In a culture that praises work and getting the most out of the day, sleeping tends to be under-rated and, often, looked down upon. Seeing as we spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping, it’s about time we start treating sleep as an intentional practice rather than hitting the pause button on life. Arthur Haines is back on the show to share some fascinating scientific research on the sleeping habits of wild, indigenous peoples. The research results are in: quality sleep can have tremendously positive effects on your health and well-being. I hope Arthur’s grounded perspective inspires you to put focus and energy towards your personal sleep practice!

Episode Breakdown:

• A new path
• Conscious sleep practices 
• When is the best time to go to sleep?
• Did hunter gatherers sleep through the night?
• Correlation between temperature and sleep
• Effects of light and color of light on sleep
• The importance of fire
• Rising at the same time each day — consistency is key
• Sleep for the cure
• The many benefits of melatonin 
• Bedding and grounding
• Thoughts on grounding technology
• Noise
• Concluding thoughts + wrap-up 

Every year in the United States, about 300,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease, according to recent studies. Symptoms of Lyme range from early on fever, achy joints and fatigue to long term severe migraines, short term memory loss and inflammation of brain and spinal cord. In this episode, Earth poet and award-winning author Stephen Harrod Buhner joins us to discuss this silent epidemic, how to avoid it and what to do if you contract it.

We discuss his recently updated book, Healing Lyme, where he outlines leading scientific research, tests and treatment for Lyme disease. Stephen also shares his potent herbal protocol for treating Lyme, which has an amazing success rate: "75% of those who use the protocol as a core treatment regimen (along with other herbs and supplements as symptoms dictate) feel that they are cured."

This interview is filled with helpful and crucial information for those infected with Lyme, have loved ones infected with Lyme or who live in areas where Lyme ticks are common!

Episode Breakdown:

• What is Lyme Disease?
• Zombie ticks
• Sophisticated bacteria
• Be proactive
• Antibiotics
• How a robust immune system can help you ward off a Lyme infection
• Diagnostic testing for Lyme
• Stephen’s herbal protocol recommendations
• Can apitherapy help minimize Lyme symptoms?
• The problems with Western medicine practices
• Lyme co-infections
• The longterm effects of Lyme on life
• Entering the Lyme Wars
• Stephen’s GoFundMe for the revised edition of Healing Lyme
• Key trigger symptoms of Lyme
• We’ve exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth 

This the most vulnerable and intimate interview I’ve ever shared publicly. I’ve decided to release the full unedited version, where I share deeply personal moments from my fairly traumatic childhood, because I think it’s important that we begin to have this conversation.

But first, let me introduce you to this week’s guest: My friend Neil Strauss is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Game, Rules of the Game, Emergency, and Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead. Most recently, Neil has published an incredibly powerful piece of work called The Truth: An Uncomfortable Books About Relationships. In this book, Neil shares some very intimate and personal moments from his past that shed light onto his adult relationships, which made me feel comfortable to share a bit about my past here. The theme of this show is mommy/daddy issues: we all have them — even those with seemingly perfect childhoods.

Please have compassion on me, my family and yourself as you listen in. Thank you for being here and allowing me to share so openly!

Episode Breakdown:

• Why Neil wrote The Truth
• What The Truth is all about
• Daniel’s feelings on sexuality
• How your relationships with your parents can heavily influence your adult relationships
• Neil and Daniel dive into Daniel’s childhood
• A bit about Neil’s childhood story
• An intimate, transformational experience for Daniel and his mother
• A book about recovery
• Elders and olders
• Finding your sexual species
• Long term happiness vs short term pleasure
• Finding Neil and his work

John Gray is the leading relationship expert in the world and best-selling author of “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.” His books have sold over 50 million copies in 50 different languages around the world.

In this fascinating conversation, we discuss the philosophical and physiological components of polarity in men and women, and how to use polarity to create richer, more fulfilling relationships. John shares many insights he’s learned from his own personal relationship and experiences (and years of research, of course), and he offers countless strategies for increasing testosterone in men and oxytocin & estrogen in women. John is a true expert in his field, and this interview is brimming with juicy nuggets of information — you may want to listen more than once!

Episode Breakdown:

• Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
• Women, work & testosterone
• How to double your testosterone in a week
• Ejaculation and celibacy
• Balancing polarity within ourselves
• John’s first sexual experiences
• Mastering sexual energy
• The big “O” (oxytocin)
• How men and women handle stress differently
• Ladies first — how the female orgasm works
• Processing emotions
• The benefits of a monogamous relationship
• Conscious Men
• Why schedule sex?
• Endure and contain
• John’s advice to women for bettering their relationships
• Sharing emotion is feminine; complaining is masculine
• Connect with John
• A tip from John on active listening in relationships

Jeff Kober is an actor/author who has spent much of the last 35 years studying metaphysics and meditation here in the US as well as in India. In this show, our conversation travels through a variety of topics, including Vedic meditation, the ego and the relationship between money and spirituality. This past year, I’ve picked up a daily meditation practice that has had profound impacts in my life, so it was exciting to talk to someone with 14 years of consistent daily meditation!

I had such a great time speaking with Jeff whose authenticity and grounded-ness shine through in this interview. Enjoy, and let this inspire you to delve into the world of meditation if you have not already!

Episode Breakdown:

• How Jeff got interested in meditation
• Happiness and meditation
• Jeff’s personal meditation practice
• How mantras work
• What does 14 years of meditation practice look like?
• Ego and meditation
• The Kali Yuga age
• The animal mind
• Buick’s unique happiness campaign
• Jeff’s role in The Walking Dead
• Money and spirituality
• How to connect with Jeff and his work

What is your personal self-protection strategy?

In this show, we’re joined by Craig Douglas aka “SouthNarc”, an incredible teacher in the world of self protection with a background as an undercover narcotics agent and former commander of his agency’s SWAT team. Craig is here to talk to us about protecting ourselves against predatory violence using some of the most important tactics to have in your personal self-protection arsenal: situational awareness and verbal skills to de-escalate situations. He shares some fascinating insights on how to identify a “bad guy,” as well as his thoughts on weapon-carrying. I hope this podcast inspires you to develop a more robust self-protection strategy!

Always practice situational awareness!

Episode Breakdown:

• A bit about Craig’s work
• Technologically-connected, but physically-disconnected
• Craig’s time as an undercover police officer
• What is a “bad guy”?
• Museum martial art
• Situational awareness
• What to do when someone is too close
• Unequal initiative event
• Craig’s thoughts on weapon-carrying
• How to work with Craig
• Do you have the ability to keep someone from imposing their will on you? 

“What I am capable of, anyone can learn.” -Wim Hof

Wim Hof — "The Iceman" — is internationally renowned for his countless ice endeavors that range from being up to his neck in a cylinder filled with ice cubes for over 90 minutes, swimming large distances under polar ice, running a marathon barefoot to climbing the Everest in nothing more than a pair of shorts.

Wim has pioneered a practice of breathing and cold immersion that has allowed him to set countless world records and can help you to harness your inner strength and achieve robust health & well-being.

In this episode, Wim shares from the heart on his journey confronting the cold and how his practices can help you become a better version of yourself in a very short time period. Our conversation was particularly powerful for me, as I’ve been playing around with Wim’s breathing and cold immersion techniques since we’ve spoken and have felt immediate positive effects. I share a bit about my experience so far in the beginning of the show!

I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!

Episode Breakdown:

• What Wim is capable of, anyone can learn
• The Wim Hof Method
• Wim’s journey in confronting the cold
• Getting out of our comfort zones
• Tuning into your primitive, animal self
• Dealing with suppressed emotions that arise when practicing the breathing techniques
• Controlling your pH through breath
• What temperature does Wim keep his home?
• Generating energy through deep breathing
• Enjoying life to the fullest
• Using Wim's breathing techniques to improve sex
• How Wim sees the future of our world

Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Luke Storey on setting up a holistic strategy for lifestyle design! Luke has spent the past 18 years developing and refining a robust way of life based on the principles of nature and spirituality, while embracing technology and modern convenience. 

In this segment, we focus on our strategies for movement, sleep and meditation! If you missed it, check out part one where we break down our personal strategies and adaptations to modern life using a four elemental structure: Earth, Air, Water, Fire.

Episode Breakdown:

• Integrating useful movement into your lifestyle
• Optimizing your sleep routine in urban environments
• Luke’s tactics for falling asleep when not tired
• Pillow-less sleeping
• The discipline of meditation
• Spiritual connection through meditation and entheogens 

In this week's podcast, my good friend Luke Storey joins me for an intimate, peer to peer conversation on setting up a holistic strategy for lifestyle design. Luke has spent the past 18 years developing and refining a robust way of life based on the principles of nature and spirituality, while embracing technology and modern convenience. 

Luke and I apply many of the same lifestyle principles to our very different lives, and in this rap session, we have an awesome time discussing our personal strategies and adaptations to modern life. We break it all down for you using a four elemental structure: Earth, Air, Water, Fire.

We cover a ton of valuable, actionable information here, and so we’ve split up this episode into two parts. In part one, we get into our strategies on diet, water, air and sunlight. Stay tuned for part two (coming out next week) for our discussion on movement, sleep and meditation!

Episode Breakdown:

• Luke & Daniel’s history
• How Luke got started on his health journey
• Avoiding diet extremes — achieving a healthy relationship with your food
• Luke’s home + travel spring water strategy
• Navigating through air pollution
• #NakedSunTime 

Couples in the Paleolithic world would never have fantasized about running off by themselves to their own little retreats in the forest. No Stone Age lovers would have imagined in their wildest dreams that they could or should be “everything” to each other. That way lay death.

― Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy

Stephanie Coontz is a marriage historian and author of seven books on marriage and family life. In this podcast, she takes us on a tour through the evolution of marriage and intimacy throughout human history. We discuss everything from egalitarianism to “the one” to polyamory vs. monogamy. This show is enlightening and adds another piece to the puzzle as we continue to dissect the mating styles of the human animal, here on the ReWild Yourself! podcast.

Episode Breakdown:

• The way we never were
• Are we hardwired for egalitarianism?
• The quest for in-laws
• Marrying for love
• The soulmate fantasy
• Individual needs vs group needs
• Sex and marriage throughout history
• Monogamy vs non-monogamy
• The story of divorce over the ages
• Today’s marriage statistics 
• The changing roles of men and women in a marriage 

Most of us are exposed to an abundance of artificial blue light on a daily basis, via our modern technology (lamps, cellphones, computers, TVs, etc). Our bodies physiologically respond to light from the blue portion of the spectrum with a state of wakefulness, via the suppression of melatonin production. This constant stream of artificial blue light is wreaking havoc on our circadian rhythms.  

Today’s guest, a physicist, is one of the leading experts on this topic — Dr. Edward Carome. In this episode, you’ll learn how blue light interacts with our bodies by suppressing melatonin-production and some surprising, and not often discussed, effects this can have on us. Dr Carome relays some excellent strategies on how to minimize blue light exposure, particularly in the evening hours. Whether you are using these blue-light-producing modern devices on a daily basis or not, the information in this interview is extremely important! Enjoy, and please share your thoughts in the ReWild Yourself! Facebook group! I’d love to hear what strategies you are utilizing to safeguard your circadian rhythm! 

Episode Breakdown:

• Dr. Carome’s background in light
• The effects of blue light on the pineal gland
• Artificial light from our modern devices
• Dr. Carome’s experience with melatonin
• When to use blue-blockers to support your circadian rhythms
• The powerful effects of melatonin
• Amount of blue light in LEDs, Incandescents, Tungstens and other bulbs
• Do short bursts of blue light at night cause melatonin production to cease?
• The best blue-blocking products and how to use
• Crisper focus outdoors wearing blue-blocking glasses
• Concluding thoughts

The war on drugs, which in many ways is really a war on the freedom of our minds, restricts a natural, evolutionarily adaptive human behavior, that of exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness. Johann Hari — British journalist and author of Chasing the Scream — spent three years and journeyed thirty-thousand-miles investigating the war on drugs. In this show, Johann shares some of his discoveries through the stories of the people he met and interviewed along his journey. Let's have a look at some of the unexpected outcomes of restricting human access to psychoactive medicines.

Episode Breakdown:

• Is drug addiction real?
• Substance abuse when coping with pain
• The cultural repercussions of prohibition
• Drug-related violence
• Portugal’s experiment and the case for legalization
• Animals and drug use
• Modern drug education for children
• Is there an end in sight for the war on drugs?

"Environmental toxic mold exposure is a massive health crisis that very few are aware of," said Asprey. "Mold toxins have been linked to damaging long-term effects including memory loss, insomnia, anxiety, depression, trouble concentrating, and even cancer and heart disease."

From your home to your wine to your food… toxic mold is hidden in more places than you might think, and it can cause some serious health repercussions for those affected by it. In this interview, Dave Asprey — the Bulletproof Exec — explores the world of toxic mold with us. He sheds light on the common symptoms of mold exposure, diagnosing mold in your home and steps for removing mold & improving air quality in your habitat. He reveals startling information about mold in our food supply and gives us the rundown on some of the more common culprits. The information Dave presents in this interview, and in his Moldy documentary, is absolutely vital knowledge to have in your toolkit. Prepare to be enlightened…and possibly a little unsettled, as I was when I first watched Moldy!

Episode Breakdown:

• Dave’s latest projects
• Moldy documentary
• Common symptoms of mold
• How do you know if mold is present in your home?
• Are there certain conditions that perpetuate mold?
• Mutant aggressive super molds
• The multi-faceted approach to removing mold from your home
• Correlation between Lyme Disease and mold
• Mold prevention when building a new home 
• Improving air quality in your home habitat
• Mycotoxins lurking in your wine, coffee and food & how to avoid them

Abel James — author of The Wild Diet — joins us for a dynamic conversation on how he applies ancestral living concepts to his modern life. He breaks down the philosophies behind The Wild Diet, and we talk a great deal about how music, cooking and travel tie into the modern day ReWilder’s lifestyle. Prepare to be inspired to incorporate some of these ancestral practices into your own life!

Episode Breakdown:

• Able Abel
• Using positive speaking to make positive change
• Significance of the “Fat-Burning Man"
• The Wild Diet explained
• Music and its importance to Homo sapiens
• Cooking and food
• Being semi-nomadic and living for experience
• Purging “stuff” for a richer life
• Setting up a home base with intention

"We need to empower human nature; to rewild it.” -Erwan Le Corre

Erwan Le Corre, founder of MovNat, joins us for an intimate and inspiring look into his life and business. In this heartfelt interview, Erwan takes us through the development of MovNat and also shares a bit about his personal journey with rites of passage, parenting and plant medicines. 

Episode Breakdown:

• How Erwan built his business
• Rites of passage
• How parenting has shaped Erwan
• Importance of entheogens to our development
• MovNat workshops and courses

“Stand up straight!” — one of the more common phrases heard during childhood. But what exactly does it mean to “stand up straight”? And is it causing more harm than good? Esther Gokhale thinks so and has dedicated her life’s work to researching indigenous postures and helping people incorporate an aligned, primal posture into their daily lives. In this episode, she goes over some common postural pathologies and gives us actionable tips to correct these and find our own primal posture. Esther walks me, step-by-step, through correctly aligning my spine — follow along with us! 

We talk a great deal about natural movement on this show (see episodes with Erwan Le Corre, Ido Portal and Scott Sonnon), and posture is the foundational piece of the movement puzzle, folks! 

In this episode, we explore a primal parenting style honoring children as sovereign beings. Arthur Haines is back on the show to give us some insight into how he and his partner are raising their daughter Samara. He challenges some of today’s popular parenting styles — explaining their shortcomings and giving examples of what he and his partner do differently. This show is rich with takeaways on raising a sovereign child with the feral mindset. Listen with an open mind! 

Here’s to the next generation of ReWilders!

Episode Breakdown:

• Children are sovereign humans
• Corporal punishment vs. conscious communication
• Helicopter parenting
• Parenting in natural vs. urban environments
• Cry it out parenting
• It takes a village
• Place-based education
• Co-sleeping myths debunked and why you should consider co-sleeping
• Arthur’s thoughts on teens and sex

In this stream-of-consciousness rant, I break down the his-story of husbandry!

Episode Breakdown:

• Evolution of humans
• Our ancient toolkit
• Origins of hierarchy
• The Creation Myth — His-story
• I now pronounce you husband and wife
• ReWild Your Mind

It is a commonly-held (and media-fueled) belief in our culture that sun is bad and sunscreen is good. Not only is this inaccurate, but in fact, the opposite is true: Our skin is quite literally designed to be exposed to the sun’s rays, and sunscreen use actually causes a host of issues (one of which, ironically, is skin cancer). Nadine Artemis — sense visionary and founder of Living Libations — joins us to set the record straight on sun exposure and goes over how to properly interact with the sun for optimal health.

Episode Breakdown:

• Why you shouldn’t suntan through glass
• How sunscreen works
• Benefits of sungazing
• Sunlight and bacteria
• Why you don’t want empty vitamin D receptors
• Negative press surrounding sun exposure and skin
• Wise interaction with the sun
• Kids and sun exposure
• Our skin is designed to be exposed to the sun’s rays
• What we ingest determines how our skin responds to sunlight
• Skin cancer myths debunked
• Using plant oils to harmonize your skin with the sun in lieu of toxic sunscreens

Unschooling is a growing movement for those looking for an alternative to the traditional schooling system. Ben Hewitt — modern homesteader, unschooling father and author — calls it "self-directed, adult-facilitated life learning” or “immersion learning.” In this episode, Ben shares his experience with unschooling his two boys on their Vermont homestead. Rather than sitting at a desk, in a fluorescent-lit classroom, memorizing facts all day, Ben’s boys’ days are spent doing things like building barns, apprenticing with a local blacksmith and foraging food for that night’s dinner. Our conversation is fascinating, and whether or not you are a parent (or soon-to-be parent), if you went through traditional schooling for any portion of your life (most of us), you are sure to enjoy this show!

Episode Breakdown:

• How Ben & his family raise and forage 90% of their calories
• Self-directed, adult-facilitated life-learning
• Role of mentors in unschooling
• A day in the life of Ben’s kids
• Immersive learning in rural vs urban environments
• Induced busy-ness and time management
• How to get started with unschooling