Maximum Meditation w/ NuCalm: The Ultimate Stress Relief System with Jim Poole #265

Today we’re taking a deep dive into stress: what causes it, how it affects us, and the various ways we can treat it.

As someone who has lived in a huge city for a long time and who travels frequently, stress has wrecked me in various ways — but I know I’m definitely not alone. Gallup reports that 55% of Americans are regularly stressed during the day, and things just seem to be getting worse, as stress-related mental health issues are notably more common in Gen-Z than previous generations.

So, clearly, this is a big issue, especially within the United States — but the silver lining is that we do have the tools and knowledge necessary to reduce those statistics. That’s why I was keen to sit down with one of the foremost stress experts, Jim Poole, President and CEO of Solace Lifesciences.

Solace Lifesciences is a neuroscience company focused on personalized evidence-based wellness and performance. They created NuCalm, the world's first and only patented technology clinically proven to lower stress and improve sleep quality — without drugs. And by managing the stress response, NuCalm also helps with muscle recovery, healing, focus, productivity, and emotional balance.

I’ve tried hundreds of different biohacks and technologies, and I fall off of most of them after a few weeks. But when I find a modality or device that’s this effective, I just become obsessed with it (like happily making myself look like a crazy person on the plane obsessed). I’ve used NuCalm nearly every day since I got one, and it’s really like meditating on steroids.

Interesting in trying out the NuCalm yourself? You can save $500 using the code “luke500” at NuCalm.com.

10:07 — What are some of the most common causes of stress?

• Everything in modern life causes stress
• The biggest culprits are technology, the increasing pace of our world, and our food supply
• Stress is an even more insidious problem than many people think, as most of us aren’t aware of the long-term implications of constant stress on mankind and our planet
• There’s a cultural issue with work in the USA, with people wearing stress as a badge of honor, but this does seem to be moving in a positive direction
• The epidemic of overprescribing our children
• When you’re a teenager, your brain is developing — and adding drugs that suppress the central nervous system is really dangerous
• What we can learn about stress from Provo, Utah

17:58 — The experience of starting to use NuCalm

• NuCalm has a cumulative effect
• How learning the mechanism of action behind a biohacking device helps with compliance
• I’ve been meditating for a long time and I can do it just about anywhere, but it’s crazy how different I feel when I combine my practice with NuCalm

20:47 — How stress affects your brain and body

• Self-awareness isn’t always enough to stop a stress response, especially when related to trauma
• What you should know about your amygdala, cortisol, and adrenaline
• Reacting Vs. Responding
• How your brain changes when you have a fight or flight response
• A perceived threat is just as real as a real threat to your brain and body
• Why focusing on mindfulness is the best thing we can do to minimize our unnecessary stress responses
• The intimacy we have with our own stress (and that we never share)
• Negative thoughts have a greater impact on us than positive ones
• The difference between fear and anxiety
• Why does stress wreck our digestion?
• What the Dalai Lama said about meditation
• Why is meditation so difficult for some people?

47:00 — The neurotransmitters that calm us down + what’s happening in our brain when we do

• GABA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid) is responsible for anything anti-anxiety occurring in your brain chemistry
• We’d die without GABA — but, weirdly, most people have never heard of it
• How stress creates disease and kills us
• Most of us will die from stress
• There are plenty of things we can use to temporarily alleviate stress by stimulating our GABA receptors (alcohol, opiates, marijuana, etc), but these short-term solutions often have long-term negative side effects
• What about taking GABA as a supplement? Or Kratom instead of an opiate?
• What is the vagus nerve and how does it regulate our nervous system and mood?

59:23 — How the NuCalm has evolved over the past 10 years + why the most recent version involves putting a metallic sticker on your wrist

• NuCalm’s 10-year product evolution
• The chemical messaging of NuCalm
• How governments classify some things as a drug vs. a food (even when it doesn’t make sense)
• How the metallic sticker (it’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s what it looks like) leverages cellular communication through frequency
• What biohacks can you stack with NuCalm? What shouldn’t you stack? (Hint: don’t use it near anything putting off strong EMFs)

01:23:40 — The neuroacoustics of NuCalm

• How do binaural beats work and what’s the difference between those and these crazy NuCalm audio files?
• How these audio files induce specific brain states
• Composing music with mathematics
• Why they use scales that most people never hear in popular music
• How you can use frequencies to affect people both negatively and positively

01:55:10 — NuCalm inventor Dr. Blake Holloway create a mathematical platform that can be used to train your brainwaves in a wide variety of ways — and they are working with people like Tony Robbins to create products that achieve different outcomes

• Ignite, the neuroacoustic audio track that can hype you up instead of chilling you out
• NuCalm is designed to help every person on the planet, but Ignite is much more specific
• Why they don’t want someone using Ignite until they make NuCalm a habit
• What happens if you use NuCalm in addition to alcohol or marijuana
• The difference between NuCalm and ot