Hannah Went has a lifelong passion for longevity and breakthrough, disruptive technologies that drive radical improvement to the human condition. She attended the University of Kentucky and graduated with a degree in Biology. During that time, she had multiple research internships studying cell signaling and cell biology. After graduation, she worked for the International Peptide Society as their Director of Research and Content. Through work in the integrative medicine industry, Hannah saw an opportunity for methylation based age diagnostics and started TruDiagnostics in 2020. TruDiagnostic is a company focusing on methylation array-based diagnostics for life extension and preventive healthcare serving functional medicine providers. TruDiagnostic has a commitment to research with over 30 approved clinical trials investigating the epigenetic methylation changes of longevity and health interventions. Since TruDiagnostic’s inception, they have created one of the largest private epigenetic health databases in the world with over 75,000 patients tested to date. Hannah has since created Everything Epigenetics where she shares insights on how DNA regulation has an impact on your health. Hannah Went attended the University of Kentucky and graduated with a degree in Biology. After graduation, she then worked for the International Peptide Society as their Director of Research and Content. Through work in the integrative medicine industry, Hannah saw an opportunity for methylation based age diagnostics and started TruDiagnostic in 2020. Hannah has since created Everything Epigenetics where she shares insights on how DNA regulation has an impact on your health. I’ve had a lifelong passion for longevity and breakthrough, disruptive technologies that drive radical improvement to the human condition. In 2020, I saw an opportunity for methylation based age diagnostics and started TruDiagnostic. TruDiagnostic is a company focusing on methylation array-based diagnostics for life extension and preventive healthcare serving functional medicine providers. We have a commitment to research with over 30 approved clinical trials investigating the epigenetic methylation changes of longevity and health interventions. Since TruDiagnostic’s inception, we’ve created one of the largest private epigenetic health databases in the world with over 75,000 patients tested to date. I have since created Everything Epigenetics where I share research-backed insights on how DNA regulation has an impact on your health. With the background context above, my research interest centers around epigenetic DNA methylation as a biomarker to replace many of the traditional laboratory testing being used today and how we can use this testing to predict all cause-mortality and morbidity.
Hannah Went has a lifelong passion for longevity and breakthrough, disruptive technologies that drive radical improvement to the human condition. She attended the University of Kentucky and graduated with a degree in Biology. During that time, she had multiple research internships studying cell signaling and cell biology. After graduation, she worked for the International Peptide Society as their Director of Research and Content. Through work in the integrative medicine industry, Hannah saw an opportunity for methylation based age diagnostics and started TruDiagnostics in 2020. TruDiagnostic is a company focusing on methylation array-based diagnostics for life extension and preventive healthcare serving functional medicine providers. TruDiagnostic has a commitment to research with over 30 approved clinical trials investigating the epigenetic methylation changes of longevity and health interventions. Since TruDiagnostic’s inception, they have created one of the largest private epigenetic health databases in the world with over 75,000 patients tested to date. Hannah has since created Everything Epigenetics where she shares insights on how DNA regulation has an impact on your health.
Hannah Went attended the University of Kentucky and graduated with a degree in Biology. After graduation, she then worked for the International Peptide Society as their Director of Research and Content. Through work in the integrative medicine industry, Hannah saw an opportunity for methylation based age diagnostics and started TruDiagnostic in 2020. Hannah has since created Everything Epigenetics where she shares insights on how DNA regulation has an impact on your health.
I’ve had a lifelong passion for longevity and breakthrough, disruptive technologies that drive radical improvement to the human condition. In 2020, I saw an opportunity for methylation based age diagnostics and started TruDiagnostic. TruDiagnostic is a company focusing on methylation array-based diagnostics for life extension and preventive healthcare serving functional medicine providers. We have a commitment to research with over 30 approved clinical trials investigating the epigenetic methylation changes of longevity and health interventions. Since TruDiagnostic’s inception, we’ve created one of the largest private epigenetic health databases in the world with over 75,000 patients tested to date. I have since created Everything Epigenetics where I share research-backed insights on how DNA regulation has an impact on your health. With the background context above, my research interest centers around epigenetic DNA methylation as a biomarker to replace many of the traditional laboratory testing being used today and how we can use this testing to predict all cause-mortality and morbidity.
SHOWNOTES:
😴 What sparked Hannah’s shift from Pharmacy to Epigenetics
😴 What is Biological Aging?
😴 The Sleep-Aging connection
😴 How the science of biological aging redefine your approach to living a longer, healthier life?
😴 The silent force accelerating the aging process?
😴 Testing your Biological Age
😴 Fitness and Aging: Could the key to transforming your health be hidden in habits you haven’t even considered?
😴 What was Hannahi’s biggest AHA moment about managing her own sleep?
😴 Get Tested: Learn more about epigenetic testing at TruDiagnostic
😴 Discover More: Explore Hannah’s podcast Everything Epigenetics
😴 And many more!
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DISCLAIMER:
The information contained in this podcast, our website, newsletter, and the resources available for download are not intended to be medical or health advice and shall not be understood or construed as such. The information contained on these platforms is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
Welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of sleep as a skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about sleep.
sleep. Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness.
And I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.
Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. Today, we're going to be talking all things epigenetics and sleep. I promise this will make a lot more sense by the time you finish this episode. So a little bit about our guests in this episode of the Sleep is a Skill podcast. We welcome Hannah Wendt, an expert in the field of longevity and epigenetics with a degree in biology from the University of Kentucky and a background in sleep therapy.
Cell Signaling and Biology Research, Hanna has built her career around cutting edge technologies that improve the human condition. Hanna is a founder of Tru Diagnostic, a company revolutionizing healthcare through methylation based age diagnostics. Tru Diagnostics focuses on life extension and preventative care.
serving functional medicine providers with over 75, 000 patients tested and 30 plus approved clinical trials. The company boasts one of the largest private epigenetic health databases in the world. In addition to Tru diagnostic, Hannah created everything epigenetics where she shares research backed insights on how DNA regulation can help.
Impacts health and longevity. Her work centers on epigenetic DNA methylation as a predictive biomarker for mortality, morbidity, and overall health. Challenging the traditional approaches of laboratory testing. Join us as Hannah shares her deep expertise, groundbreaking research, and practical tips for optimizing health and longevity through epigenetics.
We're going to dive right into this episode. I know that was a lot to say, So I promise we're going to break that all down in the episode and really make it practical for how this can support your goals with your sleep and your health. But first, we're going to jump into a few words from our sponsors who really do keep this podcast running.
So please take a listen to what they offer. We only partner with companies that we actually utilize their products and services. So absolutely check out their website and what they're offering. It really makes a difference. Important question. Can you see the hand in front of your face in your bedroom?
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So again, go to uBlockout, spelled the letter U, uBlockout. And use code SLEEPASASKILL for a discount. And welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. This episode feels like it's long overdue. Hannah Wendt, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thanks, Molly. I'm so excited to chat with you and your listeners today.
Yes, me too. I know because I know we've been following each other for a while. Really admire all that you're doing. Just so innovative. And I'm excited for for selfishly for myself to get to learn more because I have so many questions. So, but before we dive into the nitty gritty, maybe we can start kind of pan out and understand how the heck did you get to the place that you are today?
And also maybe help us bridge the gap of how this could play a role in this conversation around sex. sleep. Yes, of course. So I'm originally from Dayton, Ohio. I moved to Lexington, Kentucky. Gosh, I've been here for about a decade now, which is crazy to say, but came to school here at University of Kentucky.
I've always been interested in science and the way the world works and I've just always been super determined and excited about new technologies. So after school, I actually took an interesting job at a compounding pharmacy and there, that was when I was like, Oh wow, there's this. An entire idea of, you know, health span, life span, not the sick care model, an actual true health care model where we were serving providers in the integrative functional medicine space that were all cash pay.
So I was like, wow, I never knew this existed. And we did some really cool products and developments there. Um, we always wanted more quantitative data though, behind those products and how they actually help people to give that data to regulators and do a lot more clinical trials. And You know, behind the scenes, we actually started creating Tru Diagnostic without knowing it by measuring biological aging.
Biological aging being that number one risk factor for all cause mortality and morbidity, basically the biggest risk factor that you have at any point in your entire lifetime. Um, we were using that as a way to gather data and say, okay, can these products, these unique peptide products and pharmaceuticals actually reverse this, this metric and to make a long story short, we ended up, you know, getting rid of the pharmacy, selling that and then converting to Tru diagnostic full time, looking at how your genes or DNA is regulated and expressed.
Wow, amazing. And why would, so for someone that's, you know, maybe new to this concept, why might we want to kind of get some of this information? What would be the practical application for this? Yeah. And to answer your question as well, like, yeah, why does this matter? Right. How does it actually connect?
And back to sleep. You're, you know, sleep is a scale podcast. So biological aging is really the progressive decline over time. Your physiological, your cellular function over time. Right. And this can increase our susceptibility to disease. It can reduce lifespan. And as we all know. Sleep plays a massive and critical role in influencing this biological aging processes.
So it acts as a fundamental mechanism that impacts aging, essentially every level, cellular, systemic level. So if we can understand the connection between sleep and biological aging, we can start to pick apart maybe insights or other things that we can learn about our sleep habits. affecting our longevity and overall health.
So they're actually really interconnected. Uh, sleep is one of my really big topics. It's one of, you know, the main four lifestyle factors that I talk about when I'm reviewing these results with patients. I always ask, how was your sleep, right? Are you tracking it? What are you doing to actually optimize it?
And there are some, Studies out there connecting the two that we can dig into. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love that you have such a focus on sleep. That's incredible. And yeah, maybe we can begin with some of those studies to kind of just link in how people can really be thinking about this newly, how this could apply in their own lives and the interest for them to kind of get some of this information.
Yeah, absolutely. So there's, um, a couple of connections just in terms of looking at the impact of sleep on, on biological aging. So, um, one of those, and we can talk about, you know, as many or as few as these as possible, but one of these that I think is super important is just talking about kind of cellular repair and maintenance, right?
During sleep, particularly, uh, particularly during, uh, deep sleep, the body undergoes a lot of significant repair and maintenance processes. We know how important deep sleep is, and that process includes a lot of synthesis of proteins, tissue growth and repair, clearance of metabolic waste products from the brain, um, especially beta amyloid, which can be implicated in Alzheimer's disease.
Sure. So, um, if you're not getting enough deep sleep, there is going to be that connection where you could have faster or accelerated biological aging. Um, and, and, you know, of course, there's many ways to, to measure biological aging. We actually measure it through epigenetic mechanisms or, you know, the regulation of your DNA, these on and off switches, but there, there are other connections with different.
biological aging as well. We know sleep facilitates the maintenance of telomere length. So telomeres being those protective ends or caps of your chromosomes and their length has previously been shown to be associated with cellular aging. And, you know, shorter telomeres are linked to premature cellular aging and increased disease risk.
And there are a lot of studies that have shown that poor sleep quality and short sleep duration are associated with shorter telomeres in certain states. So I think the cellular repair and the maintenance that you can really, um, get from proper sleep, um, is, is definitely understated. Yeah. Just as a quick tangent, you're making me think of a while back there had been these reports of, or speculation around a future where we could actually test our sleep age as well.
So meaning like how we're sleeping using AI and looking at potentially combing through PSGs and then seeing, well, where do you stack up? Are you 30 year old, but you're actually sleeping closer to whatever, 55 year old or something of that nature and how those things might interact. But anyway, quick tangent, but it just makes me think of how.
This age piece is important. And so maybe before we even get more nuanced for people, they're still like, wait, how does this even work? Could we just also to demonstrate for people how this, like if they're interested to learn more, what is the process for them to do this just so they can visualize this?
Oh, yeah, definitely. So, um, I, you know, Tru diagnostic. My company, we have a couple products that the flagship product we have is our complete kit. And what happens is you, we send you a kit, you get it in the mail. It's just a blood spot card finger prick. So you can do it in the comfort of your own home.
You register it online, you connect it with your information, ship it back to our lab in Lexington, Kentucky, and you get results back in about two to three weeks. Now what we actually do at the lab though, and what's really interesting is we measure about a million of these expression levels of your DNA.
So these expression levels can be changeable over time, which makes it really exciting. It's unlike your genes or your genetics where you know, those are not going to change over your lifetime. But we're measuring these expression levels and what we're really looking at and creating is more of like a fingerprint, right?
It's it's very specific and unique to you how you interact your behaviors essentially with your environment so we can even tell you things by looking at these markers Molly such as Where you live down to the zip code, how much alcohol you've consumed across your entire lifetime, how much you've smoked across your entire lifetime, right?
All of these really cool insights. Um, we could even come up with like a sleep score, like you mentioned, like a sleep algorithm according to your, your kind of epigenetic expression levels. Um, These markers, though, again, have gotten very much popularized with aging, just because that's really where it was first discovered and kind of the first connection, um, it, it had, but now it's really being used in all areas of medicine.
So I definitely thought about, you know, creating a sleep clock. You can look at particular genes that are associated with, you know, sleep outcomes and then. Just create a machine learning model or kind of AI model output from that. Okay. Well, stay tuned. So someone goes through this process, they get this feedback and they're either, they've discovered that the results are either kind of favorable or maybe not favorable.
That's maybe overly simplistic, but what are kind of some paths that might happen given the results that come back for people and as they relate to sleep, kind of working sleep into this equation? That's Yeah, definitely. So, you know, we give you many different aging outcomes. You know, you get kind of a biological age that's comparable to your chronological age and you may be older biologically.
If you're older biologically, you have increased risk of all cause mortality and morbidity. But the good news is, is that you can change this. Um, and if you are older, you know, we want to change this and I really like to address those lifestyle factors for us. So I mentioned, you know, sleep is one of the big ones.
I also really like to always highlight nutrition, diet, along with physical fitness or exercise and then stress as well. What is really interesting though, I think about sleep is obviously all four of them is. kind of epidemiological factors that I mentioned are connected with one another, but almost everything comes back to sleep in a way, right?
Um, you know, kind of the, if you talk about, um, your, your nutrition and your diet, right? Your timing of your eating is going to affect your sleep. Your stress levels are going to affect your sleep. And then your physical exercise and your regimen is all going to affect your sleep. They're all going to affect each other.
But I think sleep is, is one of kind of the, I don't know, maybe. One of the core, um, kind of ingredients of fixing. You are preaching to this choir over here. I mean, granted, I am very much biased, but I completely agree. That's incredible. So you feel like you really continue to see that? Or is there an emphasis to or, uh, discussion around sleep disorders?
You know, and since we're seeing so many people undiagnosed or they're kind of Indications that maybe their sleep is could use more support than just the generalized, you know, little tweaks. Yeah, definitely. And and You know, I know subjectively, we know sleep absolutely affects the biological aging process.
What's really sad, Molly, is that there are very few actual, like, clinical trials looking at sleep and epigenetics. We've tested, um, about 75, 000 people here at Tru Diagnostic. We ask, you know, questions on their registration survey on how much sleep they get, um, you know, if they have any of those sleep disorders, so we can look at some more trends and associations.
So this is definitely an un, underserved research area. Um, there's one study though in particular that, uh, sticks out and it's one where they looked at, um, kind of insomnia related events. So the more insomnia related, uh, kind of sleep symptoms that you had, that was obviously in, um, more associated with advanced or increased epigenetic aging after adjustments for covariates.
So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting. You think there would be more sleep here at the study I'm talking about in particular. They really just looked at the change in, uh, this biological age outcome over nine weeks and associated it with distinct differences in daily self reported sleep, you know, poorer sleep being associated with, again, acceleration of epigenetic aging, um, whereas, you know, better sleep is going to be associated with deaccelerated epigenetic aging.
So I think. That looked at more, um, quality sleep, right? You could say, but obviously I think that the quantity that the amount of sleep that you're getting as well, um, of course matters. Absolutely. Wow. Okay. So fascinating. And before you had mentioned to some of these studies that might be worth potentially diving into and curious if there's any in particular as it relates to sleep and I hear you because it sounds like there, there needs to be a lot more, maybe, maybe the part of the answer is there's still a missing, but are there certain ones that are of interest to you in this conversation?
Yeah, there, there was, um, you know, another study published looking more at just kind of the link between sleep and biological aging. So, um, there was a study that came out of, I believe, L. A. And in California that found that One night of partial sleep deprivation activates genes related to biological aging in older adults.
So again, it was a smaller kind of pilot trial, which is normal. And kind of these epigenetic trials, just because the amount of data we're measuring per person is massive millions, millions of positions. Um, so for this study in particular, They looked at 29 older adults between 61 years old and 86 years old, and they actually spent four nights in a sleep laboratory, which is pretty cool.
Um, and following two, uh, uninterrupted nights of sleep, participants were allowed to sleep between 11 PM and 3 AM and. You know, later awakened around 7 a. m. 8 a. m. So researchers were kind of monitoring their sleep with these purposeful kind of wake up periods and they were drawing their, their blood daily.
So what they actually saw is after a night of that deprived sleep, participants, uh, their, their blood sample actually showed deterioration. In the cells growth and division cycle. So again, going back to that cellular repair mechanism, I briefly mentioned at the beginning. Um, and again, I think researchers are going even as far as to say this isn't only correlation, but maybe causal, right?
We're causally linking sleep deprivation to molecular processes that are associated with biological aging, um, activating those molecular pathways that drive biological aging itself. So that one is really interesting because it's, um. You know, designed in a different way and looking at the actual kind of molecular markers, which are being changed through those, uh, awakened periods.
Wow. So fascinating. Today, I want to talk to you about something that often flies under the radar, but is absolutely crucial for great sleep. Minerals. Now you've heard me talk about circadian rhythms, light exposure, temperature control, and more, but let's dive into the foundational elements that fuel our body's ability to sleep deeply and restoratively specifically minerals.
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Beam's magnesium is sourced in a way that ensures maximum absorption and effectiveness, making it a key part of my sleep routine. But beam doesn't stop there. They've created a comprehensive blend that includes other vital minerals like potassium, calcium, and trace minerals that work synergistically to support your overall health.
And of course your sleep, the result, you wake up feeling more refreshed, more balanced. And ready to take on the day. So if you've been struggling with sleep and feel like you've tried everything, it might be time to look at what's happening on a cellular level. B minerals can help fill in those gaps and give your body the support it needs for truly restorative sleep.
So head on over to beam minerals spelled B E a M today and use the code sleep as a skill, all one word at checkout to get a special discount on your order, your body and your sleep will thank you. I'm on your website now, and for anyone listening to this, you should definitely check this out, uh, lots of interesting information, but there is that section, and you had mentioned about alcohol, and certainly, we see for, obviously, with sleep, such a hit, and correlation, maybe not in a, in a positive way, of, Poor sleep and its connection to alcohol use certainly for people that are tracking their sleep in some way, shape or form seem to really have that be one of their biggest takeaways often with trackers is wow, even just one drink can often show up in their results and it appears that you can get Quite nuanced in your understanding of people's habits as it relates to alcohol.
If I'm getting this correct, I wonder if you can share a little bit about that and how that could be useful for people looking to improve their overall health and sleep. Yeah, definitely. I actually had, I've never gotten this feedback for any of like, I work with our healthcare providers. You've seen our kids before, literally got it earlier this week.
They said the first outcome they look at on a report and this really surprised me was the alcohol consumption. Really? Because Yeah, it was so interesting to me. What, what we do with the alcohol consumption score is we basically compare how much you tell us you're drinking on the intake survey with what your epigenetic expression levels are telling us.
So they're completely independent of one another, right? We're just looking at your, your molecular data for the actual outcome. And we may say, Hey, you know, you answered that you drink one or two times per week, but your score is in like the 99th percentile showing us you drink regularly. And, you know, when I'm doing some report reviews with patients like that, they'll come back and be like, yeah, I have, you know, a drink of wine, um, you know, or, or two every night at dinner.
It really adds up. So what we know from an aging standpoint, how that's connected is people with alcohol use disorder, which, you know, I think sounds more than it actually is. It's just seven drinks a week for women and double that 14 drinks per week for men. They actually have a biological age acceleration of 2.
22 years. So if you're drinking, that's automatically going to shoot up your biological age. Okay. But we know if you are also, you know, consuming alcohol, it's going to disrupt those sleep patterns as well. So you're going to have just reduced sleep quality and efficiency, which again is going to lead to worse and biological aging over time.
You're going to have just particular sleep disturbances. So we really want to, you know, mitigate alcohol's effect on sleep, um, by obviously. Trying to moderate consumption or limit that, um, staying hydrated, working on the timing. Um, you know, there are some other alternative like relaxation techniques you may be able to use, but before bed, after you have a drink out with, with friends at dinner or something of this sort of like meditation or breathing exercises.
Um, but I, I mean, subjectively same thing goes for me. I don't have my whoop on right now, but I mean, I would wear my, my whoop, you know, have one drink. And I mean, I would. so surprised at how my, my metrics looked. It's, it just, it's insane. Insane. Totally. Yeah. And it's funny. I think that's so interesting that you said that in discussing this with your team hearing that that's one of the first things they go to, because as you say that it makes me think of how when we're going through people's stats for their sleep stats, now it's not necessarily like a order that's.
been discussed, but I will say it's one of the clearest things right away that you can see, particularly if we're talking about things like HRV, heart rate, respiratory rate, etc. That will often see just such egregious shifts that it almost always for the average user Is alcohol related to be that and so then we can at least pull that out and if that is the case, it's such a clear home run if we can just, you know, even mitigate some of that use or minimize or what have you.
So that is interesting because it's just such an important top down piece. It's going to make such a ripple effect. Love hearing that. So cool. Yeah. Okay, so there's that at play. But then you also have this fitness report, if I'm reading this correct, too. And that's certainly, of course, one of the things that is important for us to work with with people around their sleep.
Because for sleep, in the conversation of the way that we're looking at sleep, we're looking at sleep for performance. And so a lot of the people that we're interacting with, then they are looking a lot at that metric HRV, which I just said pointed to, and they are frustrated or they want to improve it or at a loss for what to do.
And certainly we do have a lot of research around, it's not the only way to impact HRV, but it's, we do have a large dearth of research around movement and HRV. So what are you seeing from that perspective, the, you know, when it comes back with your information? Yeah, the physical fitness report is really cool.
People are always like, how do you do this when this one is brought up? So we give you an age kind of based off of your physical fitness regimen, and that includes individual components of VO2 max, FEV1, grip strength and gait speed. So we can even quantify just by looking at your epigenetic expression levels.
those individual outcomes as well. So, you know, say we want to work on your HRRV and improve VO2 max, you can actually get a VO2 max score from taking our test. Um, so it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, again, looking at epigenetics, even just outside of aging in terms of other, other biomarkers we can predict. So, um, yeah, if, if people have, um, You know, a, a poor, a poor fitness score.
So their biological age, according to their fitness levels is above their chronological age. We may look at the individual components and say, well, and your VO two max and your FEV one look a little bit lower. We want to work on some more aerobic exercises, right? Things that are going to boost, um, uh, that, uh, kind of oxygen uptake, that lung capacity.
We were thinking more long distance hiking, biking. You know, swimming, uh, swimmers have a really great FAB1. If your grip strength and gait speed look to be a little bit more poor, we'll say, hey, you want to focus on anaerobic based exercise. So think more like HIIT workouts on the treadmill, um, weightlifting.
These are going to be more kind of short duration based exercises. Um, but of course, they're going to have that correlation with the weight. with sleep to me personally. I have a pretty poor HRV. Um, I'm always trying to do things to raise it. I mean, like, it's scary. I'm like, Oh, I should be dead type of thing.
Um, I'm like, I feel like I work out. I feel like I get good sleep. Right. Um, but again, diving into that and tracking it a little bit more to understand where I am. So, um, fitness and exercise. They're gonna have a profound relationship with sleep. They're, they're each going to influence each other in several ways, right?
Your physical activity, having that great HRV, it's going to enhance your sleep quality duration. Um, and then I think that the opposite is also true, right? I know if I'm, I like to lift weights, you know, pretty regularly during the week. Um, but If I'm not getting the rest in the recovery and the sleep part, that's what's actually going to improve my physical performance, my muscle recovery, just overall fitness.
Um, and I know, you know, I'm, I'm bringing it back to the alcohol. If you're drinking alcohol the night before, you know, you're getting poor sleep. You're not going to want to go exercise in the morning. You're not going to get that cellular repair and recovery that we were talking about. So again, it all kind of comes back to this like feedback loop.
It all feeds back into sleep. Yes, absolutely. And I love your share about HRV and for anyone that's listening, I don't mean to be overly reductive or anything about HRV because of course it's dynamic and it's moving and I don't want, you know, people to be left with like, Oh my God, I have a bad HRV, which we hear people go to and I'm sure yours is totally fine.
And yet I know I hear you. Like it's. We can have these periods of time and it can act as such a great kind of sounding of the alarm actually. So I'm, I believe I'm going to be actually testing with you all. And I'm kind of nervous about what my fitness report will come back to cause that's been part of the area that I'm really looking to up level now because there's a whole stretch of time for me with workload where what was I letting go?
What was fitness, which is not. Great at all. We'll see what numbers come back, but I hear you. So it's can maybe be and maybe that's an interesting check in. Like, do you see people testing what kind of frequency to maybe potentially gamify this? Like they come back with these numbers and it's not like you're stuck with it.
We can do things to transform some of these. What kind of cadence do you suggest for people? Yeah. And of course, it all comes back to tracking, right? Everyone's heard you can't manage what you don't measure. And people take this test and again. Why I think that health care provider started with the alcohol report is because it's, it's something like tangible, right?
They see it and they're like, Oh, wow. And I'm sure you get the same results when people go on your program and they're doing the trackers and really looking at everything from more of a more data driven. Standpoint. Um, so from a retesting window, you're, you know, you're exactly right. These aren't stagnant.
They're, they're definitely due to change if you're going to, to make changes and put in the work. So usually people are doing the test probably every, at least every year or so. Okay. You can do it every six months. You can even do kind of our smaller package, um, every two to three months, if you really want to make changes and test more of that end of one precision based medicine.
You know, I always like to say that the first test is great, right? You're, you're You're caring about your health. You're getting your foot in the door. But the second test matters more than the first and the third more than the second. And you know, so on and so forth, just like your hormones, your CBC panel, right?
You want to just measure those ones. Those are so important to your overall health. Same thing as it kind of relates to these aging outcomes is we do want to test them or check up on them, them regularly. So true. Oh my gosh. Okay. So I'm curious, just even, and maybe this is just some of the things that you've seen or anecdotally, but have there been instances where you've been like surprised in people's ability to really turn things around on some of their, they came back, they had a particular first test.
And then that second test, like you were speaking to. Have there been instances where people are really able to, with velocity, shift things? And if so, are there like big needle movers that you've really seen make such a profound difference? Yeah, definitely. There's, there's one case study that will like always be ingrained in, in my mind.
I remember it was a healthcare provider, her husband, who was, you know, I hate to say that that's even like the first word I think of like in terms of like a traditional like high powered, you know, um, male who was running the business and was super successful, but you know, it's health with decline, right?
It's kind of, um, a lot of people that we see in this space who are just like over functioning and really, really hard workers, uh, business owners. He took the test, you know, got pretty awful results back all around. And, um, he kind of went through his wife's. Program, um, which was, I would say probably more like holistic focused, like definitely focused more on like the lifestyle factors and finding like the root core of, of kind of why things are happening and questioning again, more like daily habitual routines.
So he came back tested, um, two years later, he actually stepped away from his company, um, which not all people can do, but down became a more of like a board member or advisor. Sarah. Um, started playing golf, getting outside more, started to have more of like that social aspect, which probably improved a lot of the quality of his relationship, um, which I'm sure extended into, you know, his family and he had two children as well.
Um, and then just started to take, you know, a little bit of supplements, um, nothing huge from like a medication or procedural based standpoint. This was all purely a lifestyle and a couple of supplements he was deficient in. I think there were some. immune markers that didn't look great on his report. So, you know, getting more, more sun, vitamin D, some zinc, C, glutathione, uh, when, when necessary.
But, um, after that two year mark, um, I mean, he completely reversed all of his metrics and he still follows up with me to this day, just talking about like how profound this testing was and he'll test regularly. Uh, regularly, regularly to about, um, between like every nine and 12 months. So he, he goes a little bit longer.
So that's when that really sticks out. I know it's not as exciting because most people want to hear like the larger, like medications or procedural based things. But I'm telling you, and according to the interventional data that's published people, um, the lifestyle factors, like they are beating a lot of those, those supplements.
It doesn't mean supplements aren't important. I mean, You know, but this isn't a replacement for measuring your your vitamin levels. This is definitely an addition Ah so well said yeah We find that so commonly with sleep that you just can't divorce some of these components of choices in your life whether it's your your work, your purpose or lack of purpose.
We see this with retirees a lot. You know, they had a reason to get up in the morning and then they retire and then they don't have that. We see a dramatic shift often in their sleep. You know, there's just so much there that can get nuanced that just harder and less of what people often want to hear.
Usually they want to hear, well, just give me this up a little bit or the stack or, you know, the formula. Uh, but sometimes it can take a little bit of that soul searching. So love hearing that. So you've seen some of these instances, so that's very encouraging, you know, we say sleep is a skill, but it sounds like we can have aging as a skill as well.
So it's not like we're stuck with these results. We can just kind of keep course correcting. Are there other things that you generally, so when people get back some of these results that are just right away, things that you suggest for them to bring in to their lifestyle that we didn't touch on, or do we cover most of those?
Yeah, I think, you know, we obviously sleep optimization, nutrition, diet optimization, physical fitness, um, stress, um, you know, is, is huge as well. That's something that I've been focusing on personally. Right. I'm, I'm a very, I like to be In a little bit of everything always trying new things, you know, very active Yeah, but I actually, you know just got uh certified in transcendental meditation Uh, which has like really been helping.
Yeah I might need to talk to you about that. I gotta bring that back into my life. I'd done that years ago and I think Absolutely have been seeing in my own lifestyle that I gotta Bring it right back. So thanks for that reminder. What are you seeing with that? Is that part, so that's something you're bringing into your life with the structures, the two sessions a day, that sort of thing?
Yeah, absolutely. So I, at first, just during the new year, I was like, I just need, you know, time to myself outside of everything off the screen. Like, Yes. Before I start my day when I end my day and I mean, I'm definitely not perfect and so missing sessions, but um, Then I actually got certified I think, uh, like march um, which again makes it a little bit more like serious you go through this course you get a mantra you kind of have a guide and Um, yeah, I've definitely, you know, been committing to it.
It's, it's harder when, when you're traveling, but if you just carve time out for it, I mean, I do just notice like subjectively an overall feeling of just awakeness, like peacefulness in the morning, like super refreshed, ready to start my day. Um, recharged. Um, and at night it does, I, I feel, um, help with like the wind down.
It's, it's harder for me to do at night with timing with like dinner and, and, you know, certain things. But when I do do it before bed, um, I'll, I'll just like, You know, you're supposed to sit up while you're doing it and then I'll just lay down after kind of the the 20 minutes And it just kind of puts me right to sleep almost it's very like Yeah, so it has helped.
I really do think it has I love that. Oh my gosh. Well actually kind of maybe perfectly segwayed us to the time in the podcast where we find out how our guests are managing their own sleep. But before we get into that, is there anything that we didn't touch on? I know this is a big topic and we're just kind of skimming the surface, but is there anything as it relates to sleep and this look at your epigenetic health and well being and testing and the age component?
Is there anything we left out? You know, I think I think we covered a lot of it. I mean, I can pay attention to this in the future. Like Molly, what you said with creating the clock around like sleep age. I mean, there's a ton of biomarkers related to sleep, right? You have your circadian clock gene, you have your stress and your neuroplasticity.
your metabolic regulation genes. All of those kind of epigenetic expression levels can be used and combined to create a sleep score. Um, I think eventually, and then even tell you, you know, which genes look a little bit off and what you need to work on to actually optimize that overall, uh, genetic expression.
So I don't think it's, it's. You know, too far out. Um, but just very exciting and something to, to keep on the horizon. There's, there's even, you know, clocks looking at like skin age. Um, right. Like how would you look according to your skin? There's definitely going to be one, uh, on, on how old you are, according to how well of a sleeper you are too.
Oh, my gosh. So cool. Okay. Well, always on the cutting edge. I love it. And then considering you have clearly thought deeply and you're in the trenches and these topics of health in a way that not many people are so very excited to learn how you're managing your own sleep. So let's get Our first question that we ask everyone is what is your nightly sleep routine looking like right now?
I know you already touched on, it sounds like there will be times where you might indulge in a transcendentalist meditation or what have you, but so maybe diving in a bit more on what your evenings look like. Yeah, definitely. Um, I love to wind down as early as possible. Um, I, I am a, yeah, I go, go to bed or start to relax, you super, super early.
Um, and you know, even have like, I think my phone is on do not disturb like all the time anyways, but I have kind of that, um, downtime thing on at 8 p. m. No one can hear from me, you know, past 8 p. m. Essentially, I'm not, I'm not usually actively checking my phone. I'm not, you know, scrolling on app. Of course, there's always, you know, some exception.
Um, try to, you know, start to turn screens off as well. No TV. Um, definitely trying to pick up more books and read during that time, like the hour before I go to bed. Um, but, um, yeah, so, so, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to kind of, yeah, get off the screens and do it. But then once you do it and you're like in the book and you know, you're, you're connected with the book, you're like, why haven't I been doing this type of thing?
It's almost like it's missing out of your routine. So, um, yeah, definitely try to, to cut out the screens early. Um, you know, eat at least three hours before I'm going to bed as well. I'll usually come home from work, um, you know, Cook dinner around 5 or 6 p. m. Um, finish eating by around, you know, 7, 7 30 start to wind down and yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm in bed like I think I was in bed last night at like maybe like 8 45, 9 o'clock.
Like I'm not kidding. It's early. I love it. But I just prefer it because I get up super early. I'm more of a morning person. Amazing. Okay. That's so great. Has that been an evolution or has it always been sort of like that as far as the timing or where are you at there? Yeah, I would say definitely an evolution.
I mean, you know, during like high school, college age, of course, I would say I'm more with like friends You know, doing different events and things like that. But I, I genuinely love like, being at home more, especially during like weeknights. Yeah, I'm gonna go out tonight for, for dinner. It's actually, it's my birthday today, so Oh my gosh.
Should be right Dinner, which is an exception. Fun. Okay. Thank Live it up . So, yeah. You know, we'll try and try and get home and again, go to bed. Early and get ready and start for the day, but definitely an evolution, right? Um, I think you know, I would have never imagined myself doing like the the meditation class when I was younger anything like that So that being part of the practice, uh has been I think a huge benefit to my sleep Oh, I love that.
No, i'm glad you mentioned the tm because you're reminding me you're hitting me at a time where I've been playing with different modalities, but I've actually, I think longing to go back to the basics, which I think for me, TM is such a beautiful example of that. It's like devoid of the apps and the, this and the, that, right.
And it's just almost like has. Stood the test of time, and there's research behind TM that's pretty compelling, and, you know, so I've been delving into a lot of hypnosis lately, which has been great, been a big fan of that, and, you know, different looks, you know, vagus nerve stimulation, all those things, wonderful, but I think there's something really powerful about just the sitting and being that TM brings about that I think I try to fight, like I want to add all these extra bells and whistles, you know, so I love that.
Yeah. For sure. And I always ask people to when whenever I mentioned that and they're asking questions about it. I'm like, just think of like the last time you just sat with yourself. I mean that like you just like went and sat in like the grass and like stared at the backyard or just like sat on your porch.
I mean literally just anywhere in the middle of your room with like No extra like stimulation, stimulate, and you know, no external factors or anything bothering you. And whenever I ask people that, I mean, they, they can't like give an answer, which is crazy. I don't think I could have before, you know, getting certified with TM too.
So it's interesting. So good. Okay. Well, thanks for this. You've been very inspiring for me on this conversation. I gotta bring that back So that's a little snapshot of your evenings. And how about your mornings? What might we see there? Yeah, so this this morning I I was great. I was like, i'm gonna start, you know, birthday off.
Um, And run with it. Have a great day, but woke up at uh, 5 45 Just, I kind of just like slide out of bed, sit on my floor, do the transcendental meditation, got up, went to the gym, um, did, um, yeah, Stairmaster, uh, what else did I do? Strength, yeah, some strength training, come back and eat, uh, you know, super high protein breakfast.
Um, I do need to get, I think, some more sunlight in the morning and I think that's one thing I'm missing. Maybe we need some accountability. I'll do TM. You get the sunlight. It'll be great. There we go, there we go. Even, you know, yeah, just, you know, going outside because it's so, it's so light now, obviously, here, um, during the summer, so, even just like walking, um, around the neighborhood before like driving to the gym or something, so that's something I, I have wanted to change or have wanted to incorporate that I haven't done yet that I think would be really nice.
Oh, absolutely. Okay. Fantastic. Love that. And then what might we see on your nightstand or beyond, you know, maybe ambience, things in your environment or if you're traveling that you might bring as it relates to sleep? Yeah, I would have, let's see my book on my nightstand, depending on what I'm reading. I do have my lamp as well.
I don't think I have like sleep. Friendly like light. Uh, I need to look into that as well. Molly get your advice there. Listen, I'm telling you I think we got some real things to we will work on the light. I'll work on the mindfulness. It's gonna be great Yeah, yeah, I mean I need to really work on the light, you know, I have been incorporating especially since i've been traveling and doing um, uh some international travels lately the eye mask, of course, like those are Killer.
Um, especially, you know, during the, the overnight flights when changing like time zones and whatnot. Um, I don't have, yeah. So, so I definitely, um, really, really like the, the, I ask, I don't necessarily, um, need like the earplugs or, or anything. My problem, if anything, is I may fall asleep too fast sometimes.
Right. Other than that, I feel like I'm a, I'm a good sleeper, but sometimes I think it's a lot of like stress or again, Too much where I can fall asleep sometimes too fast. Mm hmm. Oh, yeah, absolutely And we do see that so commonly and you've been tested for sleep disorders, or no, I haven't maybe we can get you a test I would love that.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we're gonna have to we'll chat more after so love Such a like minded kind of interest in some of these things. So fantastic Okay, and then the last question would be from Today, what would you say has made the biggest change to your sleep game or set another way, maybe biggest aha moment in managing your own sleep?
Yeah, so I'm gonna get back to the TM again. Um, it wasn't necessarily that the TM, I think that triggered it though, but I had an app, uh, actually called Othership. So they're great. Yeah, we have them on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, who'd you, who'd you have? Um, Robby. Robby. Yes. Yes. He's part of a larger group.
I'm in called Opscotch, which is just kind of this, um, yeah, health and well being company. And it's like a lot of entrepreneurs and, you know, connecting you with like minded people. And, um, he's like, Hey, I'll let you use the app for free for a year. And it was like, great. That's awesome. Because my goal was, Hey, I just feel so Yeah, maybe, um, two like wired before going to bed.
I want to relax and whatnot. So I downloaded that app and did like the breathing exercises and the, like a little bit of mindfulness, but it's mostly focusing on breathing exercises and like the box press and whatnot. And that was like the biggest aha moment where I was like. Okay, this is starting to work.
Like I need to take this to the next level. And that's where I started to go down this rabbit hole of Googling and like TM. And, you know, how can I take this a little bit further? Oh my gosh, you've inspired me. All right. I think I might be getting, uh, certified in transcendental meditation about the end of this conversation.
So good. So amazing. Okay, so that mindfulness piece being such a important component for you and showing up in your sleep results. So to date for you, that's made some of the biggest change. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Definitely the mindfulness. And then again, I think that that grows out to every area of your your life as well, right?
Like, yes, um, the, you know, yeah, the as cliche as it sounds, but like, just understanding, you know, how much you have and you get a lot of gratitude from it, right? And kind of just entering the day with like a positive mindset, um, I think makes a world of a difference. Oh, I love it. So good. Okay. So again, I know that this is just like a little snapshot of all that's available out of the work that you do.
And so for the people listening that they want to learn more, they want to understand a bit more in depth and want to get tested themselves. What are the best ways they can do that and to follow you and your work? Yes, absolutely. If anyone wants to get tested, go to trudiagnostic. com. So it's T R U and then diagnostic is singular.
We're on all the social media platforms and I'd love to hear from anyone and everyone. So you're happy to, you know, shoot me a message. Um, I have my own platform and podcast, Everything Epigenetics as well, where I talk about the paradigm shift epigenetics is causing and just healthcare, traditional medicine, lab testing itself.
So you can Feel free to follow, listen, or message me on there and happy to engage in any further conversation. So great. Uh, so important. The work you're doing and information that you're getting out. So, so appreciate you taking the time and really thank you for, you know, really just having your commitment to people being able to have this level of agency around their health and well being.
It's not just aging and stuff. Seeing how it goes, it's that you get to be in the driver's seat, which is something that I think we're so aligned on is that opportunity for agency. So great. Absolutely. Thanks, Molly. I had so much fun. Oh, thank you.
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