Written by Christopher Kelly
March 5, 2015
[0:00:00]
Christopher: Hello and welcome to the Nourish Balance Thrive Podcast. My name is Christopher Kelly. Today I'm joined by professional triathlete, Jordan Bryden. Hi, Jordan.
Jordan: Hey! How are you today?
Christopher: I'm very good. Thanks. How are you?
Jordan: I'm doing quite good.
Christopher: Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself? You're quite a talented young athlete would be the best way -- the easiest way to describe you. But tell us a bit more about your background.
Jordan: Yeah. Absolutely. I've been a triathlete the majority of my life. Grew up in Calgary, Alberta where I still live and have been racing for the past 20 years since the age of eight [0:00:33] [Indiscernible] so I'm 28 now. When I was a junior I was fortunate enough to kind of get into that position and that mindset of focus where I was able to win three national championships as a junior in U23, Xterra Junior World Champion, fun stuff like that that really kept me going and kept me pushing to that next level of excellence. In the past two and a half years now, I've started focusing on the Iron Distance.
Christopher: Wow. That's exciting. Yeah. Obviously, like everybody else, training doesn't always go according to plan. There's fatigue and slow recovery and all the rest of those problems. Was it the Ben Greenfield podcast you heard me speak?
Jordan: Yeah. Absolutely. I had actually been researching different ways to kind of get ahold of what's going on in the body and I saw the logo pop up more than once for Nourish Balance Thrive. It kind of was great to kind of see that Ben -- Ben put that in his podcast and followed up with that.
Christopher: Okay. Yeah. We've run an adrenal stress profile saliva test on you which I think is going to be interesting. We'll get to talking about that shortly. But before we get to that, what would you say your top three complaints are?
Jordan: Yeah. Top complaint for sure has been ongoing since I was probably 18 so probably coming up on a decade here; that is lack of sleep. I do take certain stresses, specifically the stress that comes across with being a developing athlete and trying to find the funds to do so and being at that -- well, no. That really tends to get in the back of my mind and doesn't leave. There're other things as well for sure but it kind of comes along with performances and training and relationships and all that sort of stuff. But lack of sleep, it really -- I don't sleep all at night. I haven't for a long time. I had probably one of the best sleeps of the year on Sunday. I was in a super low stress environment last night again up to like 2:30 in the morning every --
Christopher: Oh, really? How much sleep do you think you get per night normally?
Jordan: It definitely varies. One thing you actually don't know about the adrenal stress profile is I actually had to nap twice during that day. I'm not sure about it affects the results but during stressful points in life, like everybody else has, I really feel like that is the number one thing that brings me down. I don't sleep at night. I'm very, very activated at night. I feel like I need to work or I need to move forward whereas during the day I just hit those walls where it's like I couldn't do another thing; I just need to lie down.
Christopher: Okay. So main complaint: insomnia and then you're just feeling tired during the day. How does that affect your training? When you're feeling like you really want to go take a nap, how does that affect your training?
Jordan: Yeah. The motivation obviously to get out the door is one. I've been a motivated athlete my whole life and I really, really enjoy what I do and the opportunity that I get. I feel pretty blessed to have the life that I do have. But there are those times where you obviously feel like it's just not working and you get frustrated and the frustration kind of leads to some [0:04:11] [Indiscernible].
Christopher: Right. Of course.
Jordan: So that's probably my second point as well is that you just never get quite to that level of being fully activated, fully aware of your next workout. I have noticed that since I went from racing the ITU Distance to the Ironman Distance that I'm not as flippin'. I don't go up and down in my schedules, in my stress profiles as much. I feel like that is because a lot of my workouts are longer burning workouts rather than all these super crazy high intense interval sessions.
Christopher: Okay. Oh, so you tend towards more of the long distance than you do the high intensity stuff then.
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Jordan: Yeah. That's funny. I am actually going through a bit of a block to just regain and retouch on the speed, treadmill at least twice a week to do some interval type stuff and then two interval sessions on the bike that are power-based. Everything else, even my swimming at this point is longer and slower.
Christopher: When did you first notice that your sleep and your energy levels were not what they once were? You must remember a moment before you really -- I mean, you started at eight, right? But --
Jordan: Yeah.
Christopher: There must have been a time when you didn't really think about sleep. It just happened spontaneously.
Jordan: Yeah. It would be going back quite a bit to when I was sleeping quite well. I also grew up with a dad that was really awesome at helping me get my training in. Unfortunately, he worked shift work so sometimes he'd come home and we'd go for a run at ten o'clock at night because that would be the only time that we would go and do that. That would happen when I was 14 and 15.
I'd put in a lot of hours between the age of 16 and 18. Sundays, it'd be two-hour evening swim and then follow that up with at least a two-hour interval session on the track. I would do that three to four times a week as well as five- to six-hour bricks, a lot more distance than your general kid would do.
Christopher: Right. Yeah. That's definitely not normal, as normal I was doing at that age. That's for sure.
Jordan: No. It was definitely volume intensive at that point. I did see some very good results doing that. To my own detriment, I really always felt that the coach wasn't always right. I should just do more is better. It wasn't until that time when I was like 17 or 18 when I felt that I wasn't able to maintain that kind of intensity and endurance anymore. That was almost frustrating because I would try to push more. I would try to do a harder, long brick workout or I'd try to incorporate strength into the program because I'm 6' 5" and I really need to make sure that my body is working a couple of different ways. I burned the wire a little bit too hot at that given point and since then never really quite came back.
The biggest point that I can kind of nail down was when I actually started living on my own, paying my own bills, working full time. That all happened for me in the course of about two months and that went from everything to my training and racing and whatnot. So definite switch from living at home, going to virtual school, getting to sleep or nap whenever you want with training with the national team at camps to suddenly kind of finding motivation on your own and pushing yourself on those regards.
Christopher: Yeah. I've heard that some coaches, that's how they picked the athletes. If it's someone that goes out and is able to ride or run or swim by themselves, those are the most motivated people that are most likely to be successful.
Jordan: Yeah.
Christopher: And the guys that like need to have three buddies before they can go on a ride, those are the ones that are not really sincere. Yeah. It's kind of a hallmark if you like.
Jordan: Yeah.
Christopher: Can you describe the general levels of stress in your life then? One thing I know is that the physiological response to stress is pretty much the same regardless of whether you're a stay-at-home mom and the kids are driving you nuts or whether you're an athlete trying to push 20 hours this week on the bike or some other type of exercise. It really doesn't matter. There's only one physiological response to stress.
Obviously, we know that you're doing a ton of training but how about the rest of your life? Do you have much kind of relationship stress and work stress? Do you worry about money, that type of thing?
Jordan: Yeah. Maybe it's just in my own individual life but it all kind of comes down to the money aspect of things in a lot of ways. I've never kind of been funded by Canada in any way even when I was winning a lot of races and that sort of stuff. I did receive smaller sponsorships. Right now, the sponsors that I do have are the ones that are keeping me alive.
But to speak to that a little bit more, when you aren't able to pay for your training workouts or the right nutrition, that adds that extra stress. A lot of times -- and I've set my season up very well and trained very, very efficiently throughout March and April to come out of the block with a good one race and then ran out of money and then you're back working a lot of hours.
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I'm fortunate enough that I can kind of pick up hours when I would need to but when it gets to that point that you're dealing with debt, paying for your next race, paying for equipment and then all the other life expenses that people have such as rent and car, yadda, yadda, that's where I haven't been able to bounce and let go. I'll even get into workouts and be in that position where you're like, geez, I really need to pay that off. Maybe I should… It doesn't ever really leave.
For me, personally, I know it's not the case for everyone but for me it kind of dictates a lot of the other stresses in my life. It's kind of a roll-down [Phonetic] effect if you will.
Christopher: Uh-hmm. Yeah, I know. I understand. I know for some people, their diet is actually quite a big stress on their body because there's quite a strong connection between blood sugar and some of the stress hormones that exist inside your body. Are you onto the Paleo diet yet? Is that something you know about?
Jordan: I do know about it quite well. I definitely subscribed a little bit more in the past 12 months to the vegan diet. I really struggled at the end of 2013 with some serious ache, stress-related issues where I wasn't getting to sleep until, like I said, 2:00 in the morning but I was sleeping in past noon. I couldn't get up. I was trying to train and whatnot.
I did my first Ironman at full intensity and I never really recovered. I had tonsil inflammation for the better part of eight weeks. That was through June and July when my main season was supposed to happen and I couldn't train. I was very frustrated with that. I started eating a lot more veggies, integrating juice even to my diet which I think really helped to balance the lack of nutrients that I wasn't getting and did notice a huge upswing in that period where I was able to actually feel like I was a bit more balanced and whatnot.
Of course, in the past four to six months, I really don't feel that I was even doing the vegan approach to the diet well. You get to that point where you're not necessarily a lazy vegan but you're not doing the right thing.
Christopher: Right. I think, yeah, so vegan, I think you need to be extremely organized in order to make that work especially when you're putting the demands that you do on your body and lazy is not any part of that equation. So you can get vegan junk food just as the same you can get junk anything. I don't know. I think it's an easy trap to fall into with veganism is just not being organized enough.
Jordan: Yeah, yeah. I totally agree and I can speak to that. I spent a lot of time through the summer months this year with my girlfriend's family and kind of are storing a lot of amazing, very nutrient-dense food in those situations once or twice a day and you start to feel so much better but you kind of get back into the habit of just taking care of yourself. It's very easy not to go and make the right food, to get lazy on that side of things and just stick to starches that probably don't have the nutrient content.
I also don't really have the ability to pay for the high-end organic foods. I do notice a big difference personally between what you get for super cheap at your local grocery store versus going to a community natural market.
Christopher: Uh-hmm. Yeah, and I suspect that you're traveling a whole bunch of the time which makes life even more difficult.
Jordan: Yeah, and that's very true.
Christopher: Okay. Let's move on and talk about the saliva test that you've done.
Jordan: Yeah.
Christopher: This is the BioHealth 205 adrenal stress profile. It's a four-sample cortisol test but it also looks at an anabolic hormone called DHEA. On page two, the results include some of the metabolites of pregnenolone. Those include all of the sex hormones that most people have heard of. There're two forms of estrogen: estradiol and estriol. Also, progesterone which is both of those two hormones or types of hormone are more commonly associated with the female cycle but in some ways they are important to a man too. I'll get to that but there's also melatonin, which is a sleep hormone, and testosterone.
[0:15:15]
Let's start by walking through the cortisol. There're four cortisol readings on this test. The reason there's four is because cortisol follows the circadian rhythm. It should be highest first thing in the morning and then lowest last thing at night. Sometimes I see people that have got a reasonable amount, total amount of cortisol so it's not high or low but their circadian rhythm is broken so the cortisol is high at night when it should be low, and low in the morning when it should be high.
The reason that's a problem is because cortisol is also a hormone. It's not just about the stress response. People think that high cortisol is bad and it causes too much breaking down and that's true. People think that cortisol is brought about by a stressful situation and that's also true. But it's also involved in energy homeostasis.
Typically, people with low cortisol feel tired although that's not always the case. Sometimes you'll get someone with only five points of cortisol in the morning when it should be 25 or 24, 23, 22. That's how they experience it is like severe fatigue.
Jordan: Yeah. I'm having a look at the results now that you sent my way.
Christopher: Yeah. Let's walk through your numbers. Your morning cortisol is 12.4. When I work with someone that's feeling good, it's usually, like I say, between 20 and 24. Yours is 12.4 and then 20 to 24 is normal. By noon, yours is 4.1 when ideally it'd be an 8. So at noon you've got half the amount of cortisol that I would expect. And then the afternoon is 2.5 when ideally I would probably see like a 6 or a 7. So you can see how low your cortisol is now.
Jordan: Uh-hmm.
Christopher: Nighttime is actually good. Not 0.8 is about spot on. I look to see that it's not elevated. It's important that it's not elevated. Normally, if it is elevated, there is a reason why like the person is doing something like watching Breaking Bad or something, doing something that's like a stressful activity to close the bedtime.
Overall, and I think this fits in with your life story there, is that when I see a cortisol profile like this, I can only take that person and say to them, "Look, if I lie you down in this darkened room at two o'clock in the afternoon, how long will it take you to go to sleep?" And the answer is normally probably 30 seconds or something. That's the case, right? You've napped twice during the day which is I think not normal.
Jordan: Yeah. Generally, it's like it's once a day for me.
Christopher: Right.
Jordan: The more stress you're under, whether it's from a training session or life stuff, the more I kind of experience that really lethargic, dead feeling. I don't know. I feel like it's very looked down upon to address that you're having sleep issues. I know that's weird but I hang out with a lot of type A individuals. I work in a triathlon store and everyone that kind of knows me who comes in and whatnot are really hot for the sport.
Christopher: Right.
Jordan: I don't know the deal with how to balance the napping. I just kind of get to a point where I feel utterly exhausted.
Christopher: Right.
Jordan: I'm kind of in the middle of doing something on the computer.
Christopher: Yeah. So the napping thing, I used to be a big napper as well. Before I started all this, I would sneak underneath my desk and take a nap at work. I was a computer programmer. Now I couldn't imagine doing that. It's just sort of really weird. It's not like I've changed the training really. I think it's you fix some problems that are making you tired during the day.
In the interim, I would -- I think that's a good idea. You need a certain amount of sleep and if you don't get that then bad things are going to happen. If the only way you can get it is during the day, then you should get it during the day. It's that important. But I think eventually you will get to the point where you just will sleep.
To give you an example, I had real trouble sleeping through the night which sounds a lot like your story. The typical pattern for me was I would go to bed at nine or ten o'clock and then I'd be wide awake at some point between midnight and 2:00. Midnight was kind of the worse. I'd be ready to go. I mean, I'd be ready to get up and start the day at midnight which was awful.
Now I sleep for at least eight hours. Last night, I didn't wake up at all for eight hours. I didn't really remember any dreams last night. That complete period is absent, is gone. I got into bed, fell asleep, and then I woke up and it was the morning. It's a pretty amazing thing that you take for granted if you're already achieving that.
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Jordan: Yeah.
Christopher: Yeah. It's like the Holy Grail of athletes I think. It's so uncommon. But, yeah, we will get there. It's going to take some detective work.
I'll move on to the next number on this test. It's the DHEA. As I mentioned, DHEA is actually an anabolic hormone. In the old days, people thought of it as just a precursor so they thought, "Oh, wow. DHEA. It converts into testosterone and that's about all it does." It can also convert into estrogen. But I think we're starting to understand now that it actually plays many roles in the body.
Normally, what I see is low DHEA so when the person has been under a ton of stress for a very long time and maybe some of that stress is a chronic inflammatory condition so maybe they have an autoimmune disease or maybe they just have some other sort of systemic inflammation so inflammation has been going on inside their body for a long time rather than just inflammation that's just acute. You get like a splint in your finger, like a splinter. That causes some inflammation and you remove the splinter and three days later it's gone. Not that sort of inflammation, like perpetual ongoing inflammation and then you see low DHEA.
That's not actually the case on your results. Your DHEA is 11.87 and normally, like I think ideal is like an 8, 9, or a 10. I think in this instance, this is suspicious. I don't think that more is better. I think that something is going on here and I need to do some more digging to try and find out why your DHEA is so high because normally when I see low cortisol I see the low DHEA with it.
Some of the reasons why you would see high DHEA is calorie restriction or a recent very stressful event so if I was to measure someone's DHEA three days after they're in a car crash, you would see it really high. I'm sure the same is true of some of your workouts. I'm sure you do some workouts that just some people can't get even like get their around it. Even some of my workouts I'm sure some people think like that. Like I rode my bike for five hours on Sunday and I'm sure there's a lot of people that can't get their head around that. So, yeah, very, very hard workouts could be the cause here.
Although DHEA is an anabolic hormone, I don't think that more is better in this instance. I think something is going on especially when you couple it with the life story that you've just given me.
You can see that it's not trivial interpreting this test. It's not just like, oh, well, I just need to go on the Internet and just Google what the normal level of cortisol is and then like I'm good to go. It's like a little bit more -- I'm not trying to mystify it too much. It's not rocket science but at the same time it's not completely trivial either.
Jordan: Yeah. I came to you because you kind of have that detective type personality with what you're doing with the current athletes that you have worked with in the past. Looking at these results, as an athlete, you kind of just hope that it's going to come back, it's going to point to X and you're going to fix X and you're going to be a better athlete because of it. But, yeah --
Christopher: Yeah. Well, I think what some people would be expecting if they saw this result is for me to say: Oh, well, this is stage three adrenal fatigue. Low cortisol. All you need to do is take this supplement, Adreno-Mend or whatever it's called. Those adaptogenic herbs are going to bring up your cortisol and you're going to feel fantastic and you're going to win the Ironman world championships and you'll live happily ever after. But, unfortunately, as I think you probably know, it's never quite as simple as that.
Jordan: Yeah.
Christopher: Page two, we've got two forms of estrogen on here. I have to say the estriol is mildly elevated. It's a little bit concerning. Estriol is kind of funny. They've upgraded the test recently and I'm not sure about the reference range is as I am with all the other numbers. I swear it's a very low-risk intervention to say to the person: Just make sure you're not eating anything out of plastic containers.
We know that some of the plasticizers that are in our environment like BPA but there are others too, they act like estrogens inside your body. So just make sure that you're, like I say, not heating things in a plastic container, for example. I know that some of the plastics are unavoidable like plastic water bottles. What are you going to do? You're going to ride around with a stainless steel one in your bottle cage? I don't think so. But, yeah, do what you can.
[0:25:07]
The next number on here is progesterone and progesterone is more commonly associated with pregnancy. It's the pro-gestation hormone. But it also does some other things like it binds the receptor for an inhibitory neurotransmitter called GABA. People with low progesterone, they sometimes feel quite anxious.
I've actually felt like the two ends of the spectrum here like done testing on my myself. As I said, the low progesterone, like kind of your sort of like nervous and slightly anxious and you're worried about what's going to happen in the next ten minutes. Too much progesterone -- I tested myself once and I had quite high progesterone like 150 whereas yours is 90 here. It may be quite emotional, like I would start crying reading a children's book and stuff like that. So, yeah, you don't want that either. It kind of gives you a little tiny window maybe into the female world. These hormones vary. So you imagine this is complicated for a man trying to get this right. Imagine what it's like for a woman whose hormones are cycling with this. It's like, okay, now this gets really complex and difficult to maintain. So, yeah, the progesterone looks good. I like to see at least 75 points for a man so that's bang on.
Your melatonin is actually really good too. Melatonin is a sleep hormone. When you lie down at night, melatonin is the hormone that helps you get to sleep. Sometimes I'll see someone that's not respecting photo periods. What that means is when the sun goes down they are creating artificially light environment so they're turning on the lights. The classic one is you've got really bright bulbs around your bathroom mirror where you clean your teeth the last thing at night. What you're doing is you're sending a message to your brain that says, "Hey, it's daytime. Let's get up and go." From a hormonal perspective, that means a decreased production of the hormone, melatonin.
Really, what I normally see on these tests are very low melatonin because people don't know about this. But yours is good. Yours is 26 points. I like to see anything over 20 so that's good.
Jordan: Yeah, that one, as far as what I know about melatonin, it's the one that kind of confused me because I do have the trouble getting to actually sleep at night.
Christopher: Oh, really?
Jordan: If I go to bed at 10:30 and I turn the lights out, I'm still not asleep by that time.
Christopher: You're not taking melatonin as a supplement, are you?
Jordan: No, I'm not.
Christopher: Okay.
Jordan: I have used it rarely in the past but I've actually really struggled with getting up for like 5:30 in the morning, work out when I have taken it. It almost feels like I'm much too lethargic.
Christopher: Right Yeah. Maybe this is low melatonin for you then. What's normal for some people -- perhaps you're not as sensitive to melatonin as you could be and that's what's going on here. That's interesting. It sounds like we've still got some detective work to do. We'll figure this out.
Jordan: Yeah.
Christopher: The final number is testosterone. Everybody knows what testosterone is. Really important for an athlete. It's involved in building new lean muscle tissue. It's involved in your attitude so it makes you more aggressive. It makes you go seeking. I'm sure you'll agree that without a go seeking and somewhat kind of aggressive nature, you're not going to be winning any races any time soon, right? So this is important. I look for 100 points and yours is 98 which is great. It's kind of what you'd expect in a 28-year-old. It's not like you're a 53-year-old masters athlete or anything.
If I was to just look at this result, the whole result on paper, I would say, hey, this guy's fine. He's got low cortisol but his DHEA is high, is good. His testosterone is normal. Normally, what I see in endurance athletes is very low testosterone. Sometimes I see it in the 20s and 30s and so at that point the libido is completely gone. They don't really have a desire to train anymore although they may still be training because that's just what they do. They're certainly not making any gains in the gym. If they go to the gym and lift some weights then they don't really see any real results from that. That's not what we're seeing here. Your case is a lot more complex I think than what I normally see. We should do some further investigation to figure that out.
Jordan: Yeah.
Christopher: Tell me, just a quick last question, how is your digestion? Do you ever get any like problems with digestion like gas or bloating, diarrhea, or constipation, anything like that?
Jordan: No.
Christopher: No.
Jordan: Not at all really. I'm pretty regular all the time.
Christopher: That's good. Okay. So, yeah, what we should do is -- how often do you get blood drawn?
Jordan: I've had it done in the past. Generally, it's a reactionary thing, right? Man, I feel horrible. I need to go see if there's any markers that are kind of outstanding and whatnot. But I've had it at least -- I think I had it drawn twice last year and once the year before that.
[0:30:20]
Christopher: Okay. Yeah. It'd be really interesting if you could send me that last blood draw or even all of the data. Most people can get this done through their doctor for not very much money. Is that the case for you? Can you just go and get it done again?
Jordan: Yeah. I shouldn't have too much trouble in that.
Christopher: Yeah, so do that. My point is I want to continue this investigation and try and figure out why the cortisol is low. This is the only thing so you can see on the blood chemistry that could be helpful. We can look at that and try and figure out what's going on with the cortisol and DHEA here. The other thing that I would like to do for you is I'll send you an organic acids -- a urine test.
Jordan: Yup.
Christopher: I'll link to this in the notes for this show but I've talked about it on the Ben Greenfield podcast. I won't go to too much detail now but basically the organic acids is incredible test that just really lifts the layers on what's going on inside your body right now. If there's a problem with energy production or with fat burning then you'll see it on the organic acids.
What that really means is at the cellular level you can actually see what's going on for each individual cell. When you think about it, the tissue and organs and muscles and systems of your body are all just made of cells and so if you can fix problems at the cellular level, you then tend to fix problems at the much higher level too so super cool test.
We'll see what's going on and then we'll also see what's going on with your neurotransmitter turnover as well which will be super interesting for you. And your B vitamins as well. When anyone says "vegan," I'm thinking about B vitamins because I know how hard they can be to get in your diet as a vegan and that will affect all sorts of things including the formation of red blood cells and energy production. Almost every single biochemical pathway inside your body requires the B vitamins so that would be a really interesting part of the test --
Jordan: Yeah. I have noticed that on the days that I have supplemented with just even a B12 spray that I feel a lot more balanced throughout the day.
Christopher: Ooh. Interesting.
Jordan: Yes. That's definitely something that kind of comes into that equation. But, like I said, when you kind of live by yourself and you're trying to take care of your nutrition, there's no doubt that you're going to have shortcomings despite how hard you try on that side of things. But it is kind of interesting when you equate what real nutrition is based to what you can actually I guess metabolize out of cheaper foods and foods that don't cost as much. I've noticed such a huge difference sometimes when I travel to California and eat from farmers' markets and very natural, raw foods that you almost feel a little bit vibed up.
The other thing I'd like to mention -- and maybe you can speak to this -- is that I live in Calgary, Alberta. Calgary right now, this year has been probably one of our best winters that I've ever seen. But we do still have points where, when it gets cold, we'll have cold snaps that are -20 degrees Celsius for like two weeks at a time. You almost feel -- everyone almost feels depressed but I feel like my vitamin D is very susceptible to certain things. I've had it where I've gone and done training inside here in Calgary, done 400 repeats or 800 repeats and then gone to California two days later and done the same set within two days and seen a substantial difference even in workout, even in those times. Honestly, changing environments like that where you go from something like this to a very sunny environment, I've noticed that my -- I almost feel, I don't know how to explain, almost feel like you're vibed. You have too much energy once you get into that environment coming from an environment where you don't see that.
I love to get out and run the mountains and snowshoe the mountains. Some of those days where you get a blue sky and you go out, I feel like I'll go run for three or four hours and feel just amazing. Other times, you run in the treadmill for the third day in a row and struggling to get through a 40-minute run.
[0:35:09]
Christopher: Yeah, I know. You really are up against it for a number of reasons. The first is your demands for all of the nutrients are going to be really high. So you're doing an incredible volume of training and intensity relative to the average guy on the street and so you're just going to need much more of everything like vitamin B12. You're going to need more, even me, let alone some average Joe on the street so RDAs mean nothing to you at all.
I've been to Calgary. I know what it's like. It's really cold and it's really dark. It's probably dark at like three or four o'clock in the afternoon there right now. Yeah, zero chance of you getting any vitamin D from the sun and so you must supplement I think like at least 2500 IUs per day which is actually quite hard to get from say a multi alone unless you're taking one like the Thorne EXOS has got that much vitamin D in it. But, in general, they don't so that's something you're definitely going to have to think about.
The way to tackle this problem is just to test. I'm hoping that your old blood chemistry has 25-hydroxy vitamin D. If it doesn't, then certainly get that. Make sure that's on the new blood chemistry because that really is a deal breaker. Every cell has a receptor for vitamin D and so nothing is going to work right if you have very low levels of vitamin D. We should definitely check on that.
Jordan: Yeah. I think that would be a great place. I haven't done that in the past. I've always been curious as to if supplementing that way is going to show you the differences that you see from sunlight.
Christopher: Right. Yeah, I know. It's definitely much tougher. On a sunny day in California, you can probably spend ten minutes in the sun and generate as much vitamin D as you can get from a lifetime of [0:37:00] [Indiscernible]. No, not quite true but a lot of supplements. So, yeah, it's not as good but what can you do? It's hard.
The other thing I was thinking about with that is just trying to train and train your photo periods. What I mean by that is getting some bright light first thing in the morning. It doesn't have to be natural light so you can get one of those light boxes from amazon.com, these 10,000 LUX light boxes for about $50, $60, $70.
Jordan: Oh, really?
Christopher: Just eat your breakfast in front of one of these really bright lights so it's just sending that message to your brain first thing in the morning: Okay, it's daytime now. Then last thing at night, the BluBlocker glasses and no iPhones, no iPads in bed, any of that stuff. It doesn't take that long to entrain your circadian rhythm and that should also help with your sleep. That's something you can get on right away.
But, yeah, I'll get you a test kit out. You should do the urine test and then get on the blood thing and then we'll reconvene and talk about some of the next results.
Jordan: Yeah. Actually, I run a social media account as a part-time job for a couple of different companies. A lot of the times I'm working. I’m starting to work on those at 9:00 p.m. and I don't finish until 10:00 p.m. at least.
Christopher: Okay. So you are really --
Jordan: That's in front of my computer. It's actually very activating activity because you're having to think creatively.
Christopher: Uh-hmm.
Jordan: So I feel like there's a definite correlation there. Just given that you've re-emphasized it, it might be the type of thing that I want to reschedule my day to try to take care of those jobs earlier.
Christopher: Yeah, that would be ideal. There's another thing you can do which is install the app called f.lux. F.lux is a little utility that sits in your toolbar and adjusts the color of the display based on the time of day. So you tell it where you are in the world and then as the end of the day approaches, it starts to remove the blue component of the color in your display so the screen looks like it's turning orange and then it gets quite darkened orange.
What that's doing is it's just removing that blue component in it. It's the blue component that suppresses the production of melatonin. So that one change alone can be quite helpful but you're still not getting away from the fact that it's a stimulating activity and a stimulating activity is not what you want 30 minutes before you go to bed. So, yeah, it's a lifestyle problem for sure.
Jordan: Yeah. Great. That's very informative and definitely something I'll look into. Sorry. Just for you and your listeners, f.lux, is that a desktop application or is that a mobile, like on the App Store?
Christopher: I think it's both but I don't think it's available on the iPhone.
Jordan: Oh, okay.
Christopher: I'm pretty sure I had it. I used to have an Android phone and I had it but I don't think it's available on the iPhone but it's definitely available in the desktop and it's definitely available on the Mac, on the desktop. I've got it installed on this Mac here.
[0:40:11]
Jordan: That sounds phenomenal. I'll check that one out as well.
Christopher: Okay. Cool. All right then, Jordan. Thank you for your time today. Do you mind if I put your results on the website so that people can see them?
Jordan: Not at all.
Christopher: Cool.
Jordan: Sounds great.
Christopher: That's exciting. So, yeah, we'll continue this investigation and then as soon as we've got some more results maybe we should do another interview and figure out what's going on here.
Jordan: Yeah, for sure. Sounds great.
Christopher: Okay. Cheers then.
Jordan: Yeah. Great talking to you. Thanks for your help today, Chris.
Christopher: Okay. Bye-bye.
Jordan: All right. Bye-bye.
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