Science based workout routines have become wildly popular these last couple of years because of people like Andrew Huberman, Peter Attia and other fitness influencers.

We’ve become obsessed with hyper optimizing all aspects of our life, including our cardio routine. If it’s not the perfect, 100% scientifically accurate zone 2 + norwegian 4x4 method, why do it?

At least, that’s what I thought a couple years ago. I got into the whole science based workout and health advice, and adopted what I believed was the perfect cardio routine.

• Zone 2 three times per week for a total of about 3-4 hours

• Norwegian 4x4 once per week

• Walking for recovery

This would give me the improvements I needed in both my aerobic base and my vo2 max. And it worked. I improved my vo2 max from the low 40’s to the mid 50’s in under a year. Pretty amazing right?

Maybe except for the fact that it was the most boring f*cking routine I have ever tried. And that’s my point with this post. Why do some boring ass cardio routine when you can get pretty much the same results just winging it and doing the cardio you actually like?

After sitting on the indoor bike trainer doing my zone 2 for over a year I just said f*ck it, quit, and started just doing the cardio I actually enjoyed.

Playing basketball, surfing, sprinting up hills, hiking through beautiful nature, playing golf, padel tennis, plain old walks, the occasional martial arts session and so on.

I also wanna argue that you actually get better results in the long term following a routine like this, and let me explain why.

Yes, on paper the whole science based routine might be better at improving your vo2 max, but that doesn’t account for a couple of things. First up, consistency. In the long run you are much more likely to stick to a routine you actually enjoy. Second of all, having fun is also important for longevity. Depressed people die earlier, just saying.

You might come at me with the whole “just use discipline bro”. Yeah cool, but talk to me in 40 years and we will see if you’re still doing your science based routine.

Besides, my vo2 max is pretty much the same as it was when I was doing the repetitive, boring ass science based routine, and I don’t even follow a schedule anymore. I just wing it. Hit up some friends for a golf session cause the weather is nice. Go for a sprint to get my heart rate a little higher. Maybe some basketball today. You get the picture.

All this science based stuff is kinda gay. Sitting there on the indoor trainer making sure I am pushing the exact watts I need to stay in the exact fat burning zone. Sure, if you’re a professional athlete you might need that to crank out the last bit of performance but most people aren’t. Most people aren’t training for all out performance, they’re just training for health and longevity. And for that, you don’t need some perfectly optimized routine.

Cardio actually becomes fun, something you look forward to, instead of something you feel like you just gotta do to stay healthy. And btw, I ain’t saying to quit running or cycling or whatever. If you actually enjoy those forms of cardio, great, keep doing them.

I go for the occasional jog as well, nothing wrong with that, but doing it just because you feel like you need to, that’s when you gotta switch it up.

So find out what sports/forms of cardio you enjoy and start incorporating them into your workout routine.

There’s also another point to prioritizing sports and these more dynamic forms of cardio over these zone 2 sessions and HIIT sessions. You get cardio, coordination, social interactions and competition all in one.

Sports generally also tend to be more self motivating. When you see yourself getting better at climbing, playing basketball or whatever, you keep coming back. You don’t really get that by going on a run in my opinion. It’s kinda the same every time.

That’s the rant for the week lol. Do whatever you want.

Thanks for reading and godspeed fellas.

— Kasper Veritas

Acne is complicated. At least that’s the image you get of it when you go on social media. Even if you go to the doctor. You don’t get an explanation, you just get a prescription.

It doesn’t have to be that way. I just launched The Acne Blueprint. The full guide, covering everything you need to know about getting rid of acne from the root cause, naturally.

The Acne Blueprint

If you’re interested you can check it out at the link above.

This is for you if you’ve been struggling with acne for a while and you just can’t seem to figure out what’s causing it or how to get rid of it. I was there a couple years ago as well. It felt like this endless battle where nothing was working.

I tried all the skincare products under the sun, and nothing just seemed to work no matter how much money I spent.

Then I decided to go to the doctor. Long story short, it didn’t really work either. I got prescribed all kinds of shitty medications including antibiotics (oral and topical) and even isotretinoin (accutane).

These drugs have a bunch of unwanted side effects, so even if you fix your acne they can come with long term health problems. For example, antibiotics can alter and worsen your gut microbiomes for years after you stop taking it. No bueno.

Isotretinoin can have really nasty side effects and is generally really hard on the liver, which is why you’re required to do blood tests every month to make sure your liver isn’t failing… Yeah it doesn’t sound too nice.

But I was 15 at this point, so I didn’t really care. But the problem is that it didn’t even fix my acne. The drugs kinda worked when I was on them but as soon as I stopped the acne gradually came back.

The problem is that you aren’t fixing the root cause of your acne, only the symptoms. So when my acne came back again after stopping isotretinoin, I decided to try and fix it naturally myself instead of hopping back on another round.

So I started researching…

Reading articles, studies, listeting to podcasts, experimenting, testing different things and so on.

And over the next couple of years I feel like I got a pretty good understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

Spoiler: it’s not about using the right skincare products.

So if you’re interested and you want to fix your acne once and for all, feel free to check it out.

Right now I’m running a pre sale of 50% off while I get everything finished and perfect, so you can pick it up at it’s lowest price ever of just $50 here:

The Acne Blueprint

That’s maybe one or two skincare products you’re missing out on for the knowledge you need to clear your acne permanently. Worth it in my opinion. And trust me, you don’t need all those products anyways.

Once it’s out, the price will go back to $100 and stay there forever (unless I raise it lol).

Oh, and did I forget to say that it obviously comes with lifetime access, 1 on 1 support so you can ask me any questions you got and a 100% money back guarantee. I don’t want your money if I can’t help you. Not a fair trade.

Btw, you can subscribe for free to my substack below if you haven’t already, and receive posts about all kinds of stuff I’m interested in (including free acne tips).

Thanks for reading and godspeed.

— Kasper Veritas

It might not seem obvious right now, but 99% of people are literally becoming more retarded by the day because of small habits and things they do throughout the day.

They wake up, immediately pick up their phone to get a dopamine spike and scroll through bits and pieces of brainrot content before they get out of bed.

Then they go on to check their phone 500 more times throughout the day, before they finish off the day with a bullshit netflix show and a little more doomscrolling.

When you do this over and over again, every single day, it’s only a matter of time before you actually end up retarded.

Studies already show that short form content worsens your attention, focus and just overall cognitive function. It literally shrinks the grey matter in your brain, which is really important for cognitive function, memory, and so on.

So here is the antidote to becoming retarded. So you can actually end up as the 1% of people that will be able to sit down and 25 pages in a book without checking their phone a million times or feeling like it’s the hardest thing they’ve ever done.

Subscribe now

Don’t be an NPC

Most people live their life on autopilot. They do the same things every day and don’t really engage in anything that requires their brain to actually work.

It’s like with muscles. If you don’t use them, you lose them. The same goes for your brain, yet most people don’t think about their brain that way.

Like I said, most people live life on autopilot and don’t do anything stimulating for their brain.

The best thing they got going for them is their job. Hopefully they’re getting some stimulation there and actually using their brain. But besides that, most people just run on autopilot. Doomscrolling, binge watching netflix and so on. Maybe going to the gym a couple times per week, but watching tiktok in between every set…

When this is all you do, no wonder you end up dumber every year.

This is the NPC life. Mindlessly, passively consuming, living on autopilot. At no point throughout the day did you allow your brain to have an original thought. At no point did you “create” anything.

The NPC life slowly just creeps up on you without you noticing. You end up living like a zombie, absent from your own mind (maybe a bit of an over exaggeration but you get the point).

If you ask me, that’s a no bueno.

The flex in the near future isn’t how much money you got in your bank account. It’s if you can actually sit down and read 20 pages in a book without doing a thousand other things. If you can watch a high quality movie without picking up your phone. If you can go for a walk without your phone. If you can eat a meal without watching youtube.

You get the picture.

And what it’s really about is just doing shit in your life. The opposite of running on autopilot like most people do. Having hobbies, being interested in shit, actually taking time out of the day to read books and do stuff you know is good for you.

And even before all that, it’s about actually recognizing it. Most people never do, because they’re too busy scrolling.

Be a renaissance man

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”

— Leonardo Da Vinci

You need to start living like Leonardo Da Vinci. The symbol of a true renaissance man. Always doing shit, having a million different hobbies, actually using the brain, experimenting, living life to the fullest.

Being a modern renaissance man is the opposite of being a doomscroller just living life on autopilot.

It’s about just being interested in multiple different things. Not because it’s efficient, but because it’s a life lived to the fullest. Because it’s fun.

Seek knowledge for it’s own sake. Just because you’re curious. A lot of people will tell you to avoid having multiple interests, hobbies or whatever because you can’t give all of them 100% of your effort.

In buddhism theres the old saying: “The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.”

Fuck that.

You need to pursue excellence in multiple aspects of life. You aren’t doing all these things because you need to be the absolute best, you are doing them because it’s the antidote to being an NPC.

And just to finish the point, Leonardo was the best painter of his time even though he focused more time on science, engineering, anatomy, etc.

So don’t tell me you can’t focus on multiple things at once.

NPC’s consume. Renaissance people create. Have multiple different interests at the same time. Learn things. Build things. DO COOL SHIT WITH YOUR LIFE.

I ain’t telling you to start painting like Leonardo did. But learn a new language, be good at a sport, play an instrument, run a business, stuff like that. Have multiple projects going at the same time. Multiple interests. Multiple skills developing simultaneously.

Pursuing different things out of pure curiosity.

Action steps

Okay, I’ve told you all this stuff, but you might be wondering: “well what do I actually need to do to not become retarded?”

No doomscrolling

This is probably the most important thing you can do. First up, it destroys your mind, so it’s a no bueno. Second of all, stopping it will give you hours every day to do the things that will actually move the needle.

So let’s just be honest about what doomscrolling is. Short form content designed to make you emotional, promote anxiety and keep you on the app for as long as possible.

These companies obviously don’t care about you, they just care about keeping you glued to the screen so they can make more money. And the best way to do that is by making you emotional. Bad news, controversy, outrage, conflicts, etc.

Sooner or later you’re gonna start seeing the world through that lens. You feel more stressed. Your baseline anxiety rises. You can’t focus for more than 30 seconds. No more deep thoughts. No more creativity. No nothing except BRAINROT.

But the good news is that the fix isn’t complicated. It’s just about putting the phone down.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

— Lao Tzu

It might sound impossible right know but like Lao Tzu said it’s just about taking the first step. Leaving the phone out of your bedroom so you don’t scroll before bed or after you wake up. Not bringing it to the bathroom. Going for walks without your phone. Deleting social media.

It’s just about gradually using your phone less and less, and before you know it your screen time is 1 hour per day.

Another thing that really help me not use my phone that much is the brick device. It’s this little thing that you scan (nfc chip) that blocks out distracting apps and notifications from your phone until you scan the device again.

Compared to just using the screen time settings this thing actually works.

Your brain is not gonna like it at first, and it’s gonna be hard. But on the other side of doomscrolling is the ability to actually think clearly again.

It’s the number 1 thing ruining your brain.

Read more books

Here I am talking about actual books. You aren’t special because you read a twitter thread or even a article/newsletter like this. You need to be reading actual books. Books that take weeks or even months to finish.

This is what cures brainrot. It’s the exact opposite of shallow, 30 second brainrot videos about a million different topics on social media.

It’s a thousand fucking pages about one story. You become invested. You’re required to focus to keep track of everything. It’s got actual depth.

People who read regularly have better vocabularies, better critical thinking abilities and a far superior ability to concentrate and stay focused for hours on end.

Especially fiction books. There is something about great classical fiction books that you don’t get from all these popular “self help” books. It improves your ability to understand how other people think and feel. A skill that’s extremely important if you wanna get somewhere in life.

Books like The Count of Monte Cristo, The Brothers Karamazov, The Picture of Dorian Grey, etc.

I like to read a mixture of both fiction and non fiction, but at the end of the day, the book that gets you to read is the best book.

And like with doomscrolling, start small. Read 10 pages before bed, and gradually build up. The point is just to rebuild your ability to focus.

Go for long walks without your phone

I know I briefly touched on this but I just wanna elaborate a little bit on it because I think it’s so important.

Going for long, slow walks is one of the most reliable thinking tools there is. There’s a reason why so many of the worlds greatest thinkers were all walkers. Nietzsche, Darwin, Steve Jobs, Leonardo Da Vinci, etc.

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Movement and thought are deeply linked. Something just happens when you go for a long stroll through the forest while listening to the birds and paying attention to all the little details.

Your brain is running on all cylinders. And science proves this.

Just look at this stuff. You clearly see more brain activity after walking compared to just sitting around. And sitting quietly is already infinitely better than scrolling your phone whenever you got a spare second.

That’s the reason you’re living on NPC autopilot mode. You never give your brain time to think. So get back into the habit of giving your brain time to relax and just do its thing.

Walking without your phone, sitting around quietly, meditating, driving without music, etc. Being present.

This is how you gradually get back into the habit of actually thinking, instead of just running on autopilot.

Challenge your brain

Like I said earlier, your brain is like a muscle. If you wanna keep it sharp and strong, you have to challenge it. Just like you have to challenge your muscles if you want them to grow.

Doomscrolling all day is the equivalent of laying in bed all day for your muscles. No growth, no challenge, just one dopamine hit after another.

So make it a habit to start challenging your brain. Play chess, try learning a language, have discussions with people, argue, play cards, learn to code, learn marketing, write articles, make youtube videos, read books (already touched on), read scientific studies about topics you’re interested in. Expand your knowledge.

This is how you keep your brain sharp and combat the negative effects of doomscrolling. Most people just never do this.

This also goes hand in hand with my next point.

Have a f*cking hobby

When most people are asked what their hobby is they say something like: “uhh, i don’t know, going to the gym.”

That’s great, but it’s just not cutting it.

Once again, the problem is the phone. People used to be big into hobbies but now we just doomscroll whenever we have a second to fill out. This leaves no time for actually interesting hobbies and challenging things that make you sharp, interesting, real.

You need things you do just because they’re fun, because you’re good at them, because they challenge you.

The ones I mentioned above, but it can also be things that are less challenging for the brain. Surfing, skiing, playing basketball, tennis, golf, poker night, going to the jazz bar while drinking a negroni, whatever the f*ck.

Just do cool shit.

That’s literally my whole point with this post. It’s just about putting down the damn phone so you can actually live life and do cool shit. It’s honestly not complicated.

Meditate and do nothing

This is the ultimate test of whether or not your brain is fried. I remember the first time I tried meditating. 2022 or something. I selected the 10 minute session on the app thinking it would be easy because, 10 minutes, come on.

Literally didn’t even last 5 minutes.

Once again, meditation is pretty much the exact opposite of doomscrolling. It’s zero stimulation, just you, your thoughts and your breath.

There’s many forms of meditation. You don’t have to download an app, sit with your legs crossed like a monk and meditate until a certain timer runs out.

Meditation can also just be doing nothing. Sitting at the beach watching the sunset. Laying out in the sun tanning for an hour with nothing but your thoughts. Whatever. What’s really just important is that you have some time in the day with zero stimulation, just you and your thoughts.

The next time you’re at the bus stop, instead of picking up the phone, just stand there. The next time you got a couple minutes of spare time, instead of picking up the phone, just be with your thoughts.

I know this sounds like some crazy monk shit, but that’s just because of how f*cked the modern world is. Everyone is so stimulated 24/7 and couldn’t even fathom the idea of just sitting silently or going for a walk without their phone.

But if you actually think back to the past, like way back before agriculture, we actually spent a lot of time just relaxing, eating food, sitting around. At least when we weren’t out hunting or gathering.

In general, super low stimulation compared to nowadays.

The bottom line

The world is cooked. Plain and simple. People are becoming dumber and more distracted by the day. Algorithms and corporations all fighting for your attention. You’re literally frying your brain while they’re increasing their profits.

The average person isn’t even noticing this, and will keep going down the slippery slope of the autopilot, NPC life. Never doing anything new. Passive consumption. Mainstream media. Bullshit life if you ask me.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Read more books. Go for long walks without your phone. Learn something. Have hobbies. Challenge your brain. Have multiple things going on. Create more than you consume. Be alone with your thoughts. Try new things.

Adopt the renaissance man way of life.

Be like Leonardo Da Vinci.

“As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.”

— Leonardo Da Vinci

Thanks for reading and godspeed.

— Kasper Veritas

First up, acne unfortunately isn’t as simple as just eating these 5 foods and then magically getting clear skin. It might be, but I don’t want to promise anything.

These foods are really important, but you also got to just overall eat a clean, healthy, whole foods diet. There are also certain foods I would eliminate from my diet as they can worsen acne, so subscribe to my substack so you don’t miss it when I publish that.

Alternatively, you can check out my full acne course here, that covers everything from diet to lifestyle and environment and everything in between.

Okay, let’s get into these foods.

Food 1: Fatty fish

This is probably the number one food you can incorporate into your diet to heal your skin, for a lot of reasons. Multiple studies have looked at the effects of fatty fish, or more specifically omega 3 fatty acids, on acne, and found amazing results.

This review study highlights a bunch of anti inflammatory mechanisms that omega 3 fatty acids have, and how they lead to better skin. It also highlights a bunch of studies looking at both fish consumption and fish oil supplementation and how both lead to improvements in acne.

Basically, omega 3 fatty acids are goated. They directly counteract the inflammatory pathways that drive acne.

The problem is that most don’t consume enough omega 3 fatty acids. Not only do we not get enough omega 3, we also get too much omega 6. Having a proper omega 3 to 6 ratio in the body is important for optimal health and keeping inflammation in check.

Epidemiological studies clearly show that there is a correlation between your omega 3 to 6 ratio and how healthy you are. If you have a high amount of omega 6 compared to omega 3, you’ll have more inflammation and worse health.

However, it’s important to point out that this is correlation studies, which are most likely confounded to some degree by the fact that people who consume a diet high in omega 6 and low in omega 3 are normally the people who eat a lot of processed foods and junk food, don’t exercise that much, sleep poorly, etc.

However, there is also mechanistic data to support the fact that keeping your omega 3 to 6 ratio low (1:1 to 1:4) is beneficial for your overall health and inflammation, and therefore skin health.

The best way to do that is to eat more fatty fish. HOWEVER, not all fish are equally beneficial. I would stay as far away from farm raised fish as possible. First of all if you care about the quality of life for the fish, but also just because farm raised fish is so much more unhealthy.

They are pumped full of antibiotics, fed a super low quality diet, and are overall much unhealthier fish compared to their wild counterparts.

This obviously manifests itself in the meat that you eat.

Secondly, I would try to stay away from large predatory fish most of the time. These fish are higher in heavy metals, which bioaccumulate in your body, causing all sorts of problems like increased risk of cancer, inflammation, neurodegenerative diseases and so on.

Think fish like tuna, mackerel, sword fish, shark, etc.

Now you might be thinking “well what f*cking fish can I eat then?”

Wild caught salmon, sardines (fresh or in water or olive oil), anchovies, small local fish and occasionally larger fish like tuna or mackerel.

Wild caught salmon is my personal favorite, but for the most part I consume sardines as they’re cheaper and more convenient. They are also a great source of zinc which is great for improving acne (more on that later).

Food 2: Sauerkraut/kimchi

This is another great food for skin health. I don’t have a direct study looking at sauerkraut, but we know how important your gut health is for skin health through what is known as the gut-skin axis.

Fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi are super high in probiotics (bacteria), that promote a healthier, more diverse gut microbiome.

More healthy bacteria and microbes = better gut health = better skin health.

So instead of wasting money on all these “probiotic” supplements that are super overpriced and filled with crap, just eat some sauerkraut or kimchi.

You can make it yourself or buy it in most supermarkets.

It’s simple. Up your intake of fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi and your skin will thank you.

Food 3: Kefir

Kefir is another fermented food, this time made by fermenting milk with kefir grains. Kefir is super high in probiotics, which once again will help your gut health, and therefore indirectly improve your acne through the gut-skin axis.

On top of that kefir is also just high in a bunch of important nutrients, so whether you’re struggling with acne or not, you would benefit from regularly consuming kefir.

If you can, I would recommend getting raw kefir as this retains more of the vitamins, minerals and beneficial probiotics.

You can also make it yourself from raw milk and kefir grains.

You can drink kefir as it is, or top it with fruits, honey, granola, etc. to your liking. I personally love to just drink it by itself. It’s quick and easy, and I enjoy the taste.

Food 4: Bone Broth

The next food is bone broth. Bone broth is amazing cause it’s super high in collagen (if you make it right), the protein that makes up most of your skin.

Collagen is just important for overall skin health and appearance, but the real reason bone broth is specifically good for acne, is because of the effects it has on gut health. It’s high in gut beneficial amino acids like glycine, proline and glutamine, which help keep your gut lining tight and healthy.

Earlier I talked about how important this is, in particular to prevent leaky gut and the inflammation and acne it brings.

However, its important you get the right bone broth. A lot of store bought bone broth is bullshit. First up, filled with additives and ingredients you don’t want. Second of all, and even worse, super low in protein (the collagen you want) because they don’t prepare it right.

They do this to cut costs, and you just end up with a product with no real benefits. A true bone broth will have about 8-10g of protein per cup, which tells you that you’re actually getting the amino acids you need.

Cheap ones will have around 2g per cup which obviously isn’t gonna cut it.

Either make sure you buy the right one or just make it yourself by simmering bones and other collagen rich parts of the animal with some vegetables and stuff (look up a recipe). I prefer either beef or chicken broths.

You can drink bone broth as it is or add it to stews, soups, etc. for a nice collagen boost that will benefit your gut.

If you’re lazy you can also consider just taking a collagen supplement. It’s a lot easier and provides you a lot of the same beneficial, anti inflammatory amino acids like glycine and proline.

Just make sure you get one that’s tested for heavy metals and other contaminants so you know you aren’t ingesting bad stuff.

This is the one I use if you’re interested: Puori Collagen

Food 5: Oysters

Oysters are a true superfood, and they’re especially great for improving acne because:

1. They’re super high in zinc

2. High in omega 3 fatty acids

I talked about the benefits of omega 3’s earlier so let’s focus on zinc in particular here.

Studies consistently show that zinc is important for treating acne. Acne patients generally have lower serum levels of zinc compared to non-acne individuals and supplementation with zinc, both topically and orally, have been shown to improve acne severity.

I am generally not a huge fan of supplements, both because of how they’re made and also that you might run into other nutrient deficiencies/problems when taking isolated compounds for long periods of time.

For example, when you consume high amounts of zinc over an extended period of time, you deplete your copper, which causes problems for your skin and overall health.

Therefore, if you want to take a zinc supplement it’s important to supplement it with a copper as well to avoid running into issues.

But with real foods you don’t really run into these problems. For example, oysters are extremely high in zinc, providing about 30mg per 6 oysters, but they’re also really high in copper which helps balance it out.

Therefore I would just recommend eating oysters a few times per week if you can, as that will meaningfully contribute to the amount of zinc shown clinically to improve acne, without running into the copper depletion problem.

On top of that oysters are also super high in omega 3’s like I mentioned earlier, along with a good amount of other micronutrients, making them far superior to a lab made zinc supplement in my opinion.

So really, oysters might actually be the number 1 food for skin health and acne, just because of the combination of acne beneficial nutrients.

So eat your oysters fellas. You can even get them pretty cheap if you look the right places. Whole foods for example sell 12 for $12 every friday, which is a steal in my opinion.

And there you have it, these are 5 of the best foods you can add into your diet to improve your acne.

Obviously it’s also super important to just have a good baseline diet. Eating high quality whole foods. Meat, vegetables, fruit, eggs, high quality dairy and so on. Preferably organic if you can afford it.

On top of that it’s also important to limit certain foods and prioritize a healthy, active lifestyle. Getting sunlight, exercising, stuff like that.

All these things contribute to the overall quality of your skin and are super important.

If you’re interested I cover everything you need to know in my full acne course which you can find here: Veritas Method

But that’s pretty much it.

Thanks for reading and godspeed.

— Kasper Veritas

Video games have been demonized like crazy over the last couple of years.

“Video games make you dumb and anti social, it’s a waste of time, you’re a beta male if you play video games, you’ll never be successful if you play video games.”

They’ve gotten the reputation of this activity that destroys your attention span, makes you anti social and dumb.

But just think back to the good old video game days. Life felt better and I bet you didn’t feel like you were destroying your life, despite all these red pill alphas saying so (maybe unless you played 12 hours per day).

Nowadays you can’t watch a movie without checking your phone 10 times. You can’t eat a meal without a youtube video playing in the background. You can’t read a book for more than 10 minutes.

We’ve started experiencing actual BRAINROT. To the point where it was literally the word of the year in 2024. But it wasn’t from video games, it was from smartphones.

Mindlessly scrolling your phone for hours every day is what actually causes brainrot, and in this article I wanna go over why, and why video games fix it.

People were right that screens are bad for us, but they just blamed the wrong ones. Parents won’t allow their kids to play GTA or Call of Duty because “they’re too violent”, but they give them a smartphone with TikTok before they can even walk properly.

The effects of doomscrolling

To understand why video games are beneficial, you first have to understand why doomscrolling is so bad for you.

Apps like TikTok, Instagram, X, etc. are all engineered for passive consumption. They require pretty much zero cognitive effort. You watch a short video or read a short post and then you swipe, get a small dopamine hit and repeat that until you’ve suddenly spent two hours doing absolutely nothing.

Sometimes you feel like you’ve entered a time machine and just travelled into the future because you just totally loose track of time. Your brain is just in this “low power mode”, where you’re constantly reacting to all these posts, but you’re never actually thinking deeply or really using your brain.

This is the definition of brainrot. You train your brain to crave immediate gratification and destroy your attention span in the process.

And we have studies to back up the negative effects of doomscrolling. Recently a study came up that literally proved that short form content causes “brainrot”.

This study looked at nearly 100,000 participants across 71 studies and found that the more short form videos you watch, the worse your cognition, attention, mental health, stress and anxiety will be.

Other studies have also found that the more screen time you have on your phone, the worse your physical health is as well.

Video games might seem like they’re pretty similar on the surface, but in reality they’re pretty much the polar opposite of doomscrolling.

When you’re running around nuke town on Call of Duty or fighting a boss in Elden Ring, it’s cognitively demanding and requires that your brain is firing on all cylinders.

You are constantly:

• Tracking multiple objects in 3D space

• Making split second decisions based on what you see

• Coming up with strategies and changing them when they fail, etc.

• Memorizing maps and controls

• And so much more

What on the surface might just seem like another “mindless” activity, is actually highly stimulating and requires your mind to work hard.

Doomscrolling = passive activity

Video games = active engagement

So what are the actual benefits of video games then?

Benefits of video games

Believe it or not, in the last couple decades there has actually emerged a good amount of evidence to support the fact that video games are beneficial to your brain health.

Look at this study for starters. Playing Super Mario increases gray matter in the brain. Gray matter helps you process information in the brain, and is important for memory, emotions, speech, muscle control, etc.

So this literally shows that video games improve your memory and attention span. Yes you read that right, video games IMPROVE YOUR ATTENTION SPAN.

The attention span which get absolutely destroyed by doomscrolling social media.

This study is particularly important since it wasn’t just “feeling” cognitively smarter. They actually did MRI scans of the brain and found increases in this gray matter, which is pretty cool.

The brain is like a muscle, if you don’t use it, it atrophies (gets weaker). Certain video games like Super Mario force you to train the brain and keep it sharp.

This meta analysis below looked at the effects of action video games on cognition and found improvements in “domains of top down attention and spatial cognition”.

Pretty cool.

Another study here looked at video games and found improvements in visual skills.

Once again, pretty cool if you ask me.

Another study looked at the impact of video games on training surgeons. It’s results are pretty insane. Those who had played video games in the past and those who played video games currently made about 30% fewer errors and completed the surgery about 25% faster, and just overall did a better job compared to those who didn’t play video games.

This once again shows the positive effects video games have on your brain. Here’s the study if you’re interested.

There’s literally a ton of different cognitive benefits to playing video games, so I really don’t understand why they have gotten such a bad reputation as this thing you shouldn’t do.

If the alternative is doomscrolling social media then video games are definitely 100x better. Obviously there is a limit to how much time you should spend on video games every day, as anything you do too much can become bad for you.

If you are outright addicted to video games and spend 10 hours per day playing, then it’s obviously bad, but that’s not what I am telling you to do. This will limit the amount of time you can spend on more productive habits like working, exercising, spending time with friends and family, reading books, getting sunlight, etc.

The Super Mario study only had people play for 30 minutes per day for 2 months, so it’s not like you need to spend hours every day playing.

Everything in moderation. Obviously there’s such a thing as too much time spent playing video games, just like you can exercise too much or drink too much water.

The type of video game matters

The type of video game you play matters a lot. Not all types of video games are actually beneficial for you.

It probably doesn’t take a genius to figure out that cookie clicker won’t have the same cognitive benefits as Elden Ring, Super Mario or Civilization.

The best type of video games are the ones that let you make most of the choices and require a good amount of strategy, error correction, etc.

Basically, video games that are “hard” are the best. Games like Elden Ring, Civilization, Super Mario, Call of Duty and sim racing games like iRacing, Asetto Corsa, etc.

Games where you have to constantly make high speed decisions, keep track of multiple objects at the same time and much more.

The things I went over earlier.

Don’t be this guy

Yeah, I have said video games can be good for you, but that doesn’t mean you should become this guy.

Not working out, sitting in your room 12 hours per day playing Fortnite, never getting sunlight, eating junk food all day, not doing cool shit.

You still need to lock in.

Work on making it out the matrix (sorry), taking care of your body, eating clean, doing cool side quests, spending time with friends and family, climbing a mountain, reading books, learning a new language etc.

Video games are cool and can have pretty amazing benefits, but real life will always be 100x cooler, don’t forget that.

Like I talked about earlier, it’s about finding the balance.

Real life stuff > video games > doomscrolling.

Video games should never come before going for a hike, going to the beach, surfing, tanning, playing a sport with your friends, etc.

But just because you prioritize those things, there is still more than enough time in the day to play an hour of video games if that’s what you want.

It’s also funny how all these red pill dudes who say “video games are for beta males, they lower your test and bla bla bla” are probably all spending hours per day on social media anyways.

The thing I wanna get across with this article is that video games are so much better for you than doomscrolling, so if you find yourself on the couch scrolling social media, just go play video games instead.

A lot of dudes also say that they feel video games aren’t as fun as they used to be, which is why they just scroll their phone instead. Listen, the reason video games aren’t “fun” anymore is that you’re getting way more dopamine from scrolling.

It’s just like a heroin addict who doesn’t enjoy anything else in life except heroin.

When you stop doomscrolling all day, all these other activities actually become fun again.

Conclusion

Look, video games aren’t some “beta, anti social” activity that’s gonna make you dumb. That’s what I was told, which is why I stopped playing for a while.

But when you actually dive into the scientific literature on video games and look past the “red pill alphas” who say it’s bad for you, you find out that it’s actually pretty insane what kind of effects they have on brain health.

It’s clear that it’s way better than doomscrolling your phone and any type of activity that can get you away from spending time on your smartphone is great.

But remember, everything in moderation. Sitting in front of the screen for hours is not gonna be good. You need to move your body, adjust your vision, etc.

Staring at a screen for hours at a time without breaks will increase your chance of developing myopia (short sightedness), so always take breaks to go outside and look into the horizon.

Just in general, you should try to spend more time outside than inside.

That’s pretty much it, thanks for reading and remember:

Real life > screens

— Kasper Veritas

Here’s why:

1. Phone immediately after waking

Most people go straight for the phone immediately after waking up. This is one of the worst things you can do for your mental health, physical health and just general focus and well being throughout the day.

First up, you start your day out with tons of dopamine right after a 8 hour “dopamine detox”.

Scrolling tiktok = dopamine. Watching the news = dopamine. Likes, messages, etc. = dopamine.

This makes it harder to actually complete slower, more meaningful tasks later in the day like work, exercise, reading, etc.

These tasks naturally give you less dopamine, so after you’ve made your brain used to these high dopamine activities like scrolling, it’ll be 10x harder to actually complete the meaningful tasks and you’ll have to use more willpower to actually do it.

Another bad thing about using your phone first thing in the morning is the stressful effect it has.

Your monkey brain is not made to instantly be bombarded with news from all around the world right after waking. This instantly drops you into these emotional states, stresses you out and just sets you up for a bad day.

Like I never understood the point of checking the news all the time. Someone got killed on the other side of the world, great, I needed that information to continue my life. A plane crashed, wow, important information that I absolutely need to continue on with my life.

Like I said, your monkey brain isn’t made to be bombarded with all this information, and in the end it destroys your focus and sets your day up for failure.

Actionable step: Keep your phone in another room while sleeping and don’t use it for the first 1-2 hours after waking. Ideally as long as possible.

Sometimes I end up not using my phone until well past midday because I kind of forget about it. This allows me to actually focus on the stuff I need to do.

2. No morning sunlight

Another detrimental effect from laying in your bed all morning is that you don’t get your morning sunlight.

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last couple of years, you’ve probably heard about morning sunlight on social media.

It’s become really popular after Andrew Huberman really started talking about it on his podcast, and for good reason. It has a ton of benefits.

Improved sleep, better mood and focus throughout the day. Better skin health, eyesight, etc. I made a full post on sunlight, also going over the benefits of morning sunlight, which you can read here if you’re interested:

But to get these benefits it’s important that you get outside ASAP after waking. That’s obviously hard if you’re laying in bed scrolling instagram.

Basically, morning sunlight just signals to your brain that it’s daytime which helps you wake up and not feel groggy and fatigued for the first half of the day.

Actionable step: Get outside ASAP after waking up and get sunlight, even if it’s overcast. In sunny weather, aim for at least 10 minutes, cloudy, 15-20 minutes and really overcast + low solar angle, 20-30 minutes.

3. Caffeine immediately after waking

Most people start their day with coffee right after waking up. Horrible idea for multiple reasons.

Most people say they need the coffee to “wake up”, but in reality they are just covering up their shit routine with a half fix.

The caffeine in coffee or tea (or whatever you drink with caffeine), acts on your adenosine receptors. This is a chemical in your brain that makes you tired. So in theory, it sounds like caffeine is goated here.

But the problem is that your adenosine system isn’t active in the morning. This is because adenosine gets broken down while you sleep and gradually builds up while you’re awake, creating a kind of “sleep pressure”.

So in the morning your adenosine is already at it’s lowest, which means caffeine just goes in and does a whole lot of nothing.

In fact it’s actually counterproductive, because when the caffeine eventually wears off later in the day you get hit with all that adenosine you’ve been blocking all morning, which is one of the reasons so many people get that “afternoon crash” from caffeine.

Instead, fix the underlying issue. The reason you feel so tired in the morning is because you’re laying in bed scrolling your phone and not getting your morning sunlight.

This in turn ruins your sleep, and just creates this negative spiral, where you feel like you need caffeine in the morning to function properly.

Actionable step: Delay caffeine consumption 60-90 minutes to allow your adenosine system to start up naturally. Instead, get morning sunlight which will increase your cortisol naturally, making you feel awake and ready for the day.

(btw, it’s good to have a cortisol peak in the morning. it’s chronically elevated cortisol that’s bad.)

Then after 60-90 minutes, you’re free to have that double espresso to get that generational locked in work session.

That’s basically it. Fix your morning, fix your day.

Thanks for reading and godspeed bruh.

— Kasper Veritas

Society today wants you to believe that happiness comes from material possessions or outside events.

Once you get that lambo you’ll finally be happy. Once you get that brand new house you’ll finally be happy. Once you get that $1 million net worth you’ll finally be happy. Once you get that rolex you’ll finally be happy.

Look, these things are nice, don’t get me wrong, but the stoics understood that material possessions can never lead to true happiness.

I think this is why we are more depressed nowadays than we’ve ever been before. People don’t realize that material possessions don’t lead to happiness or fulfillment, so when they finally get that new shiny thing they’ve been wanting for so long, and it doesn’t actually make them happier, they can’t understand it, and just get more unhappy and move unto the next shiny thing.

Then we keep going around this hamster wheel of materialism, because we think that somehow the next thing will be different, and that it will finally make us happy.

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.” - Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius was a roman emperor who lived nearly 2000 years ago (121-180 AD). At the time, you could easily argue that he was the most powerful man on the earth, especially since becoming emperor at the height of the roman empire.

He could’ve had anything he desired in his almost 20 years as ruler of the greatest empire on earth. Money, women, the fastest horse (the og lambo), endless alcohol, partying, etc.

He was unbound by money, law, etc. and could literally do anything he wanted. Yet he didn’t indulge in any of those things.

He advocated for a life of virtue, living in accordance with nature and practicing self discipline above material possessions. I really think he is one of the biggest advocates for material possessions not equaling happiness.

If Marcus Aurelius, the most powerful man on earth, didn’t care about material possessions, why should you?

You are just making yourself miserable chasing all these things instead of looking inwards. I would highly recommend reading his private journal that just so happened to get turned into a book for the public to read nearly 2000 years later. Pretty insane.

It’s called “Meditations” and is one of the most popular books for good reason. There is nothing else like it out there. Unlike other books where the author writes it well knowing that someone is gonna read it, Marcus wrote his “book” as a private journal, not thinking anyone else was gonna read it.

Try to put yourself in his shoes. What would you do if you had access to anything you wanted and could do whatever you wanted?

Most would probably dopaminemaxx like crazy. Partying every day, drugs, alcohol, girls, gambling, buying every single thing they ever wanted. Cars, watches, houses etc.

But would it lead to happiness?

I actually believe it would lead to the opposite: misery.

I know this sounds crazy, but in the end it’s like drugs. In the beginning it feels great, you get tons of dopamine and feel like you’re on top of the world, but in the end it’s never enough. You need more and more and more, and in the end you end up below your baseline happiness.

This is why all these famous rich people end up doing all kinds of crazy shit like all the epstein drama. They have everything, and in the end there is nothing left to do except for going to an island and doing stupid shit. They end up miserable.

Exactly how GTA becomes boring once you get everything.

This is what all the other roman emperors did as well. Indulged in whatever they could. They ended up miserable and the roman empire fell in the end.

It’s kinda like when you’re a kid and you get that new toy for christmas that you have been wanting for a while. Instant dopamine when you rip open the present, but then a couple weeks later it’s sat in the corner of your room collecting dust and you have your sights on a new shiny toy.

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

- Socrates

So instead of chasing after the next dopamine hit, aka material possessions and all these outside things, look to the inside, and start developing the capacity to enjoy less.

Learn to enjoy the little things. The beautiful sunset, the birds singing, the trees, your family, friends, the beautiful night sky, etc.

All the best things in life are free, remember that.

It’s about learning to just enjoy the present moment instead of always looking towards the future. It’s all these little things that truly bring you joy and fulfillment, but most people don’t pay attention to them anymore because they are focused on what society tells them is important. Getting the newest iphone, the smart tv, the car, the house, the promotion, etc.

I know this sounds cringe, but everyone is literally trapped in the matrix chasing the next materialistic dopamine hit, because that’s what society tells them. Consumerism has never been more widespread, because guess what?

That’s how all these big companies make money. By somehow convincing us to buy shit we don’t actually need.

That’s how the world is run today. If the GDP goes up 3% per year then all is well and the world is prosperous. But is that really true? We are more depressed than ever before, fatter than ever before, more divorced than ever before, etc. despite having more things than we’ve ever had before.

I ain’t saying that you have to go full monk mode, move to the mountains and own absolutely nothing, but I think it’s a great idea to keep these stoic beliefs in the back of your mind the next time you want that shiny new thing.

Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with wanting to become rich, I want that as well, but I think it’s important to want it for the right reasons and know that it isn’t the most important thing in life.

Get rich so you can spend time with your friends and family, do stuff you actually like, spend money on your health, etc.

NOT so you can buy a lambo just to impress your fake friends.

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants”

- Epictetus

Another downside of all these material possessions is all the problems they bring.

Like Tyler Durden says in the movie Fight Club “the things you own, end up owning you.”

The more things you own the more stressed out you become because you gotta manage them, make sure nobody steals them, etc.

Let’s say you got a giant ass house worth $10 million, with all kinds of expensive shit inside. Art, watches, cars, etc. Now those things will always be in the back of your mind. You have to probably hire security, get a safe for all your watches, insurance for all the stuff, etc.

And what if you want to go on vacation? Now you’re gonna be thinking about “what if somebody breaks into my house”, and so on.

You might not think about it now, but it’s really true. The more things you own, the more they end up owning you, by dictating your choices.

Biggie was right in his song “Mo Money Mo Problems”.

Here’s an analogy for all the brokies out there (including myself). It’s like you’re playing a video game and you got a lot of valuable stuff on you. Now you play it more safe because you don’t wanna lose it. You don’t take any chances, and you’re stressed out because you gotta keep all these items.

Then when you eventually die and respawn it’s like a giant weight has been lifted off your back. You realize those items weren’t that important in the first place, and now you can actually go around and enjoy the game and just take some chances.

You can have material things, but don’t become so attached to them that you wouldn’t be able to bear loosing them. That is what makes you unhappy.

Marcus Aurelius also talks about how all the things we “own”, we’re only really borrowing from the universe, so why are we mad or sad when we loose them?

All we really have is our mind and body, so focus on those instead.

“We suffer more in our imagination than in reality.”

- Seneca

I think this is another thing we can learn from the stoics. Staying present.

We are all so caught up with the future. What about this, what about that, what if this happens, etc.

We need to practice being more present. We worry about all these things that are never gonna happen. And worse yet, because we aren’t present, always thinking about the future or the past, we miss the present moment which is all there really is.

Another reason why it’s a waste of time is that most things that happen we have no control over. Stuck in traffic? You can’t control it so don’t worry about it. It’s raining? You can’t control it so just enjoy it and don’t worry about it. I could come up with a million examples.

Most things people go around worrying about they have no control over, so it’s really just a waste of brain power expending energy on all these things.

The stoics knew the importance of the present moment and just accepting things as they were. Acting virtuous in the moment and not dwelling on the past or becoming anxious about the future.

So how do we actually do this?

By slowing down. Life goes by so fast today because we are all striving for that next dopamine hit. Scrolling TikTok, watching Netflix, gambling, online shopping, etc.

Whenever we have a split second where we’re bored, we instantly just pull out our phone and start scrolling.

I was recently on the bus where I saw this guy just absolutely addicted to his phone, it was crazy. He was playing a game on his phone and whenever he came to a loading screen that took more than a few seconds he would open TikTok and start scrolling. We were at a place with bad service so a lot of videos didn’t load and we was just scrolling anyways hoping that a video would show up. Then he would switch back to the video game and press violently on the screen as if that would help with loading the game faster.

People are literally so addicted it’s insane. Nobody can do a bus ride without checking their phone. Nobody can stand in line at the supermarket without checking their phone. Nobody can wait at the bus stop without checking their phone.

This is what you need to reject.

You need to consciously spend time being bored and just being in the present moment. Don’t pick up your phone whenever you feel bored and get the urge. Stand at the bus stop without scrolling Instagram. Go for a walk without your phone. Eat without watching youtube.

It’s all about minimizing the amount of high dopamine activities you engage in every day, as these steal your focus and make you more distracted from the present moment.

In the end they also make all the little things that actually make you happy seem boring and uninteresting. Why would you go for a walk and listen to the birds or spend time with your family when you could get 1000x times more dopamine by sitting in your room scrolling TikTok?

Another thing you can practice is meditation. This is another great way to practice staying present and just enjoying the small things.

The “Medito” app is a great place to start, and the best thing is that it’s 100% free.

That’s pretty much all I had to say.

Stay present, reject materialism.

Thanks for reading and godspeed.

— Kasper Veritas

The sun is the source of all life on earth, no question about it. It can have profound positive effects on your health, both physical and mental if done right, but it can also have negative effects if not done right.

After all, it is a giant thermonuclear reactor sending massive amounts of energy down towards you, which is why you gotta respect it.

So here is how to sunmaxx the right way, to get the most amount of benefits and not end up wrinkly as a raisin by the time you get older.

In the natural world you wouldn’t even have to think about it, because you would already be doing every right naturally, but nowadays we live so out of tune with nature that we have to consciously think about.

How most people are doing it wrong

Nowadays, people kinda fit into two categories: sun deficient or doing it wrong.

The first group is the sun deficient. The people who believe the sun to be this horrible thing that you need to avoid at all costs because it will give them skin cancer and the skin appearance of a 98 year old.

They cover up in spf 50 every day, even in the winter time, and make sure to avoid being outside at peak uv. They use sunglasses if it’s sunny because sunlight is bad for the eyes etc. They would rather take a vitamin D supplement than go outside.

The other group is just doing it wrong. Sitting inside all winter and spring, before going outside on a peak uv summer day because they want a nice tan. Most likely they end up burning but don’t really care and do it again the next day. They don’t really pay attention to their sun exposure and whether or not they get burned.

Both of these are bad.

We wan’t to be strategic about our sun exposure to maximize the benefits, and not end up burned to a crisp, like people who just throw themselves out into peak uv without giving their body the proper input signals.

But before we go over the actual strategies on maximizing the benefits from the sun, let’s look at some of the actual benefits.

Benefits from sunlight

1. Vitamin D production

Vitamin D production is probably one of the main benefits of sunlight, not only for the actual vitamin D, but also just the tons of cascade effects optimal vitamin D levels bring.

Things like proper hormone levels, immune function, mood, bone health etc.

Basically, low vitamin D levels can result in a bunch of health problems you don’t want, like increased risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes and even obesity.

And before you think about just taking a vitamin D supplement, no.

Taking some isolated “vitamin” made in a cheap factory from sheep’s wool will not give you the same effects as actually getting vitamin D from sunlight, in my opinion.

Also, you risk getting vitamin D toxicity as you bypass the body’s natural regulatory processes that occur when producing vitamin D in the skin from sunlight.

You also don’t know if those supplements are contaminated, like most supplements are, since they are produced in low quality environments that exposes them to toxins like heavy metals, forever chemicals etc.

Personally, I would much rather get my vitamin D from sunlight and my diet.

2. Circadian rhythm

Having a properly synced circadian rhythm, or internal clock, is extremely important for proper health.

Every single cell and process in your body runs on a time schedule set by your suprachiasmatic nucleus, that is influenced by external factors.

It just so happens that sunlight is the biggest factor for setting your circadian rhythm.

When you get proper sunlight exposure throughout the day you tell your brain and body what time of day it is, which aligns all these processes to the right time.

If you didn’t have these external factors your circadian rhythm would drift out of sync and all these vital processes would be performed at the wrong time, messing up your health.

One of the main benefits of having an aligned circadian rhythm is the positive effects it has on sleep.

With a healthy circadian rhythm it becomes easier to fall asleep, wake up refreshed and get high quality sleep.

And like I said, the best way to set your circadian rhythm is to get sunlight throughout the day, especially in the morning. Going outside as soon as possible after waking up will signal to your body that it’s daytime and help align your circadian rhythm.

When you stay inside in the morning you aren’t signaling to your body that it’s daytime so you don’t get a natural cortisol spike or start all the processes that will set you up for great sleep later that night.

So getting sunlight throughout the day, especially at sunrise and sunset is super important for circadian health, sleep and all the cascade effects you get from that.

3. Eye health

When sunlight hits your retina it stimulates the production of dopamine, which is super important for eye health and preventing myopia (short sightedness).

Myopia is the leading eye disease worldwide, growing rapidly every year.

It’s expected to affect about 50% of the population in 2050, which is just absolutely mind boggling.

You always hear people saying “myopia is just genetics” but that is just bullshit and that chart should make it clear why.

Suddenly we all just got bad genes and ended up with myopia??? No, it’s bullshit. It’s because we spend our time inside, looking at objects close up, and not getting enough sunlight.

The bright light that you get from sunlight helps prevent myopia and keeps your vision sharp.

You also just automatically look at objects further away when you’re outside which is another big part of the myopia equation.

Sunlight + looking far away = decreased risk of myopia.

Pretty simple.

Actionable step: when sitting in front of screens or anything close up, take a break about every 30 minutes to go outside and look into the horizon for 30-60 seconds (or however long you want).

4. Gut health

Believe it or not, sunlight actually improves your gut health.

Especially UV light.

This study found increases in gut biodiversity when prospects were exposed to UVB light.

They had increases in certain beneficial bacterial strands, which is just amazing, and yet another reason why a vitamin D capsule won’t give you the same effects as actual sunlight.

5. Mitochondrial + systemic effects

Sun exposure, and in this case, particularly infrared light, is super beneficial for your mitochondrial function.

Infrared light penetrates deep into the skin and improves your electron transport chain, making ATP production more efficient.

ATP is your body’s main source of energy, and incredibly important for overall energy, recovery, physical performance and so on.

Think of it like an engine. When you get regular sunlight exposure you make your engine more efficient and able to produce more horsepower. It’s a win win.

Sitting inside all the time = bad gas mileage and low top speed

Getting sunlight = amazing gas mileage and great top speed

Beyond just the energy effects that infrared light has, it is also a stimulator of melatonin in the skin.

You might think of melatonin as a sleep hormone, and while it also is that, it’s also a potent antioxidant in the skin.

Antioxidants help combat free radicals that cause oxidative stress and inflammation, making them super important for overall health.

Oxidative stress is not something you want, as it contributes to cell and tissue damage, contributing to aging and even diseases like cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and heart disease.

Beyond that, UV light also helps stimulate nitric oxide production in the skin. Nitric oxide is a vasodilator, which means it relaxes and opens up your blood vessels, improving blood pressure and circulation.

This is independent of vitamin D and is just really important for proper blood flow and nutrient delivery to tissues around the body.

What I am getting at here is that there is basically a ton of benefits from sunlight beyond just vitamin D production. However, there are also negative effects from the sun if you don’t do it right.

Drawbacks from sunlight

1. Sunburn

The most obvious one is getting sunburned. A clear sign that you’ve gotten to much sun exposure. You’ve damaged your DNA and elicited an inflammatory reaction, hence the redness.

You get sunburned when your skins protective measures against UV light wasn’t enough, and the DNA gets damaged.

I don’t really think I have to go in depth with why sunburns are bad, I believe most people know why and wouldn’t argue anything else.

2. Photoaging

Another potential downside of sunlight if you don’t do it right is photoaging. UV light activates matrix metalloproteinases (mmp’s), enzymes that break down collagen and elastin, the proteins that keep your skin young, smooth and elastic looking.

Keeping these to a minimum is beneficial as you most likely don’t want excessive wrinkles and saggy looking skin.

But other than this there isn’t really that many downsides to the sun and both of these drawbacks can easily be mitigated with proper, strategic exposure and not just going into uv 10 after staying inside the entire winter just to get burned like crazy.

The sunmaxxing protocol

1. Building your solar callus

This is probably the number 1 thing you need to do to optimize your sun exposure, and it’s something that pretty much no one pays attention to.

And to be honest, it isn’t really some “optimization”, that just sounds so biohackery, which it isn’t. It’s mostly just about returning to nature and a natural lifestyle.

Like I talked about earlier, most people do sun exposure all wrong which is why they end up getting burned and wrinkly when they get old.

They sit inside all winter and all spring, getting pretty much zero sun exposure and then they go outside on a peak uv summer day and wonder why they get burned.

You need to think about the input signals you’re sending your body.

Our ancestors were outside every day, winter, spring, summer and autumn. They didn’t just come out for summer to tan.

This way they were gradually building up their sun exposure and uv light exposure as the days got longer and longer, and the sun got higher and higher in the sky.

By doing this, their body’s had time to adapt and build up their melanin stores in their skin, the pigment in your skin that protects you from the potential damage that uv light can have.

They gradually build their tan over the spring so they have no problem going out into peak uv sun on a summer day.

This is what you need to be simulating as well.

Obviously we aren’t cave men anymore, so you probably don’t have time to walk around outside all day long looking for berries and hunting dear, but you can get as close as possible.

Take time out of your day during winter and spring to go outside and get sun exposure. When you do this you send the right input signals that your body needs to build up it’s melanin stores, aka your tan.

You are telling your body “hey, the sun is getting stronger, better build up some protection so we don’t get sunburned”.

As oppose to sitting inside all winter and spring, which is basically like telling your body “the sun is non existent, no need to build up our melanin stores”.

The number 1 rule of nature is “if you don’t use it, you lose it”.

The body is not gonna spend valuable resources building up your tan if you don’t give it a reason to.

I haven’t really used sunscreen in over two years now (expect when I surf in high uv or go on vacation, more on that later), and I can tan and get sun exposure no problem without burning.

And that’s because I am conscious about my sun exposure leading up to summer, aka I build my solar callus.

If you don’t do this you’re just gonna get burned when you go out on a high UV day or come up with some excuses like “my skin just isn’t meant for high uv sunlight”.

So actionable step: make it a habit to get sunlight every day, no matter if it’s spring, summer, autumn or winter.

Don’t just get sunlight when the uv is high. That’s when you’re gonna damage your skin and potentially get sunburned because your skin isn’t use to it.

Think of the input signals.

If you wanna get tan and increase your ability to stay in the sun without burning, gradually increase your uv exposure. Start out with low uv exposure for a short time and gradually build up uv and time spent.

This is how you get tan the smart way without burning. Soon you will able to go out in peak uv and stay there for hours without burning.

Obviously this also depends on your genes and where you live. If you’re naturally very light skinned and move somewhere close to the equator, you might never be able to build a tan that can sustain peak uv for hours.

On the other side, if you live in a northern climate like me (i’m from denmark) and are fairly dark skinned you might not even need to do a lot of these things because your body is just naturally well protected.

So it’s about figuring out specifically what is right for you and then working on it from there.

2. Morning sunlight

Another super important step in the sunmaxxing protocol is getting morning sunlight.

If you haven’t been living under a rock you’ve probably heard a bunch of people on social media talking about it. It was really made popular by the goat, andrew huberman, and for good reason.

Morning sunlight is super important for setting your circadian rhythm, your body’s internal clock.

Having a locked in circadian rhythm improves your sleep, daytime mood, focus and alertness, improves your immune function and so much more.

You’re suppose to get a spike in cortisol in the morning to help you wake up and feel ready and energized to take on the day.

This spike is dependent on light as the input signal, so if you don’t get your morning sunlight, this cortisol spike can get out of sync, making you feel tired, sluggish and ultimately making your sleep worse.

Morning sunlight will also help decrease melatonin, the sleep hormone in your brain, which once again helps with daytime mood, focus and alertness and makes sure you don’t walk around like a zombie all day.

It also decreases your risk of getting sunburned, because it front loads your mitochondria with melatonin, an antioxidant thats super important for fighting free radicals (uv light) and keeping oxidative stress low.

It’s like putting up the army before the battle so they’re actually ready for the battle, which in this case is getting high uv sun exposure later in the day.

The reason it does this is because morning sunlight is high in long wavelength light (red and infrared) and low in short wavelength light (blue and uv).

This is because the sun is at such a low solar angle, which means that shorter wavelengths actually get filtered out by the atmosphere and you’re left with these healing wavelengths.

This is why the sun looks more reddish tinted in the morning at sunrise and in the evening at sunset.

There’s just a million reasons why morning sunlight is so important for your health, and the best part about it is that it’s free and doesn’t take more than 10-20 minutes every morning.

So the actionable step: get outside, even if it’s cloudy, overcast or raining, and get sunlight in your eyes for 10-30 minutes depending on the weather conditions.

If it’s a sunny day, you probably don’t need more than 10 minutes to get the desired effect, however, the longer the better no matter what. If it’s cloudy, overcast or raining, closer to the 20-30 minute mark will probably be better.

In the end just make sure you do it, and if you miss a day try to get twice as much the next.

3. Dietary foundations

You probably wouldn’t think diet to play a role in sunlights effect on your health, but it actually does.

There are certain nutrients in food that help protect you from sunlight from the inside out, and certain foods/nutrients to avoid.

Things like:

• antioxidants

• polyphenols

• omega 3 fatty acids

• carotenoids

• collagen

• avoiding PUFA’s

• etc.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants do what they say. They are ANTI oxidants. They decrease oxidative stress by neutralizing free radicals.

Antioxidants work by donating an electron to free radicals making them stable again, so they don’t go around harming cells and causing oxidative stress.

Sunlight is a balance. On the one side you have the uv light trying to cause oxidative stress by generating ROS (reactive oxygen species) and on the other hand you have your body’s antioxidant system trying to combat this.

If the scale tips to the side of uv light and your body’s antioxidant system can’t keep up, you get oxidative stress and potentially get sunburned + the negative effects thereof. Not good.

Therefore you wanna support your body’s antioxidant system as much as you can, by supporting your natural production of them and consuming them through food.

Antioxidants are mostly found in plant foods.

Vitamin C is one of the most potent antioxidants, so it’s worth focusing on.

Vitamin C is actually produced in the plant to protect it from the sun, which is why it’s mostly high in plants that get a lot of sunlight like oranges, grapefruit, kiwi’s, certain berries, etc.

Vitamin C is also important because it’s a co factor in the synthesis of collagen, which gets broken down by uv exposure.

Another important antioxidant you potentially wanna look into is astaxanthin. It’s a carotenoid found in wild salmon, krill, algae and so on. It accumulates in your skin (like betacarotene from carrots that can make your skin orange tinted) and literally acts as an internal sunscreen.

Multiple studies show that astaxanthin has potent antioxidant like effects and is very good at preventing skin deterioration caused by uv light.

Like I said, it can be found in food like wild caught salmon but a lot of people also supplement it to get the desired dose.

But as with all supplements, make sure you some high quality stuff made from whole foods, not synthesized from some random stuff, preferably 3rd party tested for pollutants as well.

Basically just try to eat a wide range of fruits and vegetables to get your antioxidants in. It’s pretty simple.

Polyphenols in plants also act like antioxidants in the body, which is yet another reason to ditch the bs carnivore diet and actually incorporate some fruits and veggies in your diet.

Lastly, grounding is another really important thing that has amazing antioxidant effects.

Grounding, the act of being connected to the earth with your body (standing on grass, sand, dirt, swimming in the ocean, etc.) allows free electrons to flow to your body and neutralize free radicals, improve your blood flow and so much more.

It’s an amazing thing you can do and the best thing is that it’s free.

Try to ground whenever you’re out getting sunlight so you actually get those antioxidant effects while you’re getting uv light.

Omega 3 fatty acids

Normally you want to avoid polyunsaturated fatty acids, more on that a little later, but omega 3 fatty acids are the exception.

Omega 3 fatty acids have a bunch of general health effects, but are also amazing for skin health. They decrease inflammation and make your cells more resistant to oxidative stress and uv damage through a bunch of mechanisms.

The best source for the omega 3 fatty acids you want, EPA and DHA, are fatty fish like wild caught salmon, mackerel, sardines etc.

A lot of people will recommend stuff like walnuts and flaxseed as being high in omega 3, but that is not really true. Well yes, they are technically high in omega 3, but they are high in ALA, not EPA and DHA, which is what your body actually wants.

This means you have to convert it into EPA and DHA, but the problem is that it’s a pretty poor conversation rate.

This is why I would just rather eat fatty fish and get the actual omega 3 your body needs + all the other great nutrients you find in fish.

Aim for a couple servings per week of low heavy metal, wild caught fish. I wouldn’t go gobbling down tuna or swordfish every day as you might into a heavy metal problem which you don’t want.

Wild caught salmon and sardines are my two favorites as they are low in heavy metal.

Another thing I would avoid is fish oil. It seems so much easier just to take a couple fish oil pills per day but I would stay away from them.

99% of them are rancid and oxidized, as PUFA’s are highly unstable and oxidize easily when exposed to light, heat, etc.

Most are also polluted with contaminants like heavy metals, microplastics and other stuff you don’t want.

Stay away.

Avoiding PUFA’s

Other than omega 3’s I would stay as far away from polyunsaturated fats as possible. Once again, they are highly unstable and easily oxidize.

When these oils get stored in your skin and get exposed to uv light, they oxidize and cause damage, making it easier to get sunburned.

We also know that a high omega 6 to omega 3 ratio has a multitude of negative effects for the body, including increased inflammation, higher risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and all cause mortality.

Stay away from polyunsaturated fats as much as possible for overall health and not getting sunburned as easily.

I personally notice that I never really burn after cutting out seed oils and other sources of PUFA’s, especially omega 6’s.

It might also just be all the other stuff that I’ve talked about, but it’s also something other people report on.

This article is getting way too long, but some other nutrients you wanna prioritize are carotenoids and collagen, along with the ones I already went over.

4. Sunscreen

I don’t normally recommend sunscreen, especially not traditional sunscreen, but there is certain use cases for sunscreen.

The reason I don’t recommend sunscreen normally is first of all, the tons of shitty ingredients you find in most sunscreens.

Avobenzone, oxybenzone, octocrylene etc. All these are proven to cause cancer, mess up your endocrine system and they also destroy the oceans and reefs.

Avoid.

The second reason I don’t really like sunscreen is that most people just use sunscreen all the time, totally blocking all the benefits of the sun that I just wen’t over.

I see so many people applying moisturizers with spf literally every day, even if it’s winter time just because some skincare influencer told them some bs about looking wrinkly in 5 years if they don’t do it.

You need uv light so don’t be someone that applies sunscreen every day just because some sun fearing influencer told you so.

However, with that said, there are specific times where you can leverage sunscreen use for your benefit.

1. Vacation

   If you suddenly travel to a place with much higher uv than where you came from, your body won’t have time to adapt. Therefore it can be a good idea to use a high quality sunscreen the first couple of days during high uv hours to help your body adapt and not get burned. High quality sunscreen is natural mineral sunscreen, specifically non nano zinc oxide. This reflects the suns rays instead of chemically breaking them down when they hit the skin. Get a sunscreen with all natural ingredients like beef tallow, coconut oil, shea butter, etc.

2. Surfing, etc.

   Activities like surfing require you to be in the water for long periods of time, often while the uv is high. On top of that, the water reflects the uv light that hits it so you get even more uv exposure than if you were on land. When I surf during a uv index above 8 I put on some natural sunscreen on my face. Obviously again this depends on your conditions, how dark your skin is, what the uv is, etc. so act accordingly.

   Consider subscribing so you don’t miss new posts. It’s free and you can always unsubscribe.

Conclusion

Sunlight = good for you, but be strategic about your exposure depending on your conditions (environment, skin color, time of year, etc.) so you maximize the benefits with as little drawbacks as possible.

And in general, the benefits far outweigh any potential drawbacks unless you go out and get horribly sunburned every day.

Benefits include better skin health, hair health, improved vision, improved mitochondrial function, improved mood, focus and daytime alertness, improved blood flow, improved gut health and so much more.

Risks include getting a couple wrinkles when you get older if you aren’t strategic about it. Wow, how horrible. You actually look like you lived your life, instead of sitting inside with all your life just to potentially say “I don’t have wrinkles”…

Btw, you’ll get worse skin health by sitting inside under blue light all day anyways.

So get sunlight.

Thanks for reading, I hope you learned something :)

— Kasper Veritas

VO2 Max. The maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise, and a really big indicator of heart health and overall longevity.

So you can understand how it was quite a bummer when I first unboxed my apple watch a couple years ago and found out that I had a pretty bad VO2 max (bottom 50%).

When I first saw that 43 VO2 max in my apple health app I decided I needed to change that. I couldn’t walk around with a shitty VO2 max and potentially all the negative consequences that come from it.

But there was just one problem. I didn’t really like doing cardio (and who really does tbh?).

So I set out on a mission to improve my VO2 max as much as possible with the least amount of effort. The 80/20 rule of cardio if you wanna call it that. So I started watching podcasts, reading studies and just tried consuming as much information on this topic as possible, and this is what I came up with:

Okay just before I show you the actual routine I just wanna go over some studies looking at VO2 max and how important it is for longevity so you actually get serious about trying to improve it lol.

1. Association of Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Long-term Mortality Among Adults Undergoing Exercise Treadmill Testing

This study looked at over 120,000 people and found a strong inverse correlation between high VO2 max and all-cause mortality, meaning higher VO2 max = longer life.

2. Cardiorespiratory Fitness as a Quantitative Predictor of All-Cause Mortality and Cardiovascular Events in Healthy Men and Women

This meta-analysis looked at over 30 studies with over 100,000 participants and once again found a strong correlation between a high VO2 max and lower rates of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease and all cause mortality.

The study found that for every 1 MET increase (3.5ml/kg/min) you reduce your mortality risk by 13-15%. So for me that’s nearly 3 MET’s I increased my VO2 max by which is a about 40% decrease in relative mortality risk. Obviously my mortality risk is already super low since I’m 20 years old but you get the point. The older you get, the more it’s gonna help.

Okay enough studies and stuff, let’s look at the routine I used to increase my VO2 max by 10 points in about a year, taking me from the “fair” category to the middle of the “excellent” category.

Part 1: Aerobic base

If you look at your entire cardio fitness as a pyramid, what you want to spend the most amount of time building is the base, or the aerobic base. The wider the base you build, the higher the peak you can get (VO2 max).

Your aerobic base is your body’s ability to use oxygen for sustained efforts, so longer distances or periods of time. It improves your heart strength, improves your fat burning abilities, recovery abilities and is great before adding harder, more intense training to actually increase your VO2 max.

Think of it like this thing that doesn’t directly improve your VO2 max but allows you to improve it with other exercise. Like I said, the wider the base, the higher the peak you can build.

If you just skip this step and go straight into actual VO2 max training you will miss out on the improved efficiency you build from this along with the improved mitochondrial function, fat burning and recovery.

Another analogy you can use is a car one (lol). A ferrari goes really fast, but has pretty bad gas mileage. A toyota prius is the opposite. Great gas mileage but really slow. With your cardio you can improve both. Your aerobic base is your gas mileage, how efficient you are, and your peak (VO2 max), how fast you go.

And it’s weird cause the better gas mileage you get, the faster you can go.

So how do you improve your aerobic base?

There’s a lot of different workouts out there for improving your aerobic base but in the end it comes down to doing steady state cardio for an extended period of time. But remember, I wanted to get the most bang for my buck with this routine so this is what I came up with:

Zone 2.

Yes, zone 2. I know you’ve probably heard everyone and their grandmother talk about zone 2 training, but it’s simply because it’s the best. The best at improving mitochondrial function, fat burning abilities, endurance, etc. all while improving your recovery abilities and being low intensity so it doesn’t really interfere with your recovery from other types of training.

So what actually is zone 2?

Zone 2 is a specific low intensity training zone where you improve your utilization of fat as energy and improve mitochondrial function. Some say it’s a specific heart rate zone, normally between 60-70% of your max heart rate and other people define it as a zone where you keep your lactate below a certain threshold (lactate is the thing that makes your muscles “burn”).

Most people don’t have a lactate meter so it’s easiest to go off the heart rate zone or using the talk test. The talk test is basically whether or not you can carry out a conversation quite comfortable while doing the training. If you can, that’s a good indication that you’re in zone 2.

If you have a heart rate monitor you can also use that and try to stay within 60-70% of your max heart rate. To find that zone you need to find your max heart rate which you do by using a website or using the basic formula of 220 minus your age.

Example:

I am 20 so I take 220-20=200.

200 * 0.6 = 120

200 * 0.7 = 140

Therefore my zone 2 is estimated to be somewhere around 120-140bpm.

So how much zone 2 should you do?

All the big names in the space says you need to get about 150-200 minutes of zone 2 per week, which is quite a lot if you also wanna have time for strength training and not make exercise your full time job.

So I aimed for just 120 minutes or 2 hours of dedicated zone 2 training per week, and that got me pretty good results.

The thing about zone 2 is that it’s so low intensity that you might just get some accidental extra minutes throughout the week by just living your life.

However, zone 2 training is most effective in sessions of at least 30 minutes, so you have time to actually get into the zone and start burning fat and getting all the benefits. You can’t just do 15 sessions of 10 minutes throughout the week (i don’t know why you would do that anyways).

So I decided on 2 sessions throughout the week of 1 hour each, and sometimes I did 3 sessions instead, but then for only 45 minutes.

And don’t worry, I know you might be thinking “1 hour of cardio, who does this guy think i am!?” And yes, it sounds like a lot to do 1 hour of cardio in a session (at least it did for me), but zone 2 is so low intensity that it’s not really that challenging, don’t worry.

Okay, now you know the duration, but what should you actually do? Running, cycling, swimming, walking???

What I found worked best for me was the stationary bike. This really goes against what I normally preach with working out outside, getting sunlight and all that stuff, but for zone 2 I make an exception for a couple reasons:

1. It makes it a lot easier to stay in zone 2

2. You can watch podcasts and make time go by quicker

3. It’s low impact on the joints

So first up, it makes it easier to stay in zone 2. Let’s say I was out on a road bike. I would have to stop for red lights, getting me below my zone 2 and then I would come to a hill that I would have to go up getting me above my zone 2 etc.

It’s obviously possible if you find a good route and just really watch your heart rate and breathing, but it’s just much easier to “get in the zone” on a stationary bike in my opinion.

You can try out whatever kind of exercise you prefer, I am just telling you what worked best for me. But another reason why I started out doing the stationary bike is that you can watch podcasts or educational videos while you do it, which can make the time go by faster, which helps you actually get the full 45-60 minutes done.

I also tried out jogging because I would’ve preferred to do the exercise outside like I said but I was quickly humbled and found out you have to be in pretty good shape to jog in zone 2 which I wasn’t when I started out.

You can test it out for yourself and find whatever kinda exercise works best for you. Swimming is another great option that I’m getting into as it’s also super low impact on the joints compared to running/jogging and therefore isn’t as stressful to the body.

Stairmaster is another great option, like you get the point. In the end it’s just about picking one that you will actually stick to.

Another thing you want to do for your aerobic base is literally just walking. Super easy.

Walking is such an S tier activity and something you should be doing every single day. Super low intensity and low impact, so it doesn’t stress the body and increase cortisol unnecessarily. A lot of people work out way to much and are constantly stressed out from all the exercise they do which messes up their recovery and their gains, whether that’s cardio, strength or size.

Just start walking 10k steps per day. Easy. It will help you burn fat, increase metabolism and is just great for general health. It takes about 60-90 minutes to walk 10k steps so try to fit it in throughout the day.

I normally do 20 minutes in the morning for getting morning sunlight and setting my circadian rhythm and then try to fit in a couple walks throughout the day.

Btw, you don’t need to hit your 10k on a day where you’re doing zone 2.

Part 2: The peak

Now you have the base of the pyramid down, but what about the peak? Actually the peak is super simple and doesn’t take a lot of time. I spent 20-30 minutes per week on it.

What I did was high intensity interval training (HIIT), but more specifically the norwegian 4x4 method. This was a specific HIIT workout developed by some norwegian researchers for improving VO2 max that worked really well.

Its called the 4x4 because you do 4 minutes of maximum sustained effort followed by 4 minutes of rest and then repeat that for a total of 4 times.

It takes about 30 minutes including warm up, and I did this once a week and got great improvements in my VO2 max.

Don’t be fooled by the short amount of time it takes to complete this and think that it’s some easy workout. It’s not. You literally feel like dying if you do it right and it takes a lot of recovery ability so it’s important to not overdo it.

I wouldn’t do more than two sessions per week, especially if you also do other kind of exercise.

You might be thinking: “how am I suppose to do my max effort for 4 minutes??”

It’s not an all out effort for 4 minutes. You pick a pace you can sustain for no more than 4 minutes so by the time you’re at 3 minutes and 50 seconds you need to push yourself to 110% to get to 4 minutes and finish like you couldn’t have done another second even if your life depended on it.

So you basically pick a pace you can sustain for 4 minutes. It’s gonna take a couple workouts to get right and it’s fine if your sets are a little over or under the 4 minute mark. The important thing is just that you get to your max heart rate before the set is over.

I did this workout with sprint intervals, but once again you can pick whatever exercise you enjoy. I just found sprinting to be the easiest and most enjoyable, as you can do it outside, get sunlight, fresh air etc.

That’s basically it. I did this pretty consistently for about a year and saw my VO2 max increase by over 10 points, which is pretty great if you ask me, especially considering I didn’t make my entire life about cardio.

All this took only about 3 hours per week, if you don’t count the walking which I would have done anyways.

Thanks for reading and godspeed.

— Kasper Veritas

After draining my wallet on all these products and not really getting any results I wen’t on to pharmaceutical products. I went to the doctor and got prescribed multiple creams, pills and eventually even isotretinoin (accutane) after nothing else worked.

Spoiler: isotretinoin didn’t work either.

Well, then it was back to the drawing board again.

I eventually I decided on trying to clean up my diet and cut out unhealthy foods which I had been consuming a lot of because, well, I was a teen and thought I could eat whatever I wanted without it affecting me.

The funny thing is that no doctor ever asked me about my diet before prescribing me all those pills and creams with long lists of side effects.

But after actually fixing my diet, cutting out certain foods and just focusing on eating and living healthier, my acne actually went away.

And that’s the one change that helped me clear my skin: treating my skin as a reflecting of the overall health of my body instead of just looking at it in isolation.

As above, so below.

You can’t expect to have glowing, radiant skin on the outside if your insides are super unhealthy.

Great skin comes from within and once I realized this my acne went away.

Before that I was just treating my skin like this isolated thing on my body that had no connection with the rest of it. Hence why I thought a topical product (skincare) had the power to magically fix it.

By now you should understand that it doesn’t.

And this it not just something I am making up. The gut-skin axis is something that is well established in the scientific literature. It basically explains how your gut health influenced your skin health and vice versa through many different mechanisms in the body.

Okay, so how do you actually fix your diet in order to fix your skin? There’s a lot to it which I go over in my full acne course here, but it’s basically about cutting out gut irritating foods and prioritizing nutrient dense foods.

First up, gut irritating foods. This is many things. Junk food is one of the biggest ones. Filled with artificial sweeteners, colors, preservatives, seed oils and other horrible ingredients that all disrupt your gut microbiome.

Like I said, a poor gut microbiome is connected to acne, and junk food is connected to a poor gut microbiome so I think it’s safe to say that junk food = acne.

It’s a combination of very low nutritional value, low amounts of fiber, low amounts of antioxidants, and artificial ingredients that disrupt the gut.

Basically, cut out junk food if you want to fix your skin.

However, gut irritating foods can also be “healthy” foods or at least foods you think are healthy.

Leafy greens like spinach and kale are super high in anti nutrients like oxalates, which disrupt your normal gut function and prevent proper nutrient absorption.

So yes, I am officially giving you the pass of not needing to eat leafy greens to feel healthy.

The nutrients you find in leafy greens like spinach and kale can be found in higher amounts in other foods anyways. When you look up “spinach nutrients” on google, it says its high in vitamins a, c, k and minerals like iron and calcium.

Let’s quickly break it down:

• Vitamin A: there is no vitamin a in plant foods, it’s all pro vitamin a plant compounds that needs to be converted to vitamin a in the body. The problem is that the conversion is REALLY low in about 50% of the population. You can get actual vitamin a in animal foods like milk, butter, liver and eggs.

• Vitamin C: just eat an orange, a kiwi or some pineapple. It tastes way better and comes with way less anti nutrients.

• Vitamin K: Okay fine here you get some vitamin k1. Vitamin k2 is better tho and you find that in animal foods like butter and cheese.

• Iron: The iron found in spinach is non heme iron which has a much lower absorption rate. Pair that with the super high oxalate content in spinach and you really aren’t absorbing any meaningful amount of iron by eating. Literally just eat a steak.

• Calcium: Milk and other dairy products are way better sources of calcium along with other nutrients. Not much more to say here.

So in reality, spinach and all these other leafy greens aren’t really that nutrient dense and the anti nutrients can actually contribute to acne.

This also goes for other “healthy” foods like beans, whole wheat bread and cereals, seeds, nuts, etc.

All of these are high in anti nutrients which can contribute to your acne. For example, gluten (not technically a anti nutrient) in grains are known to contribute to leaky gut, a condition where your gut lining isn’t properly sealed which allows food particles, bacteria, viruses and other stuff to escape into your bloodstream.

This causes inflammation and ultimately, these particles have to be detoxed since they aren’t meant to be in your bloodstream. One way this can happen is through the skin in the form of acne.

Because in the end, acne is a way for your body to detox bad stuff.

What i’d recommend to actually fix your acne once and for all, the root cause way, is to go on a elimination diet for 30-90 days (the longer the better) and then slowly add in foods again to see if they trigger your acne.

Everyone is different and some tolerate certain foods better than others.

The staples to start out with are red meat, wild caught, fish, oysters, high quality organs and then some fruits and vegetables. Eat that for 30-90 days and after that add in foods one by one that you miss like eggs, milk, sourdough bread, fruits, vegetables, etc.

This allows you to actually figure out which foods are contributing to your acne, instead of just relying on stupid “top 7 foods that trigger acne” articles on google.

Everyone is different. Some might tolerate certain foods better than others which is why it’s important to actually experiment with it yourself.

I go over the full elimination diet protocol and much more in my acne course if you’re interested (shameless plug lol).

The reason I say to start out with foods like red meat, oysters and fruits is because they are the most nutrient dense with the least amount of anti nutrients and toxins. You need nutrients to heal your skin, particularly things like vitamin a, zinc, copper and more. Those are found in animal foods, especially organs and stuff like that.

The fruit gives you a good amount of nutrients like vitamin c along with antioxidants which are also important for skin health, as they keep oxidative stress low, which is a contributor to acne.

Basically, it’s about providing the building blocks (nutrients) for your body to stay healthy and acne free which you do by eating nutrient dense whole foods and limiting anti nutrients which can mess up your gut health.

This is what took me years to learn and what finally cleared my skin once and for all. And that’s not to say that I have 100% perfect skin now. No, I still get a pimple here and there if I go out and eat a pizza or something but at least I know what’s causing it now.

This is about 80% of the acne equation in my opinion. There are also other steps to becoming healthy and getting better skin like sunlight, exercise and so on.

For the last time, if you’re interested in the full playbook on getting rid of acne, check out my course here.

That’s pretty much it. There you have the dragon scroll of acne. Diet.

Thanks for reading and godspeed.

— Kasper Veritas

This is where I am gonna be spending the next 3 months:

The jungle in Costa Rica. More specifically a small primitive hut in the jungle I booked on airbnb lol.

Why did I do this?

To be honest, I don’t really know.

Something about Costa Rica spoke to me. Beautiful nature, lots of sunlight (this time of year), fruits, surfing and stuff like that. I don’t even know how to surf.

But other than that I don’t really know. I don’t know anyone, I don’t know what to spend my time on, I don’t know anything really.

I have a vague idea that I wanna surf, lay on the beach drinking coconuts and make youtube videos.

But not knowing what I’m gonna do is also part of the plan.

So many people have their life laid out step by step. Go to school, go to college, get a degree, get a high paying job, family, kids, nice car, yearly tropical vacation, bla bla bla.

We are all so comfortable. We never do anything unexpected or unplanned. And that was kinda the point with this trip.

I wanna do something unexpected and see where it leads. In 3 months I might be an entirely different person, I might have blown up on youtube and have more than zero people reading this substack lol.

Or I might just sit in this hut for 3 months and do absolutely nothing and feel like it was a total waste of time.

But either way, I know I am gonna learn something from it.

Then at least I have done it, and can safely say that it just wasn’t for me.

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. But that’s okay. The journey changes you. - Anthony Bourdain

But I don’t wanna look back 30 years from now and say “what would’ve happened if I just booked that flight”. That stuff will literally kill you. That’s also why I try to make content on youtube and instagram and write newsletters here. Because I don’t wanna look back when I am older and say: “Maybe I would’ve been good at that social media stuff”.

I don’t want all those “what could’ve happened”. I wanna do it and if it works out it does, and if it doesn’t it doesn’t. No big deal.

And look, I ain’t trying to sound like some dude who got it all figured out just because I went to Costa Rica for 3 months. Not at all.

I don’t even really like it yet. I would honestly rather be at home right now. But again, that’s the point. To do something uncomfortable.

What you want in life is beyond the uncomfortable. And it doesn’t have to be “moving around the world” uncomfortable. It could also just be putting down your phone and actually doing something productive. That’s uncomfortable as well. It could be signing up for a mma class, it could be a lot of things.

But you don’t magically achieve what you want in life by staying under the blankets in your moms basement playing GTA 6.

You have to do something.

So if you want to learn how to stop scrolling your phone all day and actually start doing productive stuff, you can read my last newsletter here:

Thanks for reading and godspeed.

— Kasper Veritas

But I do believe I am gonna get there someday. You know why?

Because I got some great, productive habits that I spend time on everyday instead of just scrolling social media and watching netflix all day like most other people.

Nobody gets rich overnight, nobody gets their dream physique overnight, nobody achieves anything overnight without putting in the work.

Everyone just believes that everyone else got successful overnight because that’s all they see on social media.

All the “life highlights” and none of the boring stuff where they are actually working towards their goals.

All the early mornings, or late night, or not going out on fridays or whatever.

Therefore people just write it off as getting lucky or whatever.

But behind the success there is all the small things that you do everyday that separate successful people from non successful people, no matter if you define success as money, health, love or whatever.

Like Lao Tzu said: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

So many people including myself, feel like they need the perfect plan to get started.

But in reality there is NEVER a perfect time to start, it’s just about starting and figuring out along the way.

That’s why I am writing this post to the STAGGERING zero subscribers on my substack here lol.

You know what they say:

“The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The next best time is today.”

Like I said, I ain’t rich or succesful (yet) but I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out that nobody reaches their goals by scrolling social media and watching netflix all day.

I think the first step on the road to success is eliminating the bad, unproductive habits you do everyday and replacing them with habits that are actually gonna get you towards your goals.

So here is how I stopped scrolling my phone all day and actually replaced it with good, productive habits like playing chess, working out, reading books, posting on social media, meditating and so on.

Habits that will actually get you to where you want to go in life.

It’s all about dopamine

The reason why you can’t focus on work or other habits that you know are good for you is simply because you are overstimulated 24/7.

Your brain is flooded with dopamine all the time from high-dopamine activities like scrolling social media, gambling, watching porn etc.

Therefore, when you actually try to do things that result in less dopamine, it’s extremely hard. Your brain isn’t getting the dopamine it’s used to, so it tells you “why don’t we scroll social media instead, that’s much more fun”.

This is why dopamine detoxes have become so popular nowadays. They “reset” your dopamine tolerance and makes things you normally find boring, like reading, studying, working, etc, fun again.

So when you actually start using your phone less, the productive habits that you know are important will actually become easier to do.

So this is what I’ve done to use my phone less and actually focus on good habits:

Make your phone as boring as possible

What I mean by this is a couple different things.

One of the first things I did was literally just to delete apps that I knew I was spending too much time on.

Apps like TikTok, Instagram, Reddit etc.

If you keep these apps on your phone you have to use willpower every time you use your phone to not open them and get sucked into the doomscroll.

It’s like having candy in your house when you’re trying to get healthy and lose weight.

It just makes it 10x harder because every time you walk past that drawer you have to use willpower to not open it and start stuffing your throat.

If you just throw it out, you know you have to go to the store and buy some if you get the cravings which takes 10x more effort than just opening a drawer.

It’s the same with the addicting apps on your phone.

If they aren’t there in the first place, it’s 10x more likely you won’t think of them, go to the app store, search for them, redownload them, log in, and start doomscrolling.

So please, take your phone right now and delete the apps you know you waste too much time on.

Social media apps, games, whatever.

Another thing I would recommend doing is to make your home screen super minimal and none distracting.

This is my home screen. No distracting apps, just the essentials.

This is kinda similar to deleting apps that you know you waste time on.

When you just get everything distracting off the home screen you are less likely to open apps you know you shouldn’t be on.

We are so addicted to our phones that we literally just take our phone out and open it out of instinct. Without even thinking.

When you don’t have distracting apps on your phone screen, you have to consciously swipe to get to the “bad” apps.

This adds another layer of “protection” that you need to get by to start the mind sucking doomscroll.

I can’t tell you how many times I used to pick up my phone without even thinking about it, opening instagram and 10 minutes later realize what I had just done.

Now when I open my phone, I see this boring ass home screen and put it down again because there is literally nothing to do.

You can tell yourself that you’re just gonna keep your apps and your home screen and that you’ll just use discipline to not scroll social media and open other high-dopamine apps…

We all know that won’t happen.

And even if you can, why would you spend your limited willpower on not opening addicting apps.

You only have a limited amount of willpower everyday, so why not make it easier for yourself and actually use that willpower to do something productive like working out, reading or whatever, instead of spending it on not doomscrolling.

Who do you think looses the most amount of weight over the next 6 months. The guy who keeps the candy in the drawer and says he wont eat it or the guy who actually throws it out.

I know who I’m betting on.

Don’t keep your phone on you

Another thing you can do to use your phone less and actually spend your time more productively is to just not keep your phone on you.

First up, it’s a horrible idea from a health perspective.

You’re getting blasted with EMF’s all day long and destroying your mitochondrial health, your reproductive health and just your overall health.

More and more studies are coming out on EMF’s and their negative effects on reproductive health, sleep, cancer risks etc.

It’s a topic for another post so make sure you actually subscribe if you wanna be notified when I release my full EMF guide here on my newsletter :)

But in terms of productivity, keeping your phone on you 24/7 is also a bad idea.

Again, it’s the same analogy as trying to lose weight with a house full of candy and other unhealthy foods.

It’s so easy to pick up your phone when you know it’s right there in your pocket. When your phone is in your pocket you sometimes just take it out without even thinking about.

Just complete autopilot.

What we are trying to accomplish with all these tips is to make you conscious of the fact that you don’t want to use your phone.

When it isn’t in your pocket you consciously have to go find it before you can use it, which gives you time to actually think “do I wanna be doing this or should I maybe do something productive instead?”

Make it a habit to never keep your phone in your pocket, and I promise you’ll use it less.

Disable notifications

The average gen z person gets about 180 notifications on their phone every day. That’s one every 8 MINUTES.

How do you expect to lock in, enter flow state or just do any kind of long term, focused work when your phone is distracting you every 8 minutes.

I have disabled EVERY SINGLE NOTIFICATION on my phone that isn’t texts or calls (what a phone was actually meant to do).

Most people get notifications from all kinds of bullshit. New youtube video alerts, shopping deals, clash royale, instagram, food delivery apps and so on.

Just ask yourself: do you really need notifications from all these apps?

Probably not. All these apps just want you to spend more time on their app, so they can show you more ads and make more money for themselves. It’s all a business for them, while you’re destroying your life (kinda overdramatic but pretty much true).

The thing that’s so deadly about these notifications is the risk of getting sucked into the phone.

You get a notification from one of your friends new instagram post, you think: “hey I wanna see that”, so you open instagram, like the post, and before you know it you’ve been scrolling reels for 30 minutes.

It’s horrible for your brain and your productivity.

So actionable step:

Go on your phone, open settings, go into notifications, turn off notifications for all apps that can distract you. Be brutally honest. You should be turning off about 99% of apps and only really keep notifications on for apps like messages, whatsapp, phone and whatever else you use to connect with friends and family in my opinion.

No need to have notifications on for anything else, especially not brainrot apps like social media, games, etc.

Phone free zones

This is another thing that has really helped me reduce my screen time.

How many times do you go to the bathroom with your phone only to get sucked into the doomscroll and sit there for 30 minutes?

At least for me that happened a lot.

It’s crazy how we’ve become so addicted to these devices that we can’t even sit on the toilet for 5 minutes without our phones.

I’ve made an entire post about the art of doing nothing and why just sitting with your thoughts is so important in the modern world, you can read it here if you want:

Having zones throughout your house or the environment you live in where you don’t use your phone is really beneficial.

Bathroom and bedroom is what I do.

I never want to use my phone on the toilet cause I know how easy it is to just rack up 30 minutes of screen time throughout the day. The same goes for the bedroom. I never keep my phone in my bedroom cause it messes up my sleep and gives me the opportunity to scroll right before I go to bed and right after I wake up.

It’s horrible.

Think about it. You’ve just had about 8 hours of dopamine detox while you we’re sleeping, and now you want to blast your brain with dopamine right after waking.

By keeping your devices out of your bedroom you eliminate that opportunity entirely. Now you have to get out of bed before you can scroll, and from there it’s easy to remind yourself that you probably shouldn’t.

You can do whatever zones you like.

I also used to say that I wouldn’t use my phone in the gym, because you just waste so much time in between sets scrolling social media.

The gym is for getting in a focused workout, not scrolling your phone.

Unhook Extension

Now you use your phone less, but what about your computer?

That’s where the Unhook chrome extension comes into play.

This is basically just an extension that removes the distracting parts of youtube: the home screen, the video sidebar, shorts, comments etc.

It really helps you not doomscroll youtube after you’ve just made your phone boring lol.

Now there literally isn’t anything unproductive to do on your devices so what do you actually spend time on now?

Productive habits

There’s tons of actually productive habits that you can spend time on instead of doomscrolling all day. Here’s some of them:

• reading

• meditating

• playing chess

• drawing

• sunbathing

• exercising

• walking

• working

• spending time with family

• playing sports

• watching high quality movies

and so much more…

I know you have hobbies that you just don’t feel you have time for.

I dare you to go check your screen time and then tell me you don’t have time to actually do healthy, productive things.

As I said, I ain’t rich yet, so I ain’t really the guy to give you advice on what to do to become rich/successful.

However, I do believe it is pretty easy to know whether you’re on the path towards success or on the path towards a shitty life you don’t like.

For example, look at these two people:

Person A wakes up late, doomscrolls tiktok for an hour, gets up and eats cereal breakfast while doomscrolling some more.

Maybe they work a job some days, but when they comes home they play video games, watches some netflix and you guessed it, scrolls some more tiktok. They stay up late, get horrible sleep and repeats it all the next day.

Person B on the other hand wakes up early from a great nights sleep, goes out and gets morning sunlight right after waking, then comes home to eat a very nutritious breakfast consisting of whole foods while staring into the air, reading an article or watching a podcast.

Then they spend time working towards their dreams, whatever that is. Trying different business models, making a youtube video, writing a newsletter or whatever. Then they exercise, eat a high quality lunch, reads, goes for a walk to get more sunlight, watches educational youtube videos to work towards their goals etc.

You get the point. Who do you think is more likely to become successful? Do you think it’s just all luck?

“That guy just got lucky with a business”

You can’t get lucky unless you try.

Person A never tries. Person B does.

You need to think of the person you want to be. What habits do they have, what do they spend time on throughout the day, etc.

Act like the successful person and it’s only a matter of time before you actually become successful. And I’m not just talking about success in terms of making money. It could also be success in health, relationships etc.

And there you have it. Stop scrolling and actually take a step on the thousand mile journey towards success.

That’s what I’m doing writing this newsletter to a email list that only contains my own email lol.

Thanks for reading and godspeed

— Kasper

It’s bullshit, the skincare industry is lying to you and using your pain to sell you overpriced products that do nothing.

In this article I will show you why their products are bullshit and go over what you actually need to do to get rid of acne.

This was my skin when I was using multiple different skincare products: cleansers, exfoliators, toners, moisturizers, serums etc. and this is my skin now when I am using zero traditional skincare products.

Also if skincare was so important, why do these traditional tribes that use ZERO skincare have ZERO rates of acne or other skin problems?

Well, I’ll get to that later.

The skincare industry is a multi billion dollar industry valued at about $150 billion in 2024 and expected to grow over the years.

They sell you dreams of getting rid of acne, looking younger, protecting your skin from the sun and getting rid of dark eye circles but it’s literally all a scam and the number 1 reason is:

Great health comes from within

The universal law goes like: “as above, so below”.

Basically, if your body isn’t functioning properly under the hood you can’t expect to glow and look healthy from without.

The skincare industry and all the dermatologists recommending these products are completely overlooking this fact even though it’s been proven scientifically.

Multiple studies have linked gut health with skin health and overall health through the gut skin axis.

This gut skin axis means that your gut health influences your skin health and vice versa.

So you really think that if you have poor gut health, and acne or eczema because of it, you can just fix it by putting on some cream, exfoliator or whatever, made cheaply in china with some shitty ingredients.

Spoiler alert, you can’t.

If you want to fix your skin you need to fix your overall health and your gut health.

In short, you fix your gut health by cutting out junk food, prioritizing whole foods and limiting exposure to toxins.

Eating high quality, unprocessed meat, eggs, fruits, raw dairy and some vegetables is a great place to start.

However, some vegetables do have anti nutrients that can mess up your gut health and cause breakouts which is why I would limit things like gluten, seeds and nuts or at least test them out to see if you can tolerate them.

I talk more about the optimal diet in my acne course on skool, but basically it’s just about eating the diet that will give you the most optimal gut health.

However, there’s also more to being healthy within.

Exercising and limiting toxins

Exercising is great for your overall health if you do it right.

By doing it right I mean outside, in natural fibre clothing doing either calisthenics, weightlifting, HIIT or just plain old walking.

Exercise moves your lymph fluids which clears toxins that you might otherwise be clearing through your skin in the form of acne.

Because at the end of the day, acne is a method of detox for your body just like the liver, sweating etc.

When those other systems are overloaded, your body detoxes toxins out through the skin.

So make sure you exercise since you will both activate your lymph system and sweat, which is another way to detox toxins.

In terms of limiting toxins, there are a few things that are really important.

Toxins and poisons come in many shapes and sizes and in our modern world today they are everywhere.

First up you wanna limit your heavy metal exposure.

Heavy metals are problematic because they accumulate in the body and damage your organs, disrupt metabolic processes and cause oxidative stress.

All of these things will make your skin look worse, and also just your overall health in general will be worse.

And like I said earlier, acne is basically just a detox method for your body to excrete toxins, so if you just start out by not consuming that many toxins in the first place you, there wont be that many to excrete through your skin, and therefore your skin will improve.

Simple.

You avoid heavy metals by not consuming big fish like tuna, mackerel etc.

These fish accumulate heavy metals like mercury which you don’t want.

Leafy greens are another huge source of heavy metals along with chocolate or specifically cocoa.

These plants accumulate heavy metals from the ground which then ends up in the actual plant that you eat.

Rice, especially brown rice is another source of heavy metals, along with tap water and crops sprayed with pesticides.

Basically they are everywhere, even in the skincare products you probably use.

Heavy metals have been found in skincare products, some added as ingredients and others from contamination during manufacturing.

You also find it in other products you probably use on a daily basis like deodorants and shampoo.

This is yet another reason why you shouldn’t use these bullshit skincare products.

They are made cheaply in china or wherever and are contaminated with things you don’t want and contain 30+ ingredients you can’t pronounce.

My skin started improving when I actually just left it alone.

You see, these products are very harsh, they disrupt the natural skin barrier and the natural function of the skin.

Trust me when I say this, focus on eating a clean diet and then just stop completely using skincare.

Wash your face with water and allow your skin to just do its natural job.

In the beginning your skin might react a little weird because it’s used to you applying all these products but over time it’s gonna get better and your skin is gonna get back to homeostasis aka balance.

Nowadays the only thing I will use once in a while is a little beef tallow. This is an all natural product with no chemicals and no bullshit.

I just apply this every once in a while when my skin is feeling a little dry or I’ve been in the ocean or something like that.

Sunlight

The last thing I would recommend instead of skincare is sunlight.

The healing rays of the sun will do more for your skin health than any expensive cleanser, exfoliator or whatever and you know what the best thing about it is?

It’s 100% free motherfucker.

The sun emits UV light which gives you a nice beautiful tan, helps produce vitamin d which is important for skin health and also produces nitric oxide.

Nitric oxide is a vasodilator which means it expands your blood vessels and improves blood flow to the skin which is important since the nutrients your skin needs get carried through the blood.

Sunlight also contains red and infrared light which have been shown to be anti inflammatory and produce antioxidants in the skin which helps combat oxidative stress which can make your skin look worse.

So don’t fall for the scam about “sunlight will give you cancer, omg it’s dangerous”.

I made an entire article on why sunlight is actually good for you which you can read for free on here as well.

Even science backs up the longevity effects of sunlight as multiple studies have showcased that the more sunlight you get the longer you live.

Don’t fear the sun, embrace it.

I also personally notice that my skin is always better in the summertime when I get the most amount of sun.

That’s basically it, thanks for reading fellas and I hope you learned something :)

That is what EVERYONE is saying nowadays. Everyone is afraid of the sun because doctors, dermatologists and other “smart people” say it’s dangerous.

But that is total BS. Sunlight is one of the most important aspects of health and in this post I am gonna go over why, along with how to maximize your sun exposure without burning.

“UV light causes cancer”

This is the common answer to why sunlight is bad. UV light. The reason for this is because some studies have showcased that UV light in ISOLATION can cause skin damage and cancer.

But the important word is isolation. In nature you never get UV light in isolation.

So you really can’t use these studies to say that sunlight is bad and causes cancer since sunlight is so much more than just uv light.

It’s like saying fruit is unhealthy because it contains fructose and fructose in isolation has been shown to cause diabetes, heart disease etc.

But when you look at fruit as a whole you get a whole different picture. Fruit consumption has been associated with a lower risk of all cause mortality multiple times, so that debunks the fructose = bad (PMID: 25073782).

So what do the studies show that look at full spectrum sunlight and not just uv light in isolation?

Well you probably already guessed it. The more sunlight you get the longer you live. And to be honest, you would have to be delusional to actually believe that the thing responsible for all life on earth is suddenly killing us.

One of the best studies showcasing that sunlight is great for you is the Southern Sweden Melanoma study (PMID: 26992108). This study was done over 20 years, following nearly 30,000 swedish women. You can read it yourself but in short it basically said that those who got more sun exposure had a lower risk of all cause mortality.

They also found that nonsmokers who avoided sunlight had a similar life expectancy to smokers with the highest sun exposure, which is just crazy.

Similar studies have been done, also showing that more sun exposure = reduced all cause mortality.

If sunlight was actually the culprit, then why are skin cancer rates going up simultaneously with humans getting less sunlight and using more sunscreen?

That’s something sunlight fearers have a hard time explaining, and for good reason. Because you literally can’t.

When you get sunlight you get a wide spectrum of light, and any potential negative effects of shorter wavelength light like uv and blue gets balanced out by longer wavelengths like red and infrared.

One of the positive effects of infrared light are it’s effects on melatonin production in the skin.

Most people think of melatonin as the hormone responsible for making you sleepy and regulating your sleep/wake cycles. And while it also does that in the brain, melatonin is also a potent antioxidant in the skin.

Melatonin is synthesized in the skin by your mitochondria when you’re exposed to infrared light.
In fact, about 50% of sunlight that reaches the earth is infrared, so now you might understand why it’s flawed to study uv light in isolation and conclude that sunlight causes cancer.

But basically, melatonin acts as an antioxidant in the skin, which means it neutralizes free radicals like ROS and RNS, thereby decreasing oxidative stress. This is vital in a world where we’re constantly bombarded with stuff that causes oxidative stress like EMF radiation, shit food, poor air quality, heavy metals etc.

This melatonin production, which infrared light is responsible for, is probably one of the main reasons that sunlight isn’t bad, while uv light in isolation is.

However, sunlight also does a whole lot of other great stuff to the body.

Benefits of sunlight

Vitamin D production

The most obvious one is probably vitamin d production, which happens when you expose your skin to UVB light.

Your body uses 7-dehydrocholesterol (precursor to cholesterol) to make pre vitamin d3 when uvb light hits your skin. This is then carried to your liver via some proteins which then converts it into the more active form of vitamin d, which is responsible for all the benefits of vitamin d (higher testosterone for example).

It’s all a bunch of fancy words that you don’t really need to understand. What is important to understand however, is that you can’t replace this with a synthetic vitamin d supplement.

When I debate the importance of sunlight with people, their response to the vitamin d problem is “I just take a vitamin d supplement”.

Yeah sure, just take some synthetic vitamin d pill made from some bullshit in a chinese factory and believe that will give you the same benefits as actually getting sunlight.

Spoiler alert, it won’t.

There’s also a big difference in how your body responds to vitamin d from the sun vs from a supplement. When you get it through a supplement it enters your bloodstream all at once which is really unnatural. When you get it from the sun your body first has to convert uvb light into it, which means that you get a much more slow and steady supply of it.

When you get vitamin d from the sun your body also knows when it has enough, and stops production after a certain point, which you don’t get with supplements.

This means that vitamin d supplementation puts you at a higher risk of taking too much, which can lead to calcium buildup in your arteries and other bad stuff.

And this is just the effects of vitamin d, when you get sunlight you also get a million other benefits that you don’t get from a pill.

Nitric oxide production

UV light from sunlight stimulates nitric oxide production which has a bunch of benefits for your body.

FIrst up, nitric oxide is a vasodilator which means it expands your blood vessels. This can help reduce your blood pressure and improve blood flow, leading to overall better cardiovascular health.

This improved blood flow also improves exercise performance by better delivering oxygen to your muscles, thus improving endurance, reducing fatigue and improving recovery (more gains).

Red and infrared light

I know I already touched on infrared light a bit at the start when I went over why UV light from sunlight isn’t something to be afraid of, but I still wanna go a bit more in depth just because it’s such an important part of sunlight that has many important benefits for health.

There’s a reason why red light therapy devices have become so popular over the last couple years and people spend thousands of dollars on them. They work, and the red and infrared light they emit have potent benefits for our health. But what if I told you that you could get the same benefits (and more) by just being out in the sun.

Like I said earlier, sunlight is about 50% infrared light and a lot of red light as well. This means you can get the same wavelengths of light (and more) that these devices use for free just by being outside.

And to be honest, there are so many more benefits to sunlight over a red light panel, so I really don’t think there is any reason to lash out thousands of dollars just to get one.

Some of the benefits of red and infrared light is better mitochondrial function, improved skin health and hair health, improved eyesight, reduced inflammation and so much more.

Literally go look up “infrared light pubmed” on google and just look at a couple studies and see the benefits for yourself.

It basically all starts with improved mitochondrial functions which then cascades into all these other benefits like skin health, hair health, eyesight, reduced inflammation, improved brain health etc.

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cells so when they are working properly it’s like your body is firing on all cylinders. You basically just become more efficient.

One of the ways that infrared light improves mitochondrial function is basically through increased ATP production (energy) and melatonin production (antioxidant which reduces oxidative stress).

This improved ATP production helps regenerate skin cells and infrared light also improves collagen synthesis as well, which improves skin elasticity and overall skin health and looks.

Nitric oxide which I touched on earlier is also stimulated which improves blood flow to the skin and hair (also rest of body), which improves oxygen and nutrient delivery to those critical areas.

Sleep and circadian rhythm

Light is the biggest factor for setting your circadian rhythm aka your body's internal clock. Every single cell in your body follows this circadian rhythm to some extent so having it aligned to the 24 hour day and night cycle is extremely important for overall health.

And guess what plays the biggest role in setting your circadian rhythm? Sunlight.

You might not think it’s that much brighter outside compared to inside but trust me, it is.

Typical indoor lighting is about 100-500 lux (unit of illuminance), where a sunny day outdoors can be well over 100,000 lux. Even when it’s overcast, the outdoors are still many times brighter than even the brightest indoor room.

And why am I telling you this?

To show you that you need sunlight to set your circadian rhythm.

Light hits your retina where it goes through some processes before it gets sent to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (the bodys master clock) and tells your body what time it is.

The stronger the light source, the stronger the signal that gets sent to the suprachiasmatic nucleus and the better your circadian rhythm gets set.

Your body needs these strong input signals from light and dark so if you sit inside pretty much all day because you’re scared of the sun you are literally messing up your bodys internal clock and hurting a lot of bodily functions.

So basically what I am trynna say is that it is extremely important to get sunlight throughout the day to anker your circadian rhythm, thereby improving your sleep and getting all the amazing benefits that follow when your sleep is dialed.

It’s especially important to get sunlight as soon as you wake up to signal to your body that it’s daytime and to get your healthy morning cortisol spike to get you ready for the day.

Hopefully I have convinced you that there are some amazing benefits to the sun, and that the sun in itself is not responsible for the dramatic rise in skin cancer we are seeing.

But then what is?

What actually causes skin cancer?

This question needs a nuanced answer because the question isn’t really that straight forward.

But really there are a couple things responsible:

Indoor lighting

First up, indoor lighting. It’s terrible, straight up.

Sunlight that comes through the window gets filtered of most of it’s red and infrared light and is left with a lot of blue and green (short wavelength light).

On top of that we light our homes with LED bulbs that once again are missing the crucial infrared light and is high in short wavelength blue light.

This means we are bombarded with short wavelength blue and green light when we are inside which has a detrimental effect on our skin health.

These shorter wavelenghts have been shown to accelerate the aging process of the skin via multiple mechanisms like breaking down collagen and elastin (crucial for skin elasticity and appearance) and producing free radicals.

When theres no infrared light (or very little) theres no production of melatonin which means no antioxidants to donate an extra electron to free radicals which means oxidative stress which means accelerated aging process and inflammation.

Another thing I wanna touch on is this picture which I know you’ve seen before:

This has been going around social media for the last couple years as the “proof” that sunlight is dangerous and causes accelerated aging of the skin.

I know you’ve seen this shit, but let me just tell you that it is total bullshit.

This picture is of a truck driver who has gotten sunlight THROUGH A WINDOW for nearly 30 years and the results of it.

Like I said, windows block most of the healing red and infrared and lets nearly all of the shorter wavelengths through.

So you can probably come to the conclusion that this isn’t from sunlight but rather indoor lighting high in blue light.

It’s so ironic because all these people that fear sunlight thinking it’s gonna kill them, make them look old and wrinkly, are literally sitting inside all day under harsh blue led lights damaging their skin without even knowing it.

Isn’t it also weird how skin cancer rates are skyrocketing despite the fact that we are more indoors than ever before and are using more sunscreen than ever before?

This brings me on to my next point.

Sunscreen

The very thing you put on your skin to “protect you from cancer” contains proven cancer causing chemicals. Isn’t that just ironic?

Literally go look at your sunscreen and see if you can’t find some of these ingredients: oxybenzone, avobenzone, homosalate, octinoxate, octocrylene etc.

These are some of the ingredients that have literally been proven to cause cancer, mess with your endocrine system, fuck up your hormones and so on.

On top of that there are also just tons of other bullshit ingredients you can’t pronounce that probably aren’t good for you.

You know what they say, “if you can’t eat it don’t put it on your skin”.

So please don’t fall for the propaganda and think you need this shit to protect yourselves from skin cancer.

This is just being promoted by billion dollar conglomerates so they can make even more money off you and fuck up the world in the process.

These active ingredients like avobenzone and octocrylene are also REALLY bad for the oceans and all the life in them.

These chemicals mess with fish’s and other organisms endocrine and reproductive systems and destroy the coral reefs.

Later in this article I will get into what you can use instead of these shitty sunscreens if you absolutely need to protect yourselves (cause there are a few times when it can be worth it).

Poor diet

Low quality foods = higher risk of getting sunburned, simple as that.

Make sure you cut out ultra processed foods, seed oils and other inflammatory foods that increase your risk of getting sunburned.

How to tan without getting burned

Most people think they need sunscreen if they wanna to be out in the sun for an extended period of time without getting burned.

But that’s just bullshit.

I haven’t used sunscreen for about 2 years now and I pretty much haven’t burned once. Even when I go on vacation to places with much higher UV than I am used to I still manage to not burn, just because I follow a few simple rules/principles.

1. Build your solar callus

When you look up solar callus, all the so called “experts” (doctors, dermatologists etc.) will say that there is no such thing as a solar callus and that you can’t build up a tolerance for sun exposure.

But that is literally just not true.

You really think our body doesn’t have a mechanism to protect itself from the increasing amount of UV you get going from winter to summer?

So before sunscreen was invented we were just all walking around sunburned because our body didn’t know how to protect itself from UV light?

Sorry but you gotta be stupid if you believe that.

Why do you think people who live closer to the equator have darker skin than those who live at higher or lower latitudes?

It’s literally a solar callus and a way for the body to build up a tolerance for sunlight and especially the high energy UV light.

The darker you are, the more melanin you have in your skin, and the more UV light you can handle before getting sunburned.

Melanins role in the skin is to absorb UV light before it causes damage to the skin cells, so the idea that there is no such thing is a solar callus is just bullshit when we know we produce melanin in response to sun exposure.

So my first point in how to tan without getting burned is that you should build your solar callus.

If you just think about it, our ancestors were out all day long year round. They were gradually building up their melanin and “solar callus” so they were ready for the high UV summertime.

You need to be doing this as well. Too many people sit inside all winter and spring, getting zero UV exposure, zero signals for the body to start producing melanin for summertime. Then they go out in peak summer without sunscreen and wonder why they get burned. It’s not because you need sunscreen, it’s just because you live an unnatural lifestyle.

Start being outside in winter and spring, getting low UV light on your skin and then gradually building up your exposure as the sun gets higher and higher in the sky.

By doing this you’re gonna be ready for summertime and it’s gonna be no problem to sit outside at peak UV without getting burned.

However, this also depends on your genetics and where you live.

For example, most people who live in Australia are not originally from there which means they don’t really have the genetics to deal with that type of UV.

The body is great at adapting to it’s environment but it might not be the best idea to spam peak UV 12-14 with your northern genetics.

You gotta use your intuition as well.

Look at lions as an example:

These guys are snoozing up in the trees at peak sun. If you like close to the equator you might want to consider this as well.

It’s not rocket science to be honest. If you feel like you’ve gotten too much sun, go sit in the shade for a while.

2. Don’t wear sunglasses

Your eyes are the messenger for telling your brain and body what time of day it is.

In fact, two thirds of the light that hits your retina isn’t actually sent to the visual cortex to be perceived as an image. It’s actually sent to the hypothalamus which then sets your circadian rhythm and signals the body’s many functions to sync to the 24 hour day and night cycle.

When you put on sunglasses you mess with this extremely important signaling and send your brain mixed signals about what time of day it is.

Just think about it logically. If it’s a really bright day outside and you decide to put on sunglasses, your eyes will think it’s a lot less bright than it actually is. Maybe it thinks it overcast and therefore decides not to signal your skin to produce as much melanin as it actually needs to protect itself.

Basically sunglasses just mess up your body’s only way to get information about the outside environment which is crucial for health.

The only time I will ever wear sunglasses is at night. One, because it looks cool. Two, because you dim the artificial light after sunset which can help you get better sleep by once again signaling to your brain that it’s dark out.

3. Eat better foods

Your diet plays a big role in your ability to stay out in the sun without burning.

Nutritious, whole foods are the building blocks your body needs to protect itself from getting sunburned.

First up, whole foods rich in antioxidants, polyphenols, carotenoids etc. (mainly fruits and vegetables) help protect you from oxidative stress and sun damage for reasons I talked about earlier.

Other thing that’s really important to be able to tan without getting burned is to cut out seed oils. Seed oils are high in PUFA’s which are really unstable and prone to oxidation (which causes oxidative stress) when exposed to heat, oxygen and UV radiation. This has something to do with the very fragile double bonds that PUFA’s contain.

Switch out foods high in PUFA’s for foods higher in saturated fats and monounsaturated fats like red meat, butter, coconut oil, and high quality extra virgin olive oil.

This fatty acids don’t have double bonds, which means they are more stable when exposed to stressors like UV light.

Just from personal experience as well, when I cut out seed oils and other foods high in PUFA’s I noticed that I didn’t burn as easily.

So test this out and see for yourself how big a difference it actually makes.

Whole foods also just contain way more micronutrients which are all important for protecting yourself from stressors like UV light.

Don’t go around eating junk food all day, depriving your body of the nutrients it needs, and then wonder why you keep burning so easily.

4. Morning/evening sunlight

At low solar angles (around sunrise and sunset) more short wavelength light gets filtered out by the atmosphere and more long wavelength light gets through.

This means you get more healing red and infrared light compared to uv and blue light, and like I talked about earlier these longer wavelengths of light balance out the potential negatives of the shorter wavelengths by stimulating antioxidant production and protecting against oxidative stress.

When you get sunlight around sunrise you are essentially pre conditioning your body for the more intense light that follows later in the day. You could say you are filling up your antioxidant reserves so you are gonna be ready for the high UV later.

The same goes for the sunlight around sunset, except now it’s the other way around. You are filling up your “reserves” of antioxidants that have been used at midday and are restoring and repairing the potential damages that might have occurred in response to the UV light.

This is an oversimplified version of what actually happens but basically these longer wavelengths are very healing and restorative which is why it’s great to get exposure to them at times when the UV is lower.

Sunscreen that doesn’t suck

Most sunscreens suck, I hope I have made that clear. They destroy your health, destroy the oceans and environment and put money in the pockets of big shitty conglomerates. Not good.

However, sunscreen is valuable in certain situations.

For example, if you gotta go on vacation. This can take you from a very northern, low UV environment to the equator in a couple hours which doesn’t leave your body with enough time to adapt and build up the solar callus that is so important.

For a situation like this a natural sunscreen can be a great option for a period of time before your body adjusts.

My personal favorite is just a coconut oil. This only provides about an SPF of about 5-7 which isn’t a lot. Therefore I would also recommend a non-nano zinc oxide sunscreen which you can get a lot of different places or make yourself.

Just make sure you get one that doesn’t have a bunch of shit ingredients. Ideally it should be tallow based and with as little ingredients as possible (no seed oils and shit).

Bonus

The secret health hack the government doesn’t want you to know about is called sunning your balls.

Do it, just be extra careful you don’t get a sunburn.

That’s basically it.

Thanks for reading all this yapping, I really hope you learned something and that I convinced you that sunlight isn’t something to fear.

There is ALWAYS something to do.

Scrolling social media, watching netflix, watching youtube, whatever. It’s constant dopamine 24/7.

For 99% of people, the first and last thing they do in the day is scroll their phone.

It has never been more important to learn the art of doing nothing.

All the great thinkers throughout history never had 24/7 access to entertainment. You ever think Issac Newton would have payed the smallest bit of attention to the apple falling on his head if he had sat with a phone scrolling tiktok. I don’t think so.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from our inability to sit quietly in a room alone” - Blaise Pascal

Bro said this in the 17th century, imagine if he had seen the world today with all the instant dopamine we have access to.

When you are done reading this, I want you to sit in silence for 10 minutes. Don’t look at your phone, literally don’t do anything. Just close your eyes, and be in the present moment.

True creativity comes in the moment when you aren’t doing anything, when you are doing nothing.

Busyness is the enemy of spirituality and creativity and you will ever uncover what your heart is telling you if you never listen to it.

I know this sounds like some monk shit but trust me. Everybody is so stressed out all the time, because they don’t know what they want to do in life, they don’t don’t know what they are interested in, they don’t know anything because they are so caught up in their phones and other forms of entertainment. They never actually gives their brain time to relax and just think about thinking.

We are simple beings, and our monkey brains aren’t wired to be thinking about stuff 24/7 that doesn’t concern us right now.

You need to be pondermaxxing more.

Go for walks without your phone, without music, just you and your thoughts.

Meditate.

Sit on the toilet without your phone.

Whenever you have a moment where you aren’t doing anything, resist the urge to pick up the instant dopamine hit aka your phone.

They want you constantly stimulated so you just live life on autopilot, but it’s your job to resist that urge if you want to be anything other than ordinary.

Now go sit in silence for 10 minutes without any distractions.

And remember that , paradoxically,the key to all your problems is doing nothing.

Thanks for reading.