“I Am Always The Most Grateful For Health”
This episode is all about whether or not women should be biohacking the same as men.
Lauren Berlingeri studied at The Institute of Integrative Nutrition where she became a certified holistic nutritionist and health coach. Lauren is a Canadian host, fitness expert and international model. She was the star of the popular web series “Woman Vs. Workout” which grossed over 15 million views. She has been featured in Women’s Health Magazine, Shape Magazine, and Fitness Magazine.
In this podcast, Are Women Biohackers By Nature, we cover:
- How biohackers are trying to upgrade their brains and their bodies
- The effects of cold plunges in relation to hormonal cycles
- How different light exposures can improve your wellbeing
- The idea that you can fake a fever with infrared saunas
- How red light can be super beneficial to your health
What Does It Mean To Be a Biohacker?
When we use the term biohacking, we mean learning as much as we can about your body and how it works. Looking into your genetics can tell you so much about yourself and explain issues that your ancestors have been trying to figure out for years. Biohacking can mean taking something out of your life completely if you learn it is bad for you or using it to reset from pollutants that we can’t avoid. For example, we are exposed to so much blue light, which is not normal and makes it hard to sync up to the earth’s natural cycles. So biohacking is a way to recover from our busy, crazy lifestyles.
Should Women Use Cold Plunges as a Biohack?
Cold plunges are a popular biohack for many people. Cold plunges can have many benefits, but women should be careful and listen to how their body reacts. Lauren explains if she plunges for more than 3 minutes, it can be hard to warm her body back up. She says that cold plunges are best for her after her period and up to ovulation because that’s when she is the most strong and energetic. Why? Well, her estrogen levels are the lowest during that phase. However, Lauren clarifies that her business partner (also a woman) loves cold plunging and can do them often without any issue of warming her body back up. This is a good example of biohacking because you have to listen to your body as an individual.
Good Light vs. Bad Light
Exposure to light is one of the most important things, especially if you get seasonal affective disorder or your mood naturally is affected by not getting enough sunlight exposure. First and foremost, try to get your exposure to natural light in a healthy dose to get your vitamin D and set your circadian rhythm by watching the sun come up and go down. Especially if you spend a lot of time in front of your computer or phone, it is a regenerative way to balance all that negative blue light. Infrared saunas and light therapy can also be a huge help if you live somewhere where it can be hard to get natural sunlight.
Mimicking a Fever With an Infrared Sauna
What infrared does is it mimics a fever in the body. This is because the infrared sauna heats your core body temperature. Much like if you had a fever, your core body temperature gets hotter, and then you start to sweat. In traditional saunas that heat the air, it’s a much more superficial way of heating the body, much more aggressive, so you feel extremely tired and lethargic in there. Versus in an infrared sauna, you actually feel quite energized and good because you’re getting a workout without working out. It’s a much more gentle and effective way of heating the body. When your body thinks it has a fever, it is also able to boost your immunity and detoxify heavy metals, radiation, and environmental pollutants out of your fat cells.
The Benefits of Red Light
There are so many great studies on various aspects of red light especially depending on where you shine it and at what frequency. One of the benefits is on the thyroid, especially if you are exposed to a lot of blue light. Red light is also extremely beneficial for the skin. It is so great for so many different things because red light feeds your cells’ mitochondria, helping them produce energy and overall improving the function of your cells. This means it can be beneficial for any cell type, helping heal all over the body!
Lauren Berlingeri 0:00
try to get you know your exposure to natural light and a healthy dose to get that vitamin D and then also to set your circadian rhythm by, you know, trying to watch the sun come up and the sun go down. That’s been like such a huge hack for me.
Dr. Mindy 0:17
resetera is Dr. Mindy here and I am on a mission to teach you just how powerful your body was built to be. This podcast is about giving you the power back and helping you believe in yourself again, let’s jump in. On this episode of The recenter podcast. I bring you Lauren Berlin, Jerry. Now why I wanted to bring Lauren to you all is that she is the co founder of a company called higher dose and they are at home biohacking equipment. That is phenomenal. And one of the questions that I have been asking myself for a pretty significant period of time is should women be biohacking the same as men, it’s just like the way we eat just like fasting exercise should biohacking equipment like red light therapy and infrared sauna and PMF mats and hyperbaric oxygen, should that all be timed to our cycle. So I wanted to bring Lauren on to talk about what her company has discovered. She has a spa in New York City. So she has been using this equipment on women for a pretty significant period of time. And she had some real insight into how women should biohack. Now what I wanted to make sure that I did in this conversation was always ask her for what the free version of the bio hack was. So we went into different light therapies. We went into heat hot cold, we talked about cold plunges, who shouldn’t women be doing cold plunges. We talked about frequencies specifically around the PMF mat, and how women should be doing this, when they should we should be doing it and how long we should be doing it. And what kind of conditions should we be using these pieces of equipment for and what our free versions were that were available to us. It is such a rich conversation. So if you are interested in knowing how to hack into your hormones, and be able to accelerate your health, this is an incredible conversation, whether you’re interested in the equipment or not. We go through so much science, we go through hormones, we go through so many wonderful ways that a woman can maximize her hormonal profile. And it was it was a real joy to talk to Lauren, so excited to bring to you, Lauren, Berlin, Jerry, and how women should biohack. Let’s talk about hormones. So what I’ve noticed in working with so many women, is that we really don’t understand what our hormones do for us. And we also don’t understand how our body makes hormones. So I want to give you a little bit of an education here, there is making the hormone which happens from the connection from your brain to your ovaries, there is metabolizing the hormone which happens in the liver and the gut. And then there’s using the hormones, which happens at a cellular level. So in order for you to be hormonally balanced, you need to have all three of those pieces working well. It’s not enough just to throw a hormone at your body. You’ve got to help it through those three things. So this is why I flippin love Organa fies harmony product because they know this when they put this together, they have prebiotic fibers in it, which is amazing for your estrogen alone. That’s the set of bacteria that breaks down estrogen. They put in support like Chasteberry and mocca to help you make progesterone which you guys hopefully know how much I love progesterone how much I miss her since I’ve gone through menopause. Progesterone is that hormone that calms us. So Organa fies figured that out and they’ve put in nutrients that will help you make more progesterone so you can feel calm. They’ve also put in nutrients that support the liver help with a little cleansing of the liver so you can break estrogen down. And they have a lot of green fibers in there, which will help you make testosterone. So they literally when I saw this product, I looked at it and and was shocked at whoever was behind it knew their hormones. So you need to make hormones you need to break them down and then you need to use them and harmony is going to help you do that. So really excited about this product and what it can do for all of us out there. But most importantly, it’s going to help you thrive as a woman on so many different levels. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
When I dove into researching you and your passion, one of the things that really stuck out to me. And I thought, Oh my God, I want to hear what she has to say on this is this concept that women are biohackers by nature yet, explain that because every part of my female body says, Yes, we are. But then let’s give that like, how did you come up with that thought? And what are you basing that off us? Because I think it’s a brilliant idea. Brilliant thought.
Lauren Berlingeri 5:26
Yeah. Yeah. So definitely having kids that. Yeah, my big aha moment. A lot of things shifted. For me when I had kids, like, I always kind of thought I was like bulletproof and nothing could really go wrong. And then, you know, I had twins, and I had a very traumatic delivery of my twins, and I didn’t have the delivery wanted to, and they came five weeks early, and, and then I tried to, like put a lot of pressure on me, like breastfeeding them both for a long time. And I was just, like, so rundown, because I thought I could still live that life that I was living before having kids, which is, you know, like working out really hard. And I mean, when you’re breastfeeding, you just drink so much water. But, you know, running on the lack of sleep that I was running on, I ended up having a grand mal seizure, about one year in, and that just sort of woke me up to like, I need to put myself first and this is very important, and I need to get my body back. And, you know, just made myself a priority. But yeah, it kind of just goes back to just being a woman in general. I mean, you know, we have two cycles versus men that have the 24 hour cycle, we have the 24 hour and the 28 day cycle, which is our hormone cycle. And I’ve had an interesting relationship with my hormones. Just being someone that has always been into extreme sports and working out extremely hard. You know, before higher dose I used to have this show called Woman versus workout and I did all sorts of crazy physically challenging things from NASCAR driving 24, helmet, heels, motorcross firefighter training, like tough mutters anything insane, I did it. But I also had a hard time with my hormones. Like I couldn’t sleep through the night I had cystic acne on my jawline, you know, irregular periods. And I just like thought I was like, super healthy, because I was like working out so hard. But I didn’t realize that actually, you know, one genetically, once I learned about my genes that I’m supposed to be actually doing more Pilates and walking and not so intense workouts, and then also to like nourish my endocrine system and my hormonal cycle. I can’t be in fight or flight all the time. Amen. Yeah, and most of you know, the research that I was like, deep diving into around fitness was more about like, these, like high intensity workouts and you know, ketogenic diets, and they like speak about it. So matter of factly. And I was doing to Bottas. And just like really, like, driving myself into the ground. And I just didn’t realize that this healthy lifestyle of extreme was not actually so good for me and my hormones, and ultimately didn’t lead to the goals that I was actually hoping to achieve from all this in the first Yep, yeah. Which is to overall just be like healthy, have glowing skin, be calm and present, you know, with people and sleep better, etc. So it was just really this aha moment. I think once I had my kids, and I really lost all of that, like superhero like crazy fitness person, and had to like relearn how to just like, tap into my body, and just listen to what my body actually wants, versus like, what I read or what I think might be good for myself. And that was, again, really my aha moment where it’s like, everyone’s different, you know, not only on top of me, being a woman versus being a man, I also genetically am different. My body’s made up different. And how I can best serve myself is actually to just like, slow down and just listen and tap into like, what’s working for me and what’s not based on the way I’m feeling afterwards? Yeah. And it just made me realize, like, women have been doing that for forever, because we’ve had to because this research has been more supported for men. Yes. Don’t know nearly as much as you should going into like, you know, pregnancy and recovery and like, how to nourish your hormones after or what you should be doing or menopause. Like you go to the doctor and they just like telling you to buckle in, right? Like that’s all you could do when there’s like so many things out there that you can do. Yep, actually help you balance those hormones and do it more gracefully and struggle. Yeah, just like really just like, tapping into my like, you know, female community and especially moms and, and learning from them on like, what they’ve done and then just listening to myself on in general. I was just like, wow, we’ve sort of just had to figure this out. Yep. You know, and we’ve done a great job. doing it.
Dr. Mindy 10:00
So yes, do you feel like you know, I like everything you’re saying I resonate with so deeply because that is so much of my journey where I was competitive tennis player, I was the push on through person that if you told me gave me a workout, you gave me a long day like, I could put my head down, and I could do it. But what I realized is it was destroying my hormones. And it was really hard to start to take a step back and unwind that type a warrior woman and know when to pull her out and when to tell her to calm down. And the more I’ve gotten in touch with that the more women I hear that are sharing stories, like you just said, where we are learning that in order to be powerful, we also have to know when to be soft with ourselves. And we need to know when to move into some of these things like fasting and working out all these really wonderful bio hacks and when to just chill out and sit on the couch. Do you? Do you feel like this conversation is happening more and more amongst women? Because I don’t know if it’s my little bubble, but I feel like this is happening. So people, women are waking up and understanding this at a deeper level.
Lauren Berlingeri 11:18
Yeah, no, I definitely feel like a lot more women are talking about it, especially in the biohacking worlds, which is such an interesting place to be in because it’s mainly male dominated. Yes, the voices in there are all men and I love that world, I get introduced to the best technologies have never heard of that work. And but the fact of the matter is, is they just have totally different goals in us. And they did have different genetic makeups and, you know, different hormone systems and, and, you know, like I had to sort of navigate that space differently than I would say, like most men do. And I yeah, I feel like there’s a lot of women in that biohacking space that identify as bio hackers, but have big issues with a lot of the way that this information is being communicated. Yeah. And that we need to highlight the fact that, you know, women aren’t required to be in studies like men are and, you know, we actually, I think it’s since like, 2006. You know, women weren’t expected to be in studies at all. And now, still to this day, the six times more likely us men than than men. And, and that’s like the real issue, right? So you can’t just like, look into the research and study and know that this is going to be great for us. Yeah. So I actually have it are different hormone phases, right? Yes. What I was like 10 years ago is very different than than I am now. And also what I’m going to be like, in 10 years, and another 10 years from now. It’s just like our goals and what we need change.
Dr. Mindy 12:51
And they should change with our hormones. I think as a 52 year old woman, I can tell you, that I constantly remind myself that when I go to work out is like, you’re not supposed to work out like you did it 32 years because there needs to be and that also is not being discussed as much. I also fear that we may never get women studies, because how if you took 20 women and you put them all together, and they’re all at a different time of their cycle, that would be very difficult to study. So you know, I agree, I hear this a lot where that people are saying, we don’t have enough female studies, but I fear that maybe they may not be coming. And so then we need to be our own and have one. We need to we need to really understand our own hormonal system. So this is the reason I love your work. And I love what you’re doing at higher dose is that when it comes to biohacking, one of the things that I’ve thought about is, should you be cold plunging all the time? Should you read light all the time? Should you, you know, hop on your PMP EMF all the time, like how do we know as these biohacking tools are emerging? How do we know how to fit them to our hormones? So I definitely want to dive into that. And before we do that, I’d love to have like a definition from you of what a bio hack is. Because I also think, and I’m curious on this, that bio Hacking has kind of been a male term. It’s like the bio hackers hack this hack that
Lauren Berlingeri 14:21
a lot of women off actually, yes, it needs to be rebranded. And trust me, we’ve been thinking about how we rebrand this in many different ways. And the only thing we could think of was biohackers, which above that, I think still kind of like, you know, doesn’t really honor exactly what we’re doing so much because of the hacking part because it’s really not about hacking. It’s about this lifestyle and like educating and learning as much as you can about your body and how it works and, and I’ve really got more into testing more than ever and then also just like being curious, like I always like think like, Well, how was my mom? How was my sister or how has their mom and, you know, family have been in the past? What kind of issues did they deal with, and you can learn so much just, you know, how your family has been experiencing their own hormones and their own hormonal changes. And then I did the genetic testing too, as well. And that was just like mind blowing to me how much I learned and realize I was doing everything wrong. Yeah, everything wrong. So I really do feel like it’s important, you know, to take the time to really learn about your genetics and your your makeup, and, you know, your history, it can really like shine a light on, you know, a lot of these things that, you know, our ancestors have been trying to figure out for years,
Dr. Mindy 15:42
right? Yeah, and actually, our ancestors, I think were natural biohackers. You know, I think that they had to use biohacking. They had to hack into the night day cycles, like they had to live more intuitively than we’re forced to live right now.
Lauren Berlingeri 15:58
Well, we’re exposed to so much blue light, it’s not even funny. It’s like, so hard to like, sync up to the worlds and the Earth’s natural cycles, right? When you’re behind a computer all day long, and yep, no, on top of being a high biohacker I’m also an entrepreneur and a mom, and you know, like, very time consuming all this stuff. So I actually really use like biohacking as like a recovery tool for me to just like, you know, kind of recover from this, like, busy, crazy lifestyle. And I’m, you know, again, constantly exposed to things that I know are good for me, because I have to be in order to like, exist in this modern world.
Dr. Mindy 16:36
So it’s like a reset for you from your, yeah, entrepreneurial life?
Lauren Berlingeri 16:41
And to answer your question, you know, just around like a lot of these bio hacks that maybe we don’t know how good they are for us, or how often we should be doing it. You know, at higher dose, we really like do our own research. And I’ve actually always used myself as like a guinea pig and just like tested a lot of these technologies out for long periods of time and seeing the way I felt afterwards. And we’re very careful on what we do launch. Because we don’t want anyone to ever have any issues with what it is that we’re doing. We try to be as transparent as possible. But we’ve chosen technologies that are so gentle, and so safe, yet so effective. And that’s always kind of been like the way we think about like what kind of bio hacks we should be getting into.
Dr. Mindy 17:23
Yeah, that’s beautiful. So let’s dive into some of the like, three bio hacks for per se, and then I do bio
Lauren Berlingeri 17:30
hacks. Me for the free bio hacks. Yeah,
Dr. Mindy 17:33
yeah, no, because I think again, you can, there’s a lot of hacking, I brought Ben Greenfield onto the show, and he was talking about how he stacks his hack. He’s like, I have tea and a nap and a PMF. Mat, like he had like five things that he did all at once. And I I also think that the biohacking culture has gotten like you have to have equipment and the equipment is awesome. And if you stack that with other natural bio hacks, like sunlight, and fasting and things like that, now you’ve really amplified it. So one of the three bio hacks and I’m very curious what you think about and how it times to a woman cycle are cold plunges Have you have you thought at all about is a cold plunge, right during a woman’s whole hormonal cycle? If you’re missing certain hormones, should you be cold Putin plunging? Do we have any evidence of it, that’s great for women.
Lauren Berlingeri 18:23
I actually don’t know about the evidence, because I haven’t really looked much into it, myself, per se, but I do know how I feel with coal plunging. And I have to be very careful with coal plunging, because I feel like if I want to do it for any more than three minutes, it can be really hard for me to warm my body back up. And I’m actually like freezing and I know my fight or flight system goes on because I started shaking and feeling like stressed out about it. So I know that it’s not always good for me. And I do think that has a lot to do with my hormonal cycle. And I think of it like a hardcore workout because it is a lot for the body. And the only time I would ever do a hardcore workout is like right after my period or you know, up to ovulating. Because that’s when I feel like so strong and energetic and not like overly sensitive to things and that’s because I think my estrogen levels are a lot lower than you know, when they start to climb to around when I get my actual period. And genetically I learned I don’t detox of estrogen. So I know I’m genetically already going to have like tough hormonal periods as is. So for me personally, I only really feel the need to want to cold plunge around those times where I’m looking for something a little bit more intense. And I never do over three minutes and I don’t go back and forth back and forth because it’s just too hard on my body. Now my business partner who’s like a cold plunge freak, also a woman she lives across from the standard in Miami for that reason, just a cold plunge. She doesn’t have those issues at all. She doesn’t have a hard time warming up she just feels energetic and good. She always like looks kryo places and, and does so well with it. And I just think genetically like it’s not that intense for her and you know, she has more of the genes that is like, you know, kind of a type personalities thrive with where she could go go go and work out a lot harder and not have the same like blood sugar issues that I have or hormonal issues that I have. So, for me coal plunging is not great all the time, I really do know what I want to because my body would crave it. Again, I have to be careful with not going back and forth from too much hot and too much cold and never stay in for more than three minutes. Because when I did do that once I stayed in for 10 minutes, because once you’ve passed the three minute mark, you’re like, Oh, well, yeah, right. Yeah, I was messed up for hours afterwards. And yeah, and definitely don’t do it in the wintertime. Like, it’s really great when you live in a place like Miami, and it’s really hot all the time. Because yeah, like in the winter time again, I find it hard to warm up from being cold. And then you put your body into fight or flight stress mode. So yeah, I’m seeking out more things that are like lowering cortisol versus like, yes, yes. Um,
Dr. Mindy 21:07
so as many women should be I mean, I applaud you for for having that personal journey. But I think that, again, women are more susceptible to cortisol than men. The hormone progesterone has to have cortisol low, and progesterone is our calming hormone. Men, don’t they get a little bit of progesterone, but not a lot. So they don’t have to think about that as well. And have you have you read a hormone test on yourself at all,
Lauren Berlingeri 21:35
I actually have done I’ve been doing Dutch hormone panels for at least three or four years. I mean, I, I just this is the stuff I invest into. I’m not like someone to invest into like clothes or things. I love health. I love food. I love testing. I love supplements. I love this lifestyle. So I agree. I’ve always like made a point to invest into it. And I actually very specifically, were testing hormones before getting pregnant. And then after breastfeeding, once I like you know, spent at least like three or four months after breastfeeding, I did another hormone panel, but I’m always kind of like testing and seeing what’s going on, there was a moment to where I had some exposure to mold, which really messed my levels up. And I would have never known that unless I was doing the hormone testing to like, learn that these hormone levels were off and indicated things for me. So I am a big fan of testing. I don’t take it as gospel. But it does really like help guide me be my own detective. Yeah,
Dr. Mindy 22:35
I agreed. Okay, let’s go into light. Because there’s a lot of different ways. Yeah, the red hot biohack. Yes. And there’s a lot of different ways we can use it, especially to get us to sleep better. And so talk a little bit it will end we know red light helps with collagen production, which oh my gosh, your guys little face thing is amazing. But let’s start with the foundational What do women need to know about their exposure to light?
Lauren Berlingeri 23:03
Yeah, it’s kind of a really loaded question because there’s the good light, and then there’s the bad light. And then there’s also natural light to which, you know, my husband and myself moved to Miami. Just because of the healthy lifestyle of exposing myself at least for an hour a day. without sunscreen on I always wear a hat for anyone that asks, I always protect my face. But we really do like sun bathing and sun gazing. You know, we’re right on the water too, as well. So we watch the the sun go down. And that’s also really important, but the exposure to light is one of the most important things to know, especially if you’re someone that gets seasonal affective disorder, or just your mood like, just naturally my mood is affected by not getting sunlight exposure. Oh, just first and foremost, yeah, like try to get you know your exposure to natural light and a healthy dose to get that vitamin D and then also to set your circadian rhythm by you know, trying to watch the sun come up and the sun go down. That’s been like such a huge hack for me. For someone that spends a lot of time in front of a computer and in front of my phone to blue light. It’s it’s a regenerative way of like kind of balancing all that blue light exposure. But I’m also just like a really big fan of light therapies in general. I mean, we launched an infrared sauna company about six years ago. And that is light therapy. And that was because it was hard to get natural light exposure living in New York City interested in that you know, Concrete Jungle exposed to all this artificial light all the time and, and wondering why it was like a hard time to like sleep and you know, Stan, yeah, so when I first tried my first infrared sauna was like seven years ago when I was living in New York. It was just like immediate benefits. I slept through the night for the first time. In a long time, I felt so calm and connected afterwards. And I felt like happy and light. And when I started researching infrared and learning about the light spectrum and how it, it releases serotonin, just much like the sun and learning that, you know, infrared is very similar to sunlight, I immediately fell in love with it. And it became my passion for like the next seven years, launching infrared spas and infrared products. So big fan of, of, you know, infrared in general. And then I would say it was about like, three years ago, I was exposed to red light therapy, and how red light is also very similar to you know, infrared and its ways and often used together with red light therapy, and just learning about all the benefits of red light on top of that, and you know, how it, you know, feeds the mitochondria, so it can produce ATP, which is energy, which just means that your overall cells are functioning better. Yeah, especially for hormones. It’s like one of my favorite hormone balancers for women boost testosterone for men, just those two things in general. I mean, I’m always telling people like, this is the ultimate regeneration tool. It’s red light therapy with red. And you know, when I don’t live in places like Miami, I definitely always make sure that I like get my infrared and red light as a substitution for sunlight. Yeah, living here in Miami, I don’t need it as much mind, yo, if you look over here, that’s my red light just sitting there ready to go. Because I do travel with these things. I absolutely love it. But you know, what red light does for building collagen and, and, you know, downing inflammation in the skin, you know, you don’t get that from Sunlight. Sunlight is actually you know, quite harmful to the skin. If you’re exposed to it for too long. So, you know, there are some benefits of red light that you don’t get from the sunlight. Yeah, great. Yeah, I think that light therapy in general in the biohacking world is by far my favorite area of focus. And think that, you know, more people should look into these regenerative light forms for their own health for substitution, as well as stalking on you know, getting access to natural sunlight to as well.
Dr. Mindy 27:14
It’s interesting. You had a biohacking spa in in New York. Yeah. Is that right?
Lauren Berlingeri 27:20
We didn’t never called it that because again, it was like such a turnoff for women. And we, you know, back in the day, you know, when we just were a spa location, we had about 80% women and 20% men so definitely spoke more to women than we did to men. But we launched our Williams our location, which is our biohacking center, we don’t call it that. It’s just called higher dose spa. But we do all sorts of things from lymphatic drainage massage, and we do microcurrent for the face. And we do all sorts of facial massages and red light therapy and infrared. And, you know, we wanted to like have cold water showers like as our form of cold therapy, because it’s like the easiest thing to do. And I find cold showers to be more effective for women than the cold plunging in general. But yeah, all of our locations. Have your own personal shower afterwards. So we always like tell people to do like cold showers after the infrared sauna. And it’s literally like my favorite place to be just because of all of these like different tools. And you know, it’s like supercharged self care.
Dr. Mindy 28:25
Yeah, I love it. You know, when I first heard about you guys, I was again, I’ve been thinking about how to tie everything to the menstrual cycle. And I’ve been thinking about perimenopausal women and menopausal women, which is a large part of my community. And I heard somebody said, oh, there’s these female biohackers and they have a biohacking spa in New York. And I was like, what, that’s amazing. A biohacking spa for women. I don’t know if you promote it for women only. But it I was like blown away and so excited that you guys were doing that. Because we really need that I think more than than men do, because our hormones are tricky, and they are susceptible. And what I find fascinating about the fact that it’s in New York, and what you’re saying about how you felt in New York, compared to Miami, is I think that’s really something for us all to think about when we’re indoors all the time. We feel different than when we’re outside. But if we label it something else, we say, Oh, I’m just anxious today or maybe I’m PMS saying but we don’t realize how much the impact of Wi Fi and and blue light and all this stuff that is toxic to finance been like yeah,
Lauren Berlingeri 29:39
relation is so hard. Like most people that don’t live there. They come there for a couple days and they’re like, Okay, get me out of here. Yeah. And then when you actually like you know, 10 years ago when I moved there it becomes this like weird drug that you become addicted to and it’s like hard for you to like enjoy yourself anywhere else because you’re just so overstimulated all the time. And you know, like a lot of women I know Like have, you know issues getting pregnant later on and have all these like hormonal issues or just like burnout in general. And that’s because like, we don’t have that opportunity to just like rest, digest, heal, you know, ourselves,
Dr. Mindy 30:13
we go against our design, we like every single day we’re like at work inside with all this. We’re like literally going against our design for both men and women. But for women, it’s a lot more. So talk a little bit about I want to dive into the benefits of red light in a moment, but go back to infrared saunas and infrared because what we have found that so powerful about infrared is it like induces like a fever. So talk a little bit about the the science behind it, why it would benefit women and how you guys have used it?
Lauren Berlingeri 30:47
Well, I guess now more than ever, there’s such an emphasis on ways to naturally boost immunity. There’s not enough conversation about that right now. Especially living in COVID times. And it’s funny because you get so regulated on what you can and cannot say especially about immunity. But Amen. Taking immunity aside from things, what infrared does is mimics a fever in the body. Because the infrared heat your core body temperature. And that’s how it gets you to sweat is much like how you would start sweating when you’re working out. Or if you had a fever, your core body temperature gets hotter, and then you start to sweat versus traditional saunas that heat the air. So it’s a much more superficial way of heating the body much more aggressive, do you feel much more tired and lethargic in there. Versus in an infrared sauna, you actually feel like quite energized and good because you feel like you’re kind of like getting a workout without working out. And it’s such a much more gentle and effective way of heating the body. So yeah, it is raising your core body temperature. So your body thinks it’s getting a fever. So what your body does when it thinks it’s getting a fever is like Okay, I gotta boost up all my immunity to make sure I can you know, fight whatever it is that you know, my body needs to fight. So you get this like natural immunity boost, while in the infrared sauna. Yeah, on top of that infrared kills any bacteria and virus, I don’t know about COVID per se, but let’s just say most viruses don’t like keep. And you know, it’s a really amazing thing to have as a tool. Anytime you are feeling like you’re about to get sick, or you feel like you’ve been exposed to something, you go into that infrared sauna, and it kills that bacteria and that virus and boosts up your immunity so that you can you know, be prepared to fight whatever it is that you’re fighting. And then just on top of it, there’s so many amazing detoxifying benefits, detox is seven times more than traditional saunas, pulls out heavy metals, radiation and environmental pollutants of your fat cells. So when you have a less toxic body, your body operates better, which therefore is gonna, like help you when you get something like, you know, a sickness or a virus or whatever it is, when your body is operating at higher levels, because it’s clean, then, you know, there’s a whole list of health benefits, right? Yeah, General. But the list of benefits go on and on and on with a green thread. It just depends on like, what it is that you want to talk about. I mean, I could go over a very high level but some of my most, you know, things I feel the most passionate and most obvious are definitely you know, immune boosting, detoxifying, which we just talked about, you know, it does increase metabolism, it can melt away fat speed up your heart rate to the pace of light jog and burn calories. So it’s like a workout without working out. Amazing skin benefits as we were talking about infrared and red light together. You know, boost collagen, your skin’s like so soft and dewy and glowing afterwards scrape for anti aging. Yep. And it’s an amazing recovery tool and pain management tool. Not only is like heat, so therapeutic for the body, helps your body go into that state of parasympathetic rest and digest. But it also downs inflammation increases blood flow and circulation. So it’s feeding your body with this like fresh blood so that there’s no stagnation so that it’s operating better. So it has such amazing like recovery benefits in general. And it helps with sleep because it is putting your body into parasympathetic state which is rest and digest and getting you out of that cortisol state. That’s one thing it’s like you could go in there was so much like stress and anxiety and literally feel the infrared just melted away. Amazing. I always like come out of there feeling like so calm and grounded and connected and just like glowing after.
Dr. Mindy 34:30
And what I find interesting about infrared is it is a tough one to do naturally. I mean, you’d have to get a fever to be able to heat that cell from the inside app and like you said the gym saunas not doing it. So are there a natural way we can do it?
Lauren Berlingeri 34:47
There is actually um, so if you ever like go to like maybe like Arizona or anywhere where there’s like dry heat and like natural objects like rocks Just eating on the rock, and the rock feels warm. And if you lay on that over time, it’s just natural infrared.
Dr. Mindy 35:08
Oh, so go to Sedona go to one of the Vortech spots in the heat of summer and lie on the rock. Yeah,
Lauren Berlingeri 35:15
we’re just like, you know, you could pretty much be anywhere, as long as the rock is hot and warmed from the sun, it’s naturally gonna promote infrared. One of our products is a infrared pen mat, and we have over 25 pounds of crystal therapy. Okay, in tourmaline. And mainly we did so much crystals is when you heat those crystals, which is stone, and naturally produces infrared and, and also the negative ions, which is what you get from nature. So you do like even also laying on a beach in Miami that’s like natural infrared to just like laying out in the sun. It’s just again, you have to worry about overexposure and you raise and you don’t get any of that in infrared sauna.
Dr. Mindy 35:58
So I have to tell you that I have your mat, I ordered it. Yeah. And we call it the tranquilizer so we put on our couch, and it’s literally like sits in one of the seats and every person from my husband to my 21 year old daughter to my 82 year old mom, the minute they lay on it like they’re out there done, you can’t even you can’t talk to them anymore. Like I don’t know what is in that thing. But you are like, you’ve guys have nailed it. It’s really
Lauren Berlingeri 36:27
Yeah, it’s really the infrared and then the crystal therapy. But then pence technology, which is pulsed electromagnetic frequency. Yeah, it’s an amazing technology that’s very similar to the Earth’s core frequency. So it’s kind of like walking barefoot in nature, it gives you that same tranquil, like calming benefits. So it’s really, you know, like our innovation is not in, you know, inventing any of these technologies, they’ve actually been around for a really long time and studied, but we love stacking them, yeah, to make the most like powerful experience. And also using them at like really safe spaces, or like levels, our pen, mat is is more like focused around relaxation and recovery and sleep and regeneration, there are some technologies where you can get a much higher frequency and you’ll really like feel that like jolting kind of like frequency, which can be good for other things like repairing bone or, you know, ligaments in the body. And it could be quite good, but in smaller amounts of time, whereas we decided to go with more frequencies that are more grounding, calming and relaxing. Because we see this as more of a recovery mat. Yeah, something that you can spend a lot of time on. Versus like how some of doctors are using it to like repair and you know, help heal bone.
Dr. Mindy 37:44
Yeah, we have a full the pulse PMF mat here in our office, and we Wow, we use it very therapeutically to heal fractures, chronic injuries. So I’m very familiar with the technology. And it’s it is I mean, it is very much like going out into nature where you just get room like you get centered you get like back into your grounded being it is I don’t know another way to explain that nothing has ever given me that experience in my body like PMF well, so
Lauren Berlingeri 38:16
and that’s the thing. It’s like, you know, these technologies are amazing. But some sometimes you like have to experience it at like a professional doctors. Because they’re like a little bit more like hard to navigate. And you know, if it is like a higher pulsating rate, and you are trying to do something very therapeutic, you’d want to go to like a more controlled environment. Yep. Versus like, you know, the way we’re thinking about it is like, Okay, if we want to like make we want to make this easy to use for people. Yeah, we don’t want it to be like complicated where they could like mess it up and ultimately, like get the opposite effect of what they were looking for in the first place. So that’s why we use like very safe spaces for a lot of these technologies versus like some of these more like professional grade units that should be more operated by a doctor. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy 39:01
And have you thought about how that cuz this is way my brain thinks is timing all these around the menstrual cycles. So like if the mat is putting you in a parasympathetic state, that actually would be better used in the back half of your cycle when your body’s trying to lower down cortisol bring in more progesterone, whereas in the front half of your cycle when you need more detoxification going into something I haven’t tried your your sauna blanket, but it’s on my list of things to do. Go into the sauna and detoxify in the front half of the cycle. Because at some point, I don’t know if you found this in the biohacking world. There’s not enough hours in the day to start to put all these biohacking tools in like could we use them in a woman cycle and cycle the different tools in depending upon the reaction we’re trying to get with our hormones?
Lauren Berlingeri 39:54
Yeah, definitely. Um, I find the sauna blanket and the map To be so gentle that it’s kind of like safe to use the whole way through could be, yeah, do I definitely feel like I need them more on the second half of my cycle, but I do feel that, you know, like, I could use the sauna blanket at the end of the cycle and still get a lot of benefits from it. Um, so I, it’s actually a really good question. And again, I guess we would have to, like, research it or just like, do customer surveys around it and like, get people to participate in like a clinical trial and like, just give us feedback on it. Right. But again, a lot of our products are mainly to down cortisol. So I feel like that’s always a good thing for women. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy 40:41
Agreed. It would be really fun to do like a Dutch test on on a woman and then have her use your guy’s equipment around her cycle. And then maybe like, I don’t know, 90 days later, do another one. It this is the way my science brain works. So I find the homerun really
Lauren Berlingeri 40:58
expensive. Only happy part about the whole thing is so expensive. And, and also like living in New York City. It’s like, a lot of this stuff is not even available to people. Right? Yeah. So wild. So I guess that goes back to again, just like tapping into like, the way you feel afterwards. And like, is it improving your mood? Is it like helping you sleep better? Do you feel more calm and connected afterwards? Do you feel like it’s balancing your blood sugar versus spiking blood sugar? You know, like all these things that I feel like our bodies kind of tell us just by the way that we feel afterwards? Yeah, I think the biggest thing to like kind of worry about more with infrared more than anything is just the dehydration thing. Because you can sweat too much. And it is hard to keep like that liquid in your body. So just to make sure that you’re like taking a good like trace mineral or, you know, magnesium and electrolytes and the right amount of salts afterwards. So just keep that water in your body. Good point. That’s probably my biggest concern with too much use or not at the right time.
Dr. Mindy 41:59
Yeah, interesting. Okay, receptors. Let’s talk about potassium. Let me tell you how you would know your deficient potassium. There are several ways. One is muscle recovery. So if you’ve been working out and you’re staying sore for three, four or five days after your workout, that can be a sign of potassium deficiency. restless legs, that’s another one where if you are noticing that you get restless legs late at night, nother potassium deficiency. And for all my rushing women out there, when you feel like you are not handling stress, well, when you’re feeling incredibly adrenal fatigue, it’s potassium that will come in and be the hero of the day for you. So I’ve been testing upgraded formulas, potassium, and oh, my god is it been a game changer for my muscle recovery. And I also tell you, it’s been a game changer for restless legs syndrome, which is a condition that runs in my family. So upgraded formulas is offering you all 15% off of their minerals. If you resonate with any of the symptoms that I just talked about, give it a try. Their products are not only effective, not only pharmaceutical grade, but they’re clean, and they can be a fasters dream because as you guys know, we get depleted of minerals when we move in and out of fasted states. So upgraded formulas, check their potassium out. And as always, they’re gonna give you 15% off if you use my last name, so go to upgraded formulas comm and put in the code coupon pills and they will give you 15% off. And as always, I always want to know what works for you. So shoot me a message let me know how it works. And I’m excited to share this incredible product with you. Okay, let’s dive into red light because we can’t we can’t leave this conversation without red light. The face mask you have. I saw a good friend posted a picture of herself wearing it on on Instagram and I was like what is that because it looks so crazy from the outside when somebody is wearing it. Which is brilliant because it makes for good social media posts. So I texted her I was like what is that? What are you wearing? So talk a little bit I don’t know what you guys call it but talk a little bit about the the red light on the face and what we know it can do for collagen production. I know there’s some great studies on thyroid and red light. What do we know? Yeah, what do we know about red a lot
Lauren Berlingeri 44:36
of really great studies on so many different aspects of red light especially depending on where you shine it and then at what frequency to and thyroid is definitely one for for hormones, especially if you are exposed to a lot of blue light. It’s amazing to do and the cool thing is like our red light face mask was designed for the face and again the way we think about it is like we did not Create or invent this technology. But what I did focus on is a design that makes you want to use it three or four times a week, which is like optimally, like how you should be using these technologies. And it shouldn’t be something that, you know, you only use once every once in a while, and it just collects dust. And we feel guilty about not using it because it’s not practical. So we really focused on the design of it, it has three straps, which you know, makes it easy to like do a yoga flow or workout, it’s a medical grade silicone, so it’s lightweight, you can travel with it, it’s cordless, and rechargeable. So you can walk around your house, and then it has the eye hole so you can continue to work. Or if you wanted to watch TV or just like connect with a friend, you don’t feel disrupted by the red light. So really like allows you to use this technology as you should, which is 234 times a week for optimal benefits. And there’s just a lot of research around red light therapy specifically for skin. Mind you, there’s a ton of studies in general around red light, it’s actually like quite crazy when you start to research it like wow, red light is good for this. It’s good for this. Yeah, it’s good for so many different things. And I do think it comes down to this idea that it feeds the mitochondria, which is your cell and the cell produces ATP, which is energy, and it just helps it work better. So that can like affect the body all around, depending on where you’re using it. Yeah. But it is a great hormone balancer for women because women want to balance hormones first boost, per se, what are you running on? But my business partner freaks out because I like tell men to put it on their balls. Because their
Dr. Mindy 46:40
studies actually, yeah, there was actually a testosterone study that water polo players and they had him every time they got out of the pool, they had him stand in front of red light. And they did that every day. They did like 20 minutes of red light. And after a month, their testosterone levels had gone up. So it’s Yeah,
Lauren Berlingeri 46:57
nominal for that reason, and my husband does it. And I think that even though the red light paced mass was designed for the face, the cool thing is you can use it on all different parts of your body. But the most optimal way to get it is actually like a full body unit that you can sit in front of naked so that your whole body is getting all the benefits of the red light. Yeah. And then I use it for all sorts of different things like I had breast implant removal I had C section so I use it on my scars and that’s just easy to use over and over again because I put it on my scars and like literally like I can hardly even see my scars now.
Dr. Mindy 47:34
How often do you do it?
Lauren Berlingeri 47:36
Well depends like on scars it’s just easy like I have all these like tools just like laying out and like you can I could be talking to you and have it on my scarred no one would know but not as disruptive. And then for like face, I showed you my full body unit I usually like do my meditations in front of my full body red light unit I find these tools helped me have a better meditation practice because I like to have my mat I’m sitting in my my go mat my infrared go met from higher dose and then I have the red light facemask and then I’ll like play a meditation and it makes me want to stay there for like 2030 minutes and I almost need these tools just to like, help me calm down and switch off and feel like I’m getting more than just that break through meditation. But I’ve noticed like amazing things for my skin and you know, just not having to like go to things like you know, Botox and fillers because I like you know, more of that like natural look. But the red light like just like helps so much with skin tightening and rejuvenation and just like overall glow of the skin. It just looks like slowing and dewy. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy 48:48
Is there anything you have to think about with these tools? Because, you know, you can go to Amazon and download a bunch of tools, but are they effective? This is a question I get a lot and cheaper doesn’t always mean better. And you want to make sure that you’re getting the right, the right tool doing the right job.
Lauren Berlingeri 49:07
Yeah, and I mean, it’s like what’s the point of having a sauna blanket that detoxify you? Detoxifies you get off gases and has all the Amen embedded into the materials. So yep, no, we’re on our fourth version of the sauna blanket and we’re always trying to find better ways to improve it and we really pride ourselves on you know the technology and just like the way we make it, we don’t cheap out any in any way rather the opposite. And we aren’t we have the only sauna blanket on the market that has no elf, virtually no EMF, which are two big things that you should, you know, be concerned about with any electrical product, especially ones that are like supposed to like help you feel calm and grounded. And then also choosing materials that pass BOC standards in California, which is a very high standard, which are sort of like it’s the only blanket on the market that passes voc standards. Amazing. Yeah, yeah. So zero Thank you, okay, which is like such an important thing too, as well. And then again, like we’re just like layering in all these different technologies. So we have the amethyst stone, the tourmaline, which promote, you know, an even more deeper therapeutic, natural form of infrared, that emits negative ions, we have a charcoal layer, which helps with the detoxification, and we have a clay layer, which is very cooling and balancing to the infrared. So it just feels so good. And then we have a magnetic medical grade magnetic layer too, as well, which helps increase blood flow and circulation so that you’re pushing those toxins out through sweating when the infrareds loosening it up. Amazing. And yeah, it’s just like down to like those kind of like specific details that are so important when choosing something that is supposed to like be elevating how, yep, yep. And vitality. You don’t want to like be taking any like hits in other areas. Because you’re you’re choosing like a product that was cheaply made in China.
Dr. Mindy 50:53
Yeah. And I think this is a big problem as the biohacking world expands. You know, not you guys are really solving, in my opinion, the women’s issue and having this discussion around women and biohacking. But then you know, there’s a point at which it’s the same thing, even with supplements, there’s a point at which it’s like this thing is perceived as helpful. But when it’s made cheaply, it’s now harmful. And for the average person, everything right
Lauren Berlingeri 51:18
food supplements, like our clothes, like products that we put, like on our body, everything. It’s like, oh, yeah, I bought it because it’s supposed to be healthy. But it has all these like harmful things in there and then ends up being like, what’s the point, you’d be better off doing nothing
Dr. Mindy 51:34
a grade, a grade grade, because the body is intelligent, this is one of my big premises of how the body heals the body as an Intel intelligent, all you need to do is remove the interference. So when you get when you are getting on the PMF mat, you are removing the interference of Wi Fi, and technology in your home, you’re bringing yourself back down to this natural state you’re supposed to be in. And when we use cheap products, or we try to make shortcuts with anything from food to supplements to these kinds of tools, you actually now are harming the body’s own intelligence. So
Lauren Berlingeri 52:10
more and that’s probably why you love fasting so much, because it’s such like an amazing tool that no one talks about that can literally heal your whole entire body. Yep. For free. Yeah, right. You know, Oh, yeah. Amen. Body water. And it’s like, oh, wow, it’s such a no brainer. Yeah. And,
Dr. Mindy 52:28
God, God, you got talking about fasting, and I’m like, I get I get fired up. Go ahead.
Lauren Berlingeri 52:34
Well, I actually wanted to know more just like what you think on like prolonged fasting. And like, because I actually did a prolonged fast for seven days, about like, eight years back. And it was really challenging for me, but quite a spiritual experience. And I would like to do another one. But when I did do genetic testing, my geneticist who I love was like, your body doesn’t do so well with fasting, so you have to be careful. Now, I think that’s more like, like 24 hour fasting here there because I think it does put my body in so much kind of like a stressful state because of maybe blood sugar. I don’t know why I have to ask her why she didn’t suggest it. But I do feel like if I don’t eat, my body goes into that fight or flight. So for like hormones and fasting and safe genetically, you’re not so great with it. What is your suggestion around like kind of getting past that like fight or flight state into like, reaping all the benefits of it?
Dr. Mindy 53:30
Yeah, so it this is my passion is that women need to tie it to their menstrual cycle, just like everything else. So and I that part of where you and I connect on our missions is that there’s not enough resources for women on how to fast according to her cycle. And so I’ve got a book that will come out in 22. That is going to be it’s called fast like a girl. And it’s going to be exactly how women should fast. So stay tuned, that’s coming. But what I want to tell you is that you should be able to fast really well in the beginning part of your cycles. So once you start bleeding till pretty much through ovulation somewhere in the middle of ovulation, fasting should work a little bit better for you because estrogen really likes to be insulin sensitive. It likes when insulin comes down when glucose comes down. So most women will do well in these longer fasts at that time. Where we start to struggle is the week before our cycle when we’re trying to make progesterone and cortisol is going up now. Like we shouldn’t be fasting and definitely shouldn’t be doing a seven day water fast. So these are the kinds of things that I’m trying to get out into the world is how do women start to time they’re fast. Genetics is one thing, but we also know with epigenetics, that things can shift. So how do we make sure that a woman is timing her fast accordingly? So it’s
Lauren Berlingeri 54:56
helpful and that’s such like a no brainer to right when Everything should just be timed to your cycle.
Dr. Mindy 55:02
Amen. Yes, everything, everything. I mean, I even saw a study the other day, Lauren that showed that in the front half of our cycle, our cholesterol goes up. And the reason that our cholesterol goes up is we need good cholesterol to make estrogen. And then as we go into the back half of our cycle, cholesterol goes down because we don’t need it as much. So I started thinking about that I was like, how many women walk into their doctor’s office, at the front half of their cycle, get a high cholesterol, now they’re putting on a statin, and they don’t even know that there’s an ebb and flow of hormonal ebb and flow to their cholesterol. Actually,
Lauren Berlingeri 55:40
that’s really helpful for me too, because I also just got blood work. And I always have high cholesterol. And I do wonder, like, now that I’m thinking about it, it was at the, you know, front and half of my period, too, as well. Amen. There you go. Yeah. So that’s gonna be an interesting thing to add to the book. And there’s sounds like there’s so many like, Aha moments that we’re all gonna have reading it. So I’m really excited for it to come out. Because, yeah, I do. I want to reap all the benefits of the number one thing, that’s the healthiest thing for you, which is fasting. Yeah, yeah. And I’ve always been like, afraid to do it. Because of that sense, because I am more worried about like balancing hormones and not putting my self into this like state of stress. And is there a timeframe that you suggest for women? Um,
Dr. Mindy 56:26
yeah. Yeah, I think, if you want, if you love the longer fast, just do it in the front happier cycle. But really, you know, this, the research shows 15 hours is really good for us, just in general, going 1516 hours without food, except the week before our cycle. So then when we dive into things like testosterone will, okay, we get the most amount of testosterone during ovulation. We don’t have any fasting studies for women on testosterone, but we do have it on men. And we know that fasting helps promote testosterone for men. And it’s a 24 hour fast that gets the most testosterone increase in men. Now, is that analogous to women? We don’t know until we tried. But it’s interesting to lean into 24 hour fast during your ovulation period time. You can, you can you know, again, intermittent fasting works most of the time, but then the week before your period, just don’t fast. You know, your most women notice that they’re hungry for breakfast in the morning, they really can’t fast as well. So it’s kind of finding your rhythm. And we’ve come up with a tool called the fasting cycle, where it’s a visual tool that women can start to coordinate her cycle according to the different length fasts. I believe that there are six or six different fasts that women can do. But you got to tie them to your cycle. So that’s what the that’s what the whole books about.
Lauren Berlingeri 57:50
And how do you feel about coffee. Coffee is
Dr. Mindy 57:53
fine, as long as it’s clean and mold free. But one cup and anything in it, everybody’s got to test it with their blood sugar. So for most people, black coffee won’t pull them out of a fasted state. If you put MCT oil in it, it may even put you into a deeper fast, you might get more ketones, which is great. For everybody cream is going to be different. So you really what you do is you take a blood sugar reading, you drink your standard cup of coffee, take another blood sugar reading an hour later, are those two readings very similar? If they are, then it hasn’t pulled you out of a fasted state. So that’s how that’s how you check it.
Lauren Berlingeri 58:33
Yeah, I was gonna get that levels device. And I also thought it would be really cool if someone could create, like a female focused wearable that like measures, you know, on top of it like hormones and would not be amazing. Blood sugar. And yeah, just like cortisol and just like your temperature, just like all sorts of things that are just geared towards like what women want to know. Because like,
Dr. Mindy 58:56
I met the amazing, that’s a great idea. Cortisol if you couldn’t, yeah,
Lauren Berlingeri 59:00
I’m like, Oh, my gosh, if we could have that I would just love it and then factor in all those things together. And it
Dr. Mindy 59:07
would have to be in like a continuous glucose monitor that is actually getting your blood. Yeah, okay. I’ve you got me. Yeah, we actually we use neutral sense because they do know, a woman’s body a little bit. I mean, this is what we’ve experienced. Yeah, I think they’re both great products. We just have gotten to know the women over at neutral sense. And I’ve actually brought the one of the cofounders on my podcast, I’m going to ask her if Why can’t you measure cortisol? Why can’t you measure? Can you measure hormones? Wouldn’t that be interesting
Lauren Berlingeri 59:39
for her and tell you that you’re ovulating? Like
Dr. Mindy 59:43
a great idea? Right? Wow, I love it. Okay, this is why I like to have this conversation but I was like, Oh my God, she’s a female biohacker we got to know more about how to time your products. I literally everybody that we’ve been working with from our Andrea seed oil guy who makes these highly compressed seed oils to the essential oil guide to Organa phi. We’ve been going to each one of them and saying, Okay, let’s look at your products. How do we time it to a woman’s menstrual cycle? Because this is the level of health that women need now. So that’s why I’m thinking about higher dose and I’m like, okay, what can we how can we, I mean, all your products are amazing. Now, how does a woman pull each tool out according to her hormonal needs in a 28? day period? So
Lauren Berlingeri 1:00:27
no, I think that’s like such you definitely got my juices flowing and thinking about that, too, because my answer was, you can do it anytime. Because then we’re always like, so gentle, so safe, you know, but there has to be a more optimal time. And I bet you there are some times like because, you know, infrared also releases Human Growth Hormone if you use it after like five o’clock, you know, and there’s all these like, different things that it’s like, it would be so good to know, like, oh, yeah, it can like help address drone come up, because your stress hormone goes down. So you should prescribe it especially right. Yeah,
Dr. Mindy 1:01:00
yeah. Better than HRT better than bioidenticals. Right.
Lauren Berlingeri 1:01:03
You don’t care about that as much as a woman that I’m saying that wearable needs to be like thinking about this kind of stuff. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy 1:01:09
Oh, I love it. Okay, well, I’m gonna I’m gonna noodle out a little bit. I’ll let you know what I find out. So I got to finish up. Before we go into my last question for you. Yeah. You got to tell me where higher dose came from. Because dose isn’t just dose, you actually have an acronym. That’s pretty darn cool. So explain to my listeners know what dose stands for? Yeah, so
Lauren Berlingeri 1:01:30
dose stands for dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. And those are your four main happy chemicals. Yep. And, you know, we came up with that idea, because when looking into the research of what infrared does, it releases so much serotonin, it’s like being out in natural sunlight. And, you know, it speeds up your heart rate to the pace of a light jog. So it releases endorphins. And you just, like feel so happy afterwards. And so good. So we were like how to, like we figure out a way to like, put it in the name and then the sauna itself, which is what we started with. You know, if you go in there with someone and you’re like naked in the sauna, it’s like the most romantic thing to deal with, like, significant other or like I do all the dates in there to instead of going out and drinking alcohol and so you release oxytocin just from that connection. I have my deepest best conversations in the sauna. And then dopamine, it’s like, you know, I feel like anytime you know you’ve done something good for yourself and you feel so good. Afterwards, you’re gonna release dopamine. So you do release those four main happy chemicals when using our infrared sauna. The name came from.
Dr. Mindy 1:02:36
I love it. So you know that estrogen is can be a precursor to serotonin. So for women going through perimenopause, and menopause and post menopause as our estrogen declines, our serotonin can go down. Oh, wow. This is why I always say hug hug a menopausal woman, because you know, she’s dealing with these declining hormones and neurotransmitters. So knowing that
Lauren Berlingeri 1:03:00
and then once menopause is over, does it come back to normal?
Dr. Mindy 1:03:03
It doesn’t come back to more normal, but your brain recalibrates. So during the peri menopausal years, as these hormones are up and down, the brain is really fried. And your neurotransmitters will really respond adversely. But after about a decade of this, now, you’ve kind of stabilized your estrogen levels, and you’re getting a rhythm with making serotonin again. But prior to that, I mean, the 40s are brutal, or they can be brutal For some women, so and a lot of it is where we can lean into tools like what you’ve what you guys are offering to be able to support a woman through that process. So yeah, I’m so glad
Lauren Berlingeri 1:03:41
you’re doing this work. It’s so needed. And it’s been so enlightening. Just talking to you. And thank you, I yeah, I have already been thinking so much more about just how we can support, you know, women in general and agreed,
Dr. Mindy 1:03:53
amen. Yeah, they agree. So okay, let me finish up on this question. So, this is season three of the resetter podcast. And our theme is gratitude. And so, to help us see what gratitude practices you do every single day, a lot of people have different ones. And what is one thing you’re really, really grateful for right now in your life?
Lauren Berlingeri 1:04:14
Yeah, that’s such a good question. Because it’s definitely been something I’ve been thinking about more than ever, as of recently, especially after having COVID I like felt kind of depressed afterwards. And there was, you know, the only thing that gets you out of feeling depressed is to like, think of all the things you are to be grateful for. And when I was like, I just had COVID week and a half ago, so quite fresh or 10 days ago, but before COVID I was running on the beach in Miami barefoot every morning and I would do the six phase meditation. I just love
Dr. Mindy 1:04:49
that. Yeah, yeah. Division makhani one. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, honey.
Lauren Berlingeri 1:04:52
I’ve been doing that forever because I can like run kind of like slow and like just enjoy the grounding and fresh ocean air. And the negative ions that are coming out but my favorite part and the easiest part for me in that six phase meditation is the gratitude practice. Just thinking of all the things that I’m happy for I definitely feel the best boost of feel good chemicals after I do that, because I have so much to be grateful for and he really like helps you it’s like doesn’t need to be big things like yeah, successful business. It doesn’t need to be like that. It’s like, you know, being able to taste your coffee in the morning that you love or like, you know, for me, it’s just like being able to be with my kids who are healthy, etc. So I am a big fan of gratitude practice definitely suggests the vision Lakhani six phase meditation, where gratitude is one of the phases or just all around it’s one of the best ways to start your day. And your day, and I definitely am always the most grateful for health.
Dr. Mindy 1:05:50
Yeah, amen. My gosh, yes. Like
Lauren Berlingeri 1:05:53
that’s, that gets me the biggest kick in life is just like knowing that we’re all healthy. In my family. I’m like, yep.
Dr. Mindy 1:06:01
Yeah, I feel like with health, we try to find happiness, so much outside of us in destruction of our health. But really, when you love the body you’re living in everything else falls into place. So I just love that. How do people find you I just I love what you’re doing. I know you have a new show that you guys are putting out on YouTube talk a little bit about how people can find you.
Lauren Berlingeri 1:06:23
Totally. So definitely check out higher dose. You know, we have an Instagram and the website for more information on the products. But we’re also launching a new website in January and that is going to have like a whole content strategy, which I’m really excited about getting back into. And we are launching our show on January 3, which is biohackers. It’s about female biohacking. And it’s my business partner and I like trying all these different like hacks, bio hacks that are out there and seeing how the female body responds to it. And also check me out on Instagram. I mean, I’m like kind of into it by like, kind of do a good job of it. There might be some inspirational posts here or there of like some little bio hacks but my Instagrams at Lauren Berlin, Jerry,
Dr. Mindy 1:07:10
thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.
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