner has had some, especially
now in this day and age.
I feel like there's some sortof traumatic or social stressors
in lives, that the anxiety hasbeen turned up.
So I can imagine it beingeffective for a variety.
You know, just like a spectrumright and trying to calm that
(23:24):
mind right From all this chaos.
It's just, it's, it's profound.
How much people will need, youknow, need need.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So it's.
That's really well said.
It's kind of ironic.
When you look at an EEG, youlook neurologically at PTSD.
Ptsd, traumatic brain injuryand depression all look almost
identical on an EEG.
They involve asynchrony in thefront of the brain, they involve
overactive beta and gamma inthe front of the brain and they
(23:51):
get resolved in very much thesame way.
So what you get is an abilityto return to the self that you
were before the trauma.
The only difference is thatwhatever you learned in it you
keep and whatever's not for yougoes away.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah, that's beautifully said.
I think it's important forthose listening to know that the
story isn't the full story,right, or there is a room to
manage and room to change, and Ithink that those listening can
get a tidbit to know that you'resaying that they can improve or
(24:28):
they can get past this and partof the technology that you have
been working on and also thosecan really, you know, benefit
from it.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
That's absolutely true If you're a veteran first
responder and you've ever hadthose dark thoughts.
I've had them too, and I'm surethat many of the people who
listen to this have had them too.
And I don't have them anymore.
And I don't have them anymorenot just because of the
technology, but I will tell youthat I don't use the technology
anymore.
I don't listen to the sleepsounds and it has made trait
(25:00):
level changes in my neurobiologyto allow me to just live my
life without having a crutch.
And that includes drugs.
And we talked a little bitearlier about PTSD.
A lot of veterans will engagein years of either psychotherapy
or a lot of veterans are tryingpsychedelics now, and what
those psychedelics are doing isaffecting your neurology.
They're affecting your defaultmode network, and it's as a
(25:23):
temporary fix.
Hey listen, whatever works foryou works, but as a permanent
fix.
You can train your brain to dothat yourself.
You don't have to rely on anoutside pharmacological support
infrastructure.
You just don't have to do it.
You can learn how to do ityourself.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I think it's a really important point because I feel
like as a person and you knowcan definitely gauge on the I
don't take any medicationsmyself, you know maybe on the
supplements and the natural sideand can definitely tell you
that you know we were given manyof options, right, every single
pill you could think of, andnone of it can work.
But it does take work and Ithink the conversation has to be
(26:06):
one to step and talk to someonelike you and listen to this
podcast, if you are listening,to ask for help, to come and get
the resources needed and thennot to be afraid to know that
those answers are, you know,available to them.
Now how I think I about myquestion is more of those
individuals that obviously theyhave the answers, you know you
help them, do you have to kindof do tune-ups for them?
You know, like long-term, youknow, maybe not everybody is
(26:27):
necessarily cured but managedmore of a management kind of
like a management diabetesmanagement of other yeah, I love
that.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
That's a great question and we're all, we're
all works in progress, right?
All of us Right.
The funny thing is it's it'snot like exercise, right?
So when you exercise your body,if you do pushups all day,
you're going to get a prettygood looking chest and you're
going to get some good lookingarms, but eventually you're not
going to get any more progressand you're maybe going to want
to look at how do I work on mylegs or my neck or losing weight
(26:59):
.
Your consciousness exists onmany different dimensions,
whether that's just dealing withstress, or it's sleep, or it's
creating higher cognition,intuition, learning more.
So for me, as I went throughthis program myself and I'm
still I guess I would say I'mone of the crash test dummies
(27:19):
that we use to test this stuffon.
It's not just about downregulation, it's about up
regulation, it's about sleep,it's about cognition.
It's also about allowing peopleto find comfort in altered
states.
So if you'd like to learn howto meditate and you don't want
to sit there and try and thinkof nothing because trying to
think of nothing is thinking ofsomething it can be very
(27:41):
daunting.
So you know, if you're a TMpractitioner and you got to say
that mantra over and over again.
I can tell you that you canachieve some very interesting
states of consciousness just byusing the meditation pieces of
this that will give you.
It will let you think ofnothing and actually enjoy it
and watch what happens as itgoes by.
(28:02):
So to be in it but not of it.
And for me, when I got past thewanting to be in, what did my
wife say to me?
We'd been married five years.
My wife looked at me and saidyou've been in more fights than
all the men I've ever datedcombined.
And I would say to her I neverstarted a fight in my life.
And she'd say no, I watch whatyou do.
You get them all pissed off.
They swing at you.
Then you knock them out and gohome and say, well, he started
(28:24):
it.
So I had to supplement, not withbar fighting anymore.
Now I'm a pickleball guy, butit allows you to sort of pick
and choose what you want to do.
In a week we'll be startingtrial at Columbia University
with some of the cognitivepsychology professors and the
president and provost of theuniversity, and that's mostly
about sleep.
(28:44):
But sleep leads to bettercognition and neuroplasticity,
and neuroplasticity is aboutlearning, and the more you learn
actually, the more fun it is.
So, but, by the way, if you'renot a trivia buff, columbia
University is the country'soldest teacher's college, which
is why we're working with them.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
That's amazing.
I love it.
Oh yeah, I'm a big.
I can talk about sleep, tons ofsleep, not having sleep, having
sleep.
I talk about sleep hygiene.
We can go on that, no it'sreally like I said.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It's like exercise.
You're going to exercisedifferent parts of your brain to
achieve different things.
I've been involved in it nowfor three and a half years and I
haven't even gotten, I haven'teven scratched the surface of
all the things you can do withit.
So good news is, once you getto the part where you're
sleeping well, you'll continueto sleep well.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
And so far I haven't needed a touch-up, but from time
to time I'll throw theheadphones on just to see if it
has any impact.
Oh, I wonder how.
I probably will need it notjust to sleep sometimes, but
then I still have a little one.
So those intermittent nights Ineed a few minutes.
I need a few minutes to getback to my REM sleep.
So I can't wait to check it out.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
In about a month we're going to release a version
for students children,elementary school, middle school
and high school that reallyfocuses on getting them to sleep
, keeping them asleep andenhancing their neuroplasticity.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Oh, I can't wait.
You need to reach out to meagain.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
You go to the app store, you go to the website,
look for it.
It'll be out relatively shortly.
The interesting thing is thatyour brain changes a lot until
you get into your sort of mid tolate 20s.
So we have to really focus ontargeting this and for Division
I athletes, for fighter pilots,for specific cohorts of folks,
we can actually tailor thesesignals to someone's specific
(30:30):
neurology.
People's neurological systemsare as varied as the looks that
everyone has.
You might have an identicaltwin somewhere on the planet,
but for the most part, we're alljust a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
That's fascinating.
I can't wait for it to come out.
I find that there's a lot hereGlad for you to dive in.
I feel like you have to be onagain to have another
conversation with me.
Thank you, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I feel like you have to be on again to have another
conversation with me.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
What key point would your or what fun like thing that
you want to have, a takeawayfor someone to know, or you know
, obviously, to reach out to youon the peak neuro, but what
else?
Those are something that youwant to kind of tell someone
before we go, obviously.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Thank you.
I would tell you this If you're, if you're listening to this
podcast and you're strugglingand you'd like to reach out,
call Damaris, send her a text,send her an email, reach out
through this program and shewill get you in touch with me.
Absolutely.
I grew up in South Philadelphia, in the neighborhood that Rocky
(31:32):
runs in.
When Rocky was made, my dad wasa mechanic.
My mom was a secretary.
I came from a very blue-collarbackground.
I've been fortunate to have alot of success in my life, both
in business and in life.
I find myself at this age at aplace where it's really about
giving back now, and so my goalbetween now and the time that I
step off this planet, is to payit forward, just like the folks
(31:55):
who made it possible for me todo it.
So if you're struggling, don'tstruggle alone, because you
could never be alone.
It only feels that way.
Whatever happened is over andyour body's here, but your mind
is there.
Bring your mind with you and wecan help you do that.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Well, that's beautifully said.
Thank you so much.
I know that someone is going tohear this, whether they're a
veteran or they're just someonethat just needs to be heard, you
know they need a voice, like weall do, yeah.
Yeah, thank you again for beingon and I look forward to having
you on again, maybe in anotheraspect of the conversation.
(32:34):
But can you let them know yourwebsites that they can reach you
and connect with you?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Sure, it's wwwpeakneuro all one word dot
com, Easy to find.
Right on the website You'll seelinks to the App Store or
Google Play for a free trial ofthe product.
You can try it.
It's not the full version of it, but what's in there is not
dumbed down or toned down.
They are production levelexercises that you will feel
(33:01):
differently the first time youtry one.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
That's amazing.
I can't wait.
I'm going to have it in theshow notes for those to check in
and I really thank you forbeing on the show and taking the
time for the audience to hearall your beautiful words and for
all the insight.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you for having me andthanks for your service.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Oh, thank you, you too, and thank you all for
making sure you have a mindfulway each and every day and for
making the time to give yourselfsome time and space.
Have a good day, guys.
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