Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

Daniel Baird [00:00:04]: A lot of the concern in the problematic area within conventional apparel production has been the use of toxic azo dyes. And those are known carcinogens that can be absorbed right through skin contact. And these are things that don't come out with conventional wash cycles, so they actually stay in the fabric, and then your skin's constantly coming into contact with them. The absorption rate of the genitals, particularly, is the highest in the body. In terms of our underwear, we use a water-based fiber reactive dye certified under GOTS and Oeko-Tex. So that's kind of that extra lens of precaution that we wanted to take when we were bringing our products to market. The dye component of things is an area of concern and conventional apparel.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:44]: Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:55]: Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this. All right, it's time to talk about underwear and your NADS, so to speak. My guest on today's show is named Dan, Dan Baird. Dan is actually the co-founder and the CEO of a company that is doing a pretty good job taking care of your crotch. And I'm gonna let him explain as we go through this a little bit more about what that means and why you ought to care about it. But, as we go along here, all the show notes are gonna be at BenGreenfieldlife.com/nadspodcast That's bengreenfieldlife.com/nadspodcast, where I'll link also to Dan's website and the fascinating stuff that he's doing in the realm of underwear. So, Dan, how'd you get interested in underwear man?

Daniel Baird [00:01:55]: Great question, Ben. First off, just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to come on here today. Like I said to you before, I've been a big fan of yours for a long time, so this is kind of a pretty surreal moment for us. And this is, you know, just one of those opportunities that I don't want to take for granted. So I just wanted to express my gratitude to you for having me on the show.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:11]: Well, that's great, but I may burst your bubble just a little bit here. I'm actually, even though we're only waist up on this podcast, I'm not wearing underwear right now. I am wearing shorts. I'm wearing Biore shorts, but I'm actually underwear-free. So, unfortunately, I should have thought in advance and put on some of those brand-spanking new Nads underwear I have up in my closet. But regardless, I'll sit here, underwear-free, and listen to you talk about underwear. All right, so back to your story.

Daniel Baird [00:02:41]: Sure. So, my name is Dan Baird. I am 28 years old. I'm a longtime health and wellness enthusiast and advocate. I am an athlete. I am a brother-son student of life, and as of lately, I am an entrepreneur. I am the co-founder and CEO of a company called NADS. NADS is a men's underwear brand built on sustainable, better-for-boss principles.

Daniel Baird [00:03:05]: We are on a mission to sort of shake up the underwear industry and provide men with organic, non-toxic underwear, a home that is better for their boys below the belt.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:16]: So were you just getting dressed one day and you decided you wanted a better set of underwear, or do you have an actual background in fashion or science or something like that?

Daniel Baird [00:03:25]: So, when I was 21 years old, I had this weird accident. I hit my head on the bottom of a pool, and I fractured my c four vertebrae in my neck. And that sent me into what was pretty much just like a world of inflammation from my skull down into my glutes, and it caused a bunch of muscular imbalances, and I was dealing with crazy trigger points in my body, and I started to have crazy high levels of inflammation and very high levels of pain that came with that. So that kind of set me out on this mission to reduce pain management. I started looking at significant ways to improve the overall function of health as opposed to what I was used to at the time, which was more athletics and performance. So I started really looking at what was going on underneath the surface. Right around the same time, I started experiencing symptoms that I thought were a little atypical for a young 23-year-old guy to be experiencing things like brain fog, chronic fatigue, fluctuating energy levels, and these crazy high levels of inflammation as I mentioned. So I finally got to a breaking point where I said, you know, enough's enough.

Daniel Baird [00:04:24]: I need to start getting some actual concrete answers that I can take action against, because I'm tired of regular doctors just telling me, you know, you should just throw this band-aid solution at it, or this band-aid solution at it. You know, there's not going to be much you can do. So I met up with the functional medicine practitioner at 23. I really wanted to understand what was going on underneath the surface because I refused to believe that that was the way I needed to live my life for the rest of my days. So I met up with a guy named Joe Radic. Up at Three Reals Health in West Palm Beach, who is awesome, and I've been working with him for about half a decade now. And that first meeting was very eye-opening because we did blood work. And what actually would come back to show that I had a host of things going on, sure enough.

Daniel Baird [00:05:04]: But the main thing that I thought was pretty alarming was that I had low testosterone at 23 years old.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:09]: Yeah. Which, by the way, is not uncommon nowadays. Maybe we can get into why, but, yeah, it's shocking, but not uncommon.

Daniel Baird [00:05:16]: Right. It's unfortunate. That's the reality we live in. And they're actually kind of in conventional medicine right now. They're lowering that threshold for what adequate testosterone levels are, which is a little bit alarming, but that's a whole other issue. So, at 23, I had low t. I was experiencing all these symptoms. I found out that I had a hormonal imbalance going on, and I set out on a mission to optimize areas of my life that might be contributing to this, all while trying to bring down the inflammation that I was experiencing from this injury that I had to happen.

Daniel Baird [00:05:43]: So I started looking at things in the environment that could have an adverse response or had an adverse effect on hormonal balance. And then I started learning about endocrine-disrupting chemicals and how prevalent they are in everyday items like food storage containers, cosmetic products, cooking utensils, and supplies. Food, produce, you name it.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:07]: Even some healthy items, by the way, including eating higher up in the food chain, particularly from fish.

Daniel Baird [00:06:13]: Right, exactly. So even when you really think you're nailing what you're supposed to be doing, there are always ways where you can try and optimize more. And it's just like Pandora's box. Once it's open, it doesn't shut. Right. So I started learning about where these EDCs, these endocrine-disrupting chemicals were very prevalent in my personal environment. And so I just started trying to make small switches to try and optimize my testosterone production. And in doing this, luckily, the inflammation in my body and everything else sort of subsided.

Daniel Baird [00:06:41]: So my overall system health got a lot better, and I was able to make positive strides in the world of testosterone. So about two years ago, I started looking at clothing that I was wearing to the gym because I thought, you know, the first line of defense to the part of my body that produces testosterone, my goNADS needs to be solidified. And I was wearing 100% polyester compression shorts to the gym every day for the last, I don't know, 15 years and 30 minutes of those sessions were in the 180-degree sauna. And then I started looking at what polyester is made of, and I found out that polyester is a plastic-based fabric derived from petrochemicals.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:21]: Really?

Daniel Baird [00:07:22]: Yeah. So right in line with the whole issue of microplastics comes this whole thing about clothing, specifically what we're putting our packages in. Right, right.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:30]: Because we should. We should know, by the way, you know, heat aside, increasing capillarization and blood flow to any area of the skin, we're talking about a very thin layer of skin. In the testes particularly, that's. That's excellent for absorption. That's why, you know, a lot of men will use scrotal cream for. For testosterone enhancement. Like an androgel. Well, similar to the way that you might use a.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:55]: I don't know, a suppository for a medicine. You know, that's a great delivery mechanism, for better or worse, for anything that's tucked up against your balls.

Daniel Baird [00:08:04]: Yeah, exactly. The absorption rate of the genitals, particularly, is the highest in the body. Right. So it's one of those things where you don't get the opportunity, you don't have the luxury to just turn off what your skin is absorbing when it's in contact with things, whether it's powder, cream, lotion, or fabric or the chemicals that are in fabrics. So I set out to try and find a pair of underwear that was certified organic, non-toxic, and could actually hold up to the rigors of athletic training because that's such an important part of my life and my identity, and I really couldn't find one. And my background in branding and marketing, and I had a little bit of the entrepreneurial bug. I just thought, hey, this is kind of a hole in the market right here. I think this is something where I can come into the market and make a product that makes an impact on people and is in line with the whole health and wellness theme.

Daniel Baird [00:08:50]: That has kind of been the theme of my life for a long time.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:53]: Yeah. By the way, probably not the greatest tagline for your product. We plug a hole in the market.

Daniel Baird [00:09:00]: I don't know. Depends on who you're asking, I guess. Depends on who you're talking to, but, yeah. So we went out and we started doing research. I contacted my co-founder, Steve, who's one of my all time best buddies, and him and I are very alike in a lot of ways, personally and professionally. So we decided that this was the opportunity we wanted to finally sync up on and actually kind of, you know, sink our teeth into and explore. We started looking at what materials might be best, and we ended up settling on organic cotton as our preference, mainly because of the certification and extra rigorous criteria that kind of already exist in that space, which we can get into in a little bit here. But long story short, we couldn't find underwear that was capable of what we were looking for.

Daniel Baird [00:09:46]: That was also better for our packages. So we went out and we found a way to manufacture it.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:52]: You mean. But you mean. Do you mean specifically that crossover between performance and cleanliness as far as the fabric is concerned? Because there is some, like, hippy-dippy, loose-fitting underwear out there, but it's not really great for active enthusiasts or weight training or something like that.

Daniel Baird [00:10:09]: Yeah, exactly. So we wanted to try and find that blend of health performance. And then the third element is kind of that style aspect. Right. Make something that's still something men want to wear that looks good on them. So that was kind of the crash background story for Nad's inception. It started out of personal frustration in the market, and then kind of just started to take off from there.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:30]: Yeah, I have several questions about the actual composition of the fabric in clothing in general, but especially underwear. But before that, I was just reading yesterday. I don't know if you saw this study. I think it might have even been a meta-analysis. I don't have it in front of me right now. So it could have been a study of studies, but a shockingly high amount of microplastics directly links to erectile dysfunction now being found in penile and testicular tissue in men. This was just news yesterday.

Daniel Baird [00:11:04]: I feel like in the last two weeks, we have had some serious developments in the world of microplastics in testicles, penile tissue, and actual semen itself. And I feel like we're just starting to open our eyes to this as a very big issue, in my opinion. I think microplastics pose one of the biggest threats to human health that is kind of out there right now. I don't think it's as known, but I think we're finally starting to get to that point where this is kind of the tip of the iceberg. We're about to uncover the actual adverse effects of microplastics in the human body. And I specifically think that this decline in men's reproductive health is directly tied to microplastics and then all of the chemicals and toxins that are just everywhere in our environment right now.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:47]: Yeah, and we definitely don't want to neglect talking about women I know that you're now working on a women's line. We can talk about that later. But everything that we've so far discussed is also directly applicable to the highly permeable genitalia of a female as well.

Daniel Baird [00:12:02]: Yep, exactly. And that's something that should not be neglected. It's one of those things where, when we decided to come after this business concept, we wanted to do so in a way that was a little bit more specific than most generalist approaches. So we went after men just because it's something that hasn't been talked about. There are a handful of companies out there that do women's line products and have talked about this for a little while, but there was a shocking gap for any companies educating and providing a solution specifically for men. So that was our angle.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:35]: Okay. Okay. Got it?

Daniel Baird [00:12:36]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:36]: So I want to go over a few nuances as far as the fabric is concerned. First of all, when it comes to what's used to color my clothing, as far as. As far as the dye or the coloring components, is that something to think about?

Daniel Baird [00:12:49]: Sure. Sure. So a lot of the concern in the problematic area within conventional apparel production has been the use of toxic azo dyes. Right. And those are known carcinogens that can be absorbed right through skin contact. And these are things that don't come out with conventional wash cycles. So that's another problematic issue with the apparel space, is that a lot of these toxins and chemicals that are used in production embed into the fabrics themselves. They don't come out with Washington, so they stay in the fabric, and then your skin's constantly coming into contact with them.

Daniel Baird [00:13:21]: So in terms of coloration and dyes, the main area. The main area of concern is typically these toxic azo dyes. So that's kind of, you know, I don't want to say it's on its way out, but more and more suppliers and manufacturers are aware of this now and are pushing away from those entirely, which is a very good sign for the market. And then take things a step further. In terms of our underwear, we use a water-based fiber reactive dye certified under GOTS and Oeko-Tex. So that's kind of that extra lens of precaution that we want to take when we're bringing our products to market. But, yeah, the dye component of things is definitely an area of concern.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:58]: And conventional apparel, what's that mean when you say GOTS?

Daniel Baird [00:14:02]: Yeah. So GOTS is the Global Organic Textile Standard. And what that is, it's a certifying body that is kind of the leading organic textile certifying body in the world. And they audit everything from cottonseed all the way to finished garment that you actually end up putting it on. So they're auditing the entire supply chain to make sure that it is free of the typical chemicals and toxins found in most conventional apparel production. So they're what we call the gold standard of organic certifications. And when we went to launch the business, that was the one area where we were not willing to compromise on. So we work with the GOTS-certified supplier, and every step of the way, from when they actually plant that first cotton seed until when somebody puts on a pair of NADS is covered under GOTS certification.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:45]: If I'm wearing clothing that's cotton, but that's not necessarily GOTS-certified. It sounds to me like the issue is necessarily microplastics because that's not polyester. But are we talking about what it is that the cotton plant is treated with, like pesticides or herbicides or something like that?

Daniel Baird [00:15:01]: Yeah. So that's the thought. If we're comparing apples to apples, cotton will be better than 100% synthetic fabric, and then organic cotton will be better than regular cotton. And then certified organic cotton is kind of up there at the apex of everything. The reason for that is that conventional cotton calls for heavy use of pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides in the actual farming. And then this actually embeds into the raw material, which then gets passed into the actual finished good. And then can linger on in these garments. And then they've been shown to be able to be absorbed right through the skin contact.

Daniel Baird [00:15:35]: Through skin contact.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:36]: Wow.

Daniel Baird [00:15:37]: So then obviously, with that amplification below the belt, you have a little bit of a problematic area there with pesticides and herbicides. And I was reading a study that said pesticides can linger in the skin and can actually act as a reservoir for extended-release.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:52]: What's that mean? Act as a reservoir for extended release?

Daniel Baird [00:15:55]: So basically, it was the study that I think was from 2013 that said it was the primary focus of the study was looking at the areas of the body that had the highest amplification of actual absorption of absorption. It said that what we also found was that pesticides can linger in your skin, and then in periods of take sweating, for example, you can kind of like reactivate the absorption of those substances back into the body. So they're even more problematic.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:25]: Wow. Okay. So, you know, related to the sweating piece, I think that another aspect I see in a lot of performance apparel is the idea of moisture wicking. You know, so you're not getting, you know, damp and sweaty and warm and balmy balls. What do you do about that component?

Daniel Baird [00:16:44]: Yeah. So I think a lot of the concern with moisture wicking in general, is that moisture wicking compounds call for perfluoroalkyl substances and PFCs and PFAs. Right. And those are endocrine disrupting chemicals. Those are right up there at the top with things like phthalates, BPA, formaldehyde, all these other ones. But for moisture wicking, specifically to make these things water resistant or waterproof, they get essentially coated with PFAs and PFCs. And these things can be absorbed directly into the skin as well. So there's a problematic area there.

Daniel Baird [00:17:15]: They can also be absorbed. They can also be ingested. Right. So if there's going to be like an off-gassing of them from something, if you're wearing a raincoat, for example, which has been loaded with PFCs or PFAs, then you can breathe those chemicals into. So that's another problematic area. But the misconception around moisture wicking, which we've learned a lot about in the last couple of years, has been polyester fabrics, 100% synthetic fabrics. They don't allow for airflow to go through them. So that means they also don't allow for sweat to pass through them.

Daniel Baird [00:17:45]: So the sweat doesn't actually absorb into the fabric as much, and it pretty much just gets trapped or runs down. Right. So that's why there are also issues with things like contact dermatitis and yeast infections from synthetic fabrics that are more specific to women, but it also is prevalent in men as well. Whereas opposed to something like organic cotton or cotton in general, the air can flow through them and so can the moisture. The result is, unfortunately, a slightly heavier garment. Right. It's going to kind of absorb that and it's going to carry it, and it's going to be less conducive to what you might be used to in terms of having a more dry-fitting garment. Right.

Daniel Baird [00:18:21]: It's called dry fit for a reason. But the trade-off is that you're having a cleaner, more non-toxic, more skin-friendly garment that you're wearing.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:29]: Okay. Okay, got it. When it comes to these microplastics, these, you know, forever chemicals that you're referring to, the perfluorochemicals, etcetera, I mean, in your initial story, you were talking about how you tested testosterone, but did you do or do you recommend any particular form of testing to see what else is building up in your body related to some of the other things you were just talking about?

Daniel Baird [00:18:54]: The short answer is, I did not when I was 23, and I have not since then. I've tested for heavy metals, which is one that I get routinely done, uh, in terms of doing a specific microplastic or endocrine disrupting specific type of test. I need to learn more about that. I took more of a generalist approach and said, you know what, this is one of those areas where I know there's room for improvement. Let me go and pull on this pretty big lever and see how the rest of the system improves. And then once I get to a point where I've, you know, really exhausted that big lever, I can then get a little bit more into the nitty gritty, into the fine details. I think we're probably. I think I'm about five and a half years since that original test, so I'm probably getting closer to that standpoint.

Daniel Baird [00:19:33]: Or I think there's going to be a continuation of more developments of those types of tests now that this is becoming a little bit more commonplace of an issue.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:40]: Yeah, there's. There are websites like direct labs where you can get a urinary toxin test, and some of that can include microplastic evaluation, some of these other chemicals, and then another one. I think that this can give you a relatively high amount of accuracy as far as excretion of some of these is the hair tissue mineral analysis, the HTMA, which is a very simple hair sample and a very affordable test to do.

Daniel Baird [00:20:04]: And you can do them straight from the comfort of your home now.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:06]: Yeah, exactly. And honestly, a lot of people use, uh, not just there from the head, but alternately the hair from the crotch for that. So that's probably pretty reflective of what you might be getting from your underwear or even just systemically from other clothing.

Daniel Baird [00:20:21]: Exactly.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:21]: So what do you do, though? You know, if you have the underwear issue sorted, what else are you wearing? I mean, obviously, you're not just wearing your NADS to the gym, so how are you navigating all the other things, you know, a t-shirt, pants, shorts, hats, et cetera?

Daniel Baird [00:20:38]: The way we approach this whole situation is there's no way in 2024 to be perfect across the board. But if we try and take an effort to make an effort to take small, mindful choices where we can, then the culmination of the parts makes a lot more sense in our work, like the way that we kind of adopted this overall mantra has been that your base layer matters most, specifically your underwear. So that's why we came after that. First. We may get into some other things down the line, but right now we're trying to just be the underwear guys. That said, if you're wearing a raincoat and you're wearing a shirt underneath it, then you know, there's not that much skin contact with the raincoat to your body. So it's going to be a little different than if you're wearing, you know, a 100% synthetic t-shirt. Right.

Daniel Baird [00:21:21]: Especially when you're going to the gym. I think when you're in those times when you're sweating, you're significantly more porous. It's ten times more important to make that choice. And although, as I mentioned, the cotton may be a little less moisture-wicking, the trade-off is that you're going to be putting yourself in a little bit of a sticky situation with the chemicals and toxins found in these 100% synthetic workout gear that have been marketed very well as workout friendly, but they may not be body friendly.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:49]: Yeah, you're making me want to go audit my closet just a little bit more intensively after this show, because I'm sure, sure I have some culprits in there. The other issue I hear a lot of people talk about these days with regard to testosterone and reproductive health is the EMF component. Have you thought about that at all?

Daniel Baird [00:22:07]: Yeah, so I've thought about that a lot, actually. And I use a lap shield anytime I put my computer down on my lap.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:14]: Now, can you explain to people what that is?

Daniel Baird [00:22:16]: Yeah. So it's an EMF-blocking lap shield. It's pretty much. It's a little outside of reach. I don't want to rip the headphones off, but I. It's a thin board, essentially, and I put my laptop on top of it, and it stops the EMFs from the laptop going down into my nats. Right. So that was something that I was aware of for quite some time.

Daniel Baird [00:22:36]: It also made me think the reason I even opened my eyes to that was because I always thought about what my cell phone in my front pocket might be doing to my testosterone, my hormonal health, and my reproductive system. And sure enough, more and more literature is coming out showing that it's a real issue. Right. The effects of these things, even when they're just sitting dormant in our pocket, if they're not in airplane mode, they're hitting us. Our parts. Right. So they're hitting our leg, they're hitting our package, they're hitting our entire midsection. Um, so my thoughts on the matter.

Daniel Baird [00:23:04]: If you have the option to not put your phone in your pocket or put your laptop directly on your. Your lap, uh, I would take that every day of the week. Always make that choice when you can. That's one of those things. Wherever. It's going to be tricky to do that all the time. In terms of our business model, from a product perspective, we've thought about EMF blocking tech. Unfortunately, right now, we don't have enough information internally to make any direction on where we want to go with that.

Daniel Baird [00:23:34]: I don't think it's something that we're going to get into. Honestly, Ben, I don't know if right now I'm capable of even speaking to it too much because I don't know enough about the manufacturing process of embedding. So the way it works is, I think most clothing companies that have EMF-blocking tech, they embed silver into the fabric.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:50]: Yeah, yeah, most of them are silver. Yep.

Daniel Baird [00:23:52]: So they embed the silver into the fabric, and silver pretty much functions as a radiation-proof wall. Right. Whatever's behind the silver. Our whole thing is that we're trying to mitigate toxin exposure to our bodies through our, like, to our skin. Specifically. I don't know enough about the manufacturing process of embedding the silver into the fabric. I can't imagine that we would still be able to withhold our GOTS organic certification principle when adding what's essentially a heavy metal into the fabric. So I think it's very important to be aware of.

Daniel Baird [00:24:24]: I don't think it's something that you'll probably see from NADS anytime soon. I know there are companies out there that definitely have EMF tech.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:32]: Honestly. Again, I need to go up to my closet, though, because. Yeah, I. Some of this EMF-blocking clothing does feel a little synthetic. I need to go look at the label to see what they're actually using because. Yeah, you're right. I mean, there could be concerns about metal absorption into the testes. If it's a silver-lined fabric and if they're using some kind of polyester or synthetic, that's problematic for the other reasons we already discussed.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:56]: So, yeah, it's kind of. Kind of a catch-22. You could get EMF blocking but also get toxin absorption at the same time.

Daniel Baird [00:25:03]: And that's the biggest concern, is, is there a way to be perfect and to, you know, hit all of the problematic areas with one product? Um, maybe. Maybe we'll innovate and try and find out what that looks like. But as of right now, my personal opinion on the matter is that I'm going to wear my organic cotton underwear. And every step of the way, I'm going to try and avoid having my phone in my pocket. Right. And that's one of those things. Like, even when I'm out for a walk now, I have my phone in my hand and I'm like, okay. Sometimes I'm even having it in my hand on airplane mode because it's still down close to my hip.

Daniel Baird [00:25:34]: And the direct effect of those, of that action, of that prohibitive action, hard to measure, I think. But it's one of those things where it's kind of just like a domino. Once they start falling, you're making all these little choices and all these little mindful choices hopefully add up.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:49]: Yeah, I like that website, Defender Shield. I've got one of those pads like you have from them, and then I use their case for my phone. And I'm even so careful as to place the phone in my pocket camera facing outwards because the camera lens is the one part of the phone where the radiation isn't blocked. And if you get something like a defender shield case, it says that on a label. It's like, case. So put your phone in the case, and then when you're talking on your phone, if you're not holding it, which is a good idea, by the way, but if you have to have it against your body because you need your hands for other activities, then turn it so that the camera lens is facing outwards and that's that much less proximal radiation that you're getting exposed to.

Daniel Baird [00:26:29]: Yeah, I was going to ask you. So the, the entire screen of your phone is covered by that case. Right?

Ben Greenfield [00:26:34]: Except the camera.

Daniel Baird [00:26:35]: Yeah, except for the camera. I was curious about that type of tech. Yeah, that's interesting. I think. What would be a cool product to see? I don't know if this is out there. I haven't dug in enough because I have that laptop shield is maybe just like a thin laptop snap-on case. That's EMF proof, right? I've been thinking about a way to do that for cell phones, too. And the Defender Shield sounds like they're on it.

Daniel Baird [00:26:56]: So that's awesome. What I'm super pumped about is seeing all of these CPG direct-to-consumer companies pop up that are solving these little niche health concerns. I think we're kind of in this period of time right now where it's like the health and wellness renaissance and the tech age has enabled us to create these companies that all contribute to the overall agenda of improving human health. We're pumped to be a part of it and just taken through the shape of underwear. Right. But I'm curious as to, obviously you're very plugged into the whole health and wellness scene and you have been for a long time. Has it been something where you've kind of seen this gradually happening or do you think that in the last twelve months, it's spiked?

Ben Greenfield [00:27:34]: Do you mean the growing awareness of emfs?

Daniel Baird [00:27:36]: No, I mean more so. This kind of like approach to prioritization of health.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:44]: Yeah, largely driven by, you know, these tech billionaires and biohackers with podcasts, you know, guilty as charged, who is kind of like leading the chart and saying, hey, how many little things can we adjust environmentally to address this ancestral mismatch that we live in? How can we address the comfort crisis with heat and cold adaptation? How can we mitigate EMF with smart building biology principles and the type of protective gear that we're talking about? How can we reduce microplastic exposure by using glass and by using water filtration systems? I mean yeah, I think there's a surge in interest in it. I still think there's a lot more work to be done. But yeah, just because we are kind of a little bit of a silo in the biohacking health podcasting space where a lot of people listening to this podcast are pretty aware of it, but you know, their, their neighbor doesn't know the difference between, I don't know, like a, like a Brita water filter or an aqua true reverse osmosis or something like that. So yeah, there are a lot of subtle subtle nuances. I want to get into some of the logistics of the underwear. First of all, certified organic. This GOTS-certified. Anything I need to bear in mind when it comes to washing this NADs' underwear that I'm now using, here's the way

Daniel Baird [00:29:00]: That we kind of approach the whole thing. First off, you want to try and opt for some sort of like non-toxic detergent, right? If it's a big brand detergent, it's likely got some problematic things in it.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:12]: By the way, total rabbit hole. But the same for the new dishwashing pods. The dishwashing pods are just chock full of microplastics. That's another area to focus on. But yes,, you're right, the detergent is important. Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Baird [00:29:24]: So the detergent's a thing where obviously if you're buying if you're. If you're making the investment and you're buying underwear and you're buying, you know, our underwear goes from $27 up to $34.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:34]: Right.

Daniel Baird [00:29:34]: So if you're making the investment in that, then you don't want to just bring that underwear in and then wash it with, you know, 100% synthetic, not ideal detergent. Right. So first things first you should try and find some sort of non-toxic detergent.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:46]: Branch basics or something like that.

Daniel Baird [00:29:48]: Yeah, exactly. Something like branch basics. I use Dr. Bronner's castile soap. Um, I just do a little squirt in the, in the, in the washer, and then I just wash it on. You can wash these. You're supposed to wash cotton on cold. Right. Ultimately, because the fiber will contract a little bit and shrink, it's going to be really hard to avoid shrinkage on anything that's cotton, like this, heavy cotton.

Daniel Baird [00:30:07]: And the way that you could try and avoid that is to wash things on cold. Um, so the recommended care instruction is to wash on cold and then tumble dry on low. That said, it's going to hold up to, if you tumble dry on high or if you, you know, wash it on warm, it's just going to probably shrink a little bit more. So that's kind of the thing there. I would also recommend that you have the option to try to avoid washing your certified organic cotton underwear with, you know, a 100% polyester t-shirt, because what happens in the laundry is that polyester will shed microplastics into the water.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:43]: Oh, I didn't even think about that. So, back to what we were talking about earlier. Even if you're making the choice to prioritize underwear, but you have a closet full of other plastic-infused materials, you'd still have to separate your loads accordingly to continue to protect your balls.

Daniel Baird [00:30:58]: I don't think it's going to be as problematic as if you're wearing, you know, 100% polyester underwear as if you washed your shirt with your underwear. It's not going to be nearly as bad. But if you're into taking every step and every precaution, I would try and say, wash these with just other organic cotton fabrics. Right. If you can. And then there's the whole issue of microplastics getting in the water supply from laundry. But we won't jump into that rabbit hole right now.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:24]: Yeah, and there are probably a few people who are snickering right now, listening to two dudes talk for like, five minutes about how they wash their underwear. But these are the little ones. Little subtle nuances like I was talking about that add up. So what about styles? You know, in terms of, like, performance versus dress versus daily wear? Are you guys doing different styles, or is it just one style of the NADS underwear?

Daniel Baird [00:31:43]: Yeah. So we're still pretty new in the grand scheme of things. We're fortunate in the fact that people ended up liking our underwear and the business, and the brand started to grow pretty fast over the last twelve months. We didn't start this brand until March of last year. So, as I mentioned, in the bigger picture, we're sort of brand new here, and we're trying to pioneer this clean underwear initiative to the best of our ability. And so we haven't diversified too much with what we're offering. So we have a boxer brief, and we have a boxer, and then we have an alt version of each of those. So we have a standard boxer brief, which is a slightly extended leg that comes in black, it comes in gray, and it comes in navy blue.

Daniel Baird [00:32:27]: And then we have the all version of that product, which doesn't have a small fly opening. We call that one the no-fly zone. It has extra compression. So that's our take on modern-day compression shorts. So for the people who like compression when they're training, that's the go-to option. People love those. And then we have two styles of boxers. We have the standard boxer, which is just.

Daniel Baird [00:32:49]: I'll show you. Got it right here. A regular boxer is just a loose-fitting boxer shorts. It looks like it's made of t-shirt material, as opposed to that really thin, scratchy, typical boxer material from most conventional brands. These are 100% cotton fabric. And then we also have the ball natural style, which is essentially the same thing as the regular boxer shorts. But we wrap the waistband. So one of those things where, you know, this is a, you know, in the world that we live in, these garments still need a little bit of function.

Daniel Baird [00:33:22]: So right now, the tech is limited to where we're still working to try and find a way to eliminate this waistband over time. Right now, we don't have a solution for that. So this waistband still calls for the use of elastane, which is a synthetic material. But unfortunately, if we didn't use this, then no one would want to wear the garments, and then you be back to square one. So we're trying to find that balance. So what we ended up doing for the boxer shorts was we wrapped the waistband in certified organic cotton. So then all you guys here are just certified organic cotton garments, no skin contact to the waistband. And then we went a step further and just didn't even dye this.

Daniel Baird [00:34:01]: So this is just the natural color, cotton color. And although we use certified non-toxic dyes for all of our styles, for those people who really want to go the extra mile, we made this style. And when we had to make a little funny joke around it, we called it the ball natural. So these are the ball natural boxers. These are my personal favorite, ball natural.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:17]: You're full of good fun today. Okay, so you had briefly mentioned the women's component, but with your website, it looks like you guys are featuring some kind of a woman's line. Is that like a partnership with a different brand?

Daniel Baird [00:34:30]: Exactly. So we do not carry our own women's products, but we have an affiliate partnership with a company called Panty Promise, and they're built on very similar principles to us. So we were having customers reach out and say, are you going to do women's where you like? What do we do for women? What about women? So instead of us saying, hey, we need to just go and go into the deep end and launch a woman's line, we were sending people to other brands' websites just doing that. And then I came into contact with a woman named Jessica who started that company, and they're built on very similar principles. So I said, hey, why don't we just start sending the traffic from people who are looking for women's underwear to your brand? Because you stand for the same things that we do, so we can actually provide them with the solution that we stand behind as well. And then we kind of have just like a little cool partnership of us both fighting the big fight or the good fight against the big hunter.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:18]: Yeah. Cool. Cool. I like it. So, as far as you go you think a lot about this kind of stuff. I'm just curious, stepping back and looking at you, Dan, what are some of the other things that you're doing in terms of the way that you're living your life or your daily routine that are big wins for you in the health department right now? Just because it's always interesting to hear different people's routines and what they're using. And I always discover something new that we haven't talked about before for on the show.

Daniel Baird [00:35:45]: One of the things that I've been trying to adapt this year has been just the general theme of being mindful. Right. I'm trying to make that just anything I do, I'm trying to make more mindful choices, because in the past, I kind of was always trying to be perfect, and with perfection comes a little bit of disappointment, and any deviation from the course. Right. So part of this is tying in the overall thing into mental health, and I trying to have a positive mindset and make these habits sustainable as opposed to making them rules. Right. So I believe in trying to have guidelines over rules. You know, people do 80 20.

Daniel Baird [00:36:21]: I'm probably trying to do 95, five for the most part. There are some areas of our lives where, unfortunately, we just don't have control over some of the things in our environment that might be exposing us to toxins or things that might not be ideal for human health. And I think that I used to really stress overdose, trying to avoid those things at all costs. And now I try and mitigate my exposure to them as much as I can. And if I hit 95, 590, 10, in terms of percentages, then I'm pretty pumped about that. But in terms of my overall health and wellness over the last couple of years, I've tried to take a pretty hard pivot into a less is more approach. You know, I watched the animal-based diet sort of rise in popularity, and I gave that a shot for a little while.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:07]: You mean, uh, you mean carnivore?

Daniel Baird [00:37:09]: Sort of like pretty much. Very heavy into meat and eggs and raw dairy, and then an abundance of fruit as well. Fruit and raw honey. Um, so a little bit of a mix. And I watched that happen, and I started doing this. And I've always been a fan of not blindly adapting things. I think that that's dangerous. I do think there's a benefit to it right now in the market because a lot of people are blindly adapting things that are drastically better than what they're typically doing.

Daniel Baird [00:37:34]: So it's fine, in that sense, to interrupt you.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:37]: I mean, if you're a social media influencer, it's not dangerous. It's highly profitable.

Daniel Baird [00:37:41]: Right? Right. 100% it is. Definitely is. And I think that the good news is that there's a lot of people advocating for really good habits. I think it becomes dangerous when people who are following these people blindly adapt them and then abandon anything else that isn't that viewpoint. And then it creates a lot of polarity between these people who are all doing the similar task in action of trying to just improve. And it kind of creates these little tribes with dichotomies between each of them when at the end of the day, we're all striving to kind of accomplish the same thing.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:12]: Right. That's. That's why I didn't write the Boundless Diet. I wrote the Boundless Cookbook and the Boundless Kitchen, which is just a collection of recipes that are highly omnivorous. Because, you know, if you. If you want to make a lot of money in the industry, you write a diet book and you champion that as the one perfect diet for all of humankind. But I. There's so much biochemical individuality that just doesn't work at the end of the day, besides for making money.

Daniel Baird [00:38:34]: So spot on. And that's why I have so much respect for you, Ben, and a lot of admiration for the approach that you take with your message. And I've been, you know, following your journey for quite some time and again, uh, expressing a little extra gratitude to even have this little part of the journey together here. And that's why I think it's super important that more and more people are trying to take that mindset. And that approach is, hey, there's a lot of ways to do things right for yourself and for your health. And just because this is working for me doesn't necessarily mean it's automatically going to work for you. So in that journey of trying animal-based, I was testing every step of the way, right? So every four months, every five months, I would go and get a test, and I ended up doing that for, I think I did it for ten months. And then I pivoted from there into just more of an overall paleo style diet where I ate a bunch of vegetables, I eat a lot of fruit.

Daniel Baird [00:39:19]: I do eat some grains. I eat a pretty good amount of meat. I eat wild-caught fish, I eat eggs. I do that. And for me personally, what I found is that I'm now in a sustained mode. Instead of I need to go and fix things, it's like, okay, this is the diet that's worked for me. I dropped about 15 pounds, and I'm now at a comfortable, functional, high-performance weight, which I probably should have been the whole time. And I think I was trying to hold on to more size for sport back in the day.

Daniel Baird [00:39:48]: And through that less is more approach, it's just I've simplified everything, right? So it's like, okay, if I can just eat food from the earth, that's my general rule of thumb. If I can do that most of the time, 95% of the time, then I feel great. Most of the time. And then outside of that, one thing I've been working on lately, and this is tough, as co-founder, CEO, and entrepreneur, is not feeling like I have to go and do things, because when I feel that I have to go and do them, I allow that mental burden to creep in and the stress to surmount. That's one of those things where that's an ever ongoing work in progress. Right. Um, I've paid a lot more attention recently to water as well, with a lot of the talks of microplastics. So even when I'm traveling in the airport, I am really trying not to drink from plastic water bottles.

Daniel Baird [00:40:35]: It's like the number one thing where at all costs, I'm doing my best to avoid it wherever I can.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:41]: That's also interesting, what you say about the kind of your journey to omnivory and a more inclusive diet. It's kind of paradoxical, because when you restrict a wide variety of foods and you go oxalate-free, low histamine, low fodmap, etcetera, a lot of times what you create is a microbiome imbalance that results in you having immune system issues in response to many of these problematic foods. That if you had a healthy microbiome, would not be problematic because bacteria assist with the production of metabolites that break down those foods. That's essentially the thrust of a guy who I'm going to interview soon on my show, Joel Green's new book, this idea that, yeah, if you eat a widely varied diet, especially rich in a wide variety of fermented foods, and fibrous based plant matter and flavanols and polyphenols, then your microbiome composition shifts in such a manner that you create this positive feedback loop in which you're able to eat a wider and wider variety of foods because you're eating a wider and wider variety of microbiome supporting foods.

Daniel Baird [00:41:51]: Yeah, 100%. And what I found interesting was that in this, I eat keto, or I eat paleo, or I eat carnivore, or I eat animal-based, the shift back to introducing some of these things back into your diet can and probably will have some sort of repercussion on your system as a whole because you're introducing something that's been awol for a while. So when I first pushed from animal-based into eating some vegetables, again, I jumped right into the deep end and I was like, you know what? I'm going to have a big salad every day for lunch, tons of greens, and I'm going to have a bunch of chopped bell peppers in there. I'm going to throw the raw onion in there. It's going to be great. I had for, like, about a week, I had really bad levels of inflammation in my back, and I was like, the only change I've made was introducing a bunch of vegetables at once. So I met up with my dietitian, my nutritionist, and I was like, hey, I just introduced vegetables back into the diet, and here's what's going on. She was like, well, you jumped right into the deep end.

Daniel Baird [00:42:47]: And I was like, what do you mean? She was like, your body hasn't. It needs a little bit of time to adapt to that.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:52]: Right. It's almost very similar to like an infant with a peanut allergy. You have to gradually introduce them to that protein.

Daniel Baird [00:42:58]: Yeah. And I think what happens is because of that elimination diet and then people throwing it back into tests and they don't gradually jump back into it, they're like, oh, that food's automatically bad for me when we're actually better off eating those things. It might just take a little bit of an introduction period. Right. I'm, I'm a firm believer of what we're talking about here. It's like eating kind of a little bit of everything is how we've evolved. And I think it's interesting that a lot of people are trying to talk about how we need to eat like our ancestors, but we've evolved. Right? So what we eat should probably have evolved as well.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:32]: Yeah, I mean, our ancestors, strictly speaking, probably ate primarily tubers and bone marrow because once you take into account that poor access to a wide variety of fruits and produce and animals getting killed before you, you know, early, early ancient Mandev probably subsisted on whatever was most widely available, which would have been tubers buried underneath the ground and the bones that they were able to crack open that the other animals couldn't get inside of.

Daniel Baird [00:43:58]: Right? Spot on. So that's a whole other thing, right? The, abundance and just the ability to have everything that we possibly could want or need at our big, like, at our disposal whenever we want. Like, that goes further than just food that goes now for information, too. I think the rise of a lot of mental health issues is because of this onslaught of info all the time.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:21]: Right? Yeah. Self self diagnosing, Doctor Googling included. By the way, we do need to come up with the, I am going to write a diet book. It's going to be the tuber bone marrow diet. It's all just carrot fries and bone broth and beet chips, believe it or not, the carrots.

Daniel Baird [00:44:37]: That was the worst adverse response that I had when I introduced anything back into my diet. After a long period of time without it, I was like, you know what? A lot of people right now are eating a bunch of raw carrots, and I'm guilty of blind adaptation. This was, I don't know, three or four years ago. I said, no, I'm going to have two big raw carrots at the end of the night. The next day, for me, my digestion, I was hurting. That one was something where I needed to gradually introduce those back in, and I just went straight for it.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:03]: Evan. Yeah, that's a big repeat thing, that introducing a raw carrot along with a meal for digestion. And you see that a lot in the rape heat forums, like start small, you know, mini carrots, baby carrots, and work your way up again. People probably laughing at us, talking about the size of the carrot that you have with a meal for digestion. But, yeah, I mean, the big picture here is to start small with dietary adjustments rather than jumping, like you said, all in. How about from a fitness standpoint, are there any big wins for you as far as equipment or approaches to staying fit? Because I know you're a relatively fit guy, you're busy, you're a CEO, you're running this company. So what's working for you right now in the fitness department?

Daniel Baird [00:45:40]: Yeah. So it's a mirroring theme to how I approach kind of overall health and specifically with nutrition, is that less is more approach. So back in the day, I would supplement so heavily, I would eat crazy amounts of different things, and I would just try all these things. And the same thing happened in the gym. I would go in and I would spend, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour and a half, hitting one primary muscle group from so many different angles. Right? So I would go. And let's just take one, for example. If I was gonna go in and do a push day, I would go in and I would.

Daniel Baird [00:46:09]: I would hit the flat bench, I'd hit decline. I'd hit cable flies, I'd hit ground presses. I would do a conversion press. I would do, like, a reverse landmine press. I would do all of these things in one workout. And I was hitting plateaus, and I wasn't that strong. I was carrying a little more bloat than I needed to. So I don't know when the shift happened.

Daniel Baird [00:46:30]: But the way that I train now, which, again, goes back into that theme of kind of sustaining it and maintaining what I have going on, is I go into the gym and, you know, I warm up on the stepper, usually for ten to 15 minutes just to get a little bit warm. And back in the day, I would have been like, oh, you're going to kill the gains, right?

Ben Greenfield [00:46:49]: Right. Cardio, bro. You're going to shrink.

Daniel Baird [00:46:51]: Exactly. You're going to shrink. I did shrink. I was 205 pounds. I'm 183 now, significantly stronger than I've ever been, which is crazy. And I think that's kind of like the whole resting healthy weight for output. But long story short, I warm up and then I have a muscle group that I'm going to hit for the day. Sometimes it's a push day, sometimes it's a pull day, sometimes it's an entire lower day.

Daniel Baird [00:47:13]: I kind of go pretty intuitively with what I'm going to do, and I'm only doing three to four exercises per second per group that I'm doing. Right. So, for example, if I'm doing a push day, well, then I'm going to pick one heavy load-up exercise, like a bench press, and I'm going to probably do anywhere from four to seven sets, and I'm going to just fully exert it on that set. And then I'm always going to try and do some sort of body weight movement with that. So I'll go and do, like, ten by ten of dips, and I'll just do bodyweight dips, or I'll do five by ten with some weighted dips, and then I'll end up doing some sort of burnout with push-ups or something like that. And I try and carry that theme across everything. And I can usually get my lifts done now between 30 to 50 minutes. And they're super, super impactful.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:58]: Yeah. That idea of super setting or triple super setting, a way higher volume in a much shorter period of time. I have a similar approach, rarely sitting around the gym right in between exercises, there'll be planks and Russian twists and different versions of core exercises.

Daniel Baird [00:48:13]: So do you do core every time you're training?

Ben Greenfield [00:48:16]: Indirectly. Because almost every workout I do these days involves a kettlebell swing or a deadlift or a squat or some loading exercise that whether or not I'm doing targeted core activity, is hitting the core. And then I'm a push-up guy. Like, I do at least 100 push ups a day just in between activities. You know, I finish this podcast, I'll probably drop and do 30 in my office. And so, yeah, I don't have any targeted core days per se, but it's just kind of sprinkled into every workout.

Daniel Baird [00:48:44]: Yeah, I've kind of adapted that approach, too. I will say you asked about, I think, equipment, my favorite piece of equipment. I would have laughed at myself for saying this years ago. So with this injury in my neck that I experienced, it ended up having repercussions down into my lower back. And I ended up herniating l four and l five. And I think that was gradual wear and tear from overcompensating for imbalances. Long story short, I had crazy levels of pain in my sciatic nerve and into my upper glutes that would then shoot down into my legs for a while. And I was like, okay, here we go.

Daniel Baird [00:49:13]: This is just another thing to add to the list. And then I met one trainer who told me about the reverse hyper machine and loading it up with weight. So for a while, I would stand on the. I would lay against the end of a bench, and I would just kick my legs back that way, and I would slowly do it with no weight. And I would pause at the top and flex my lower back muscles and my glutes. And that provided some relief for sure. But then I saw the reverse hyper and the pendulum and loading up with weight. So I'll go on there.

Daniel Baird [00:49:39]: Like this morning, for example, my back started to feel a little bit tight. I must have slept wrong or something. Maybe I sat in the chair too long. And ultimately I knew exactly what I had to do, which is I got to get on the reverse hyper. I got to put 245s on each side of it, and I got to go and pendulum. And what happens is your pet, you're not using muscle to get that all the way up, right? You're not muscling it up. You're using it as a pendulum. So when you get to the top, your muscles are contracted, and they're keeping the weight up there for a split second, and then the weight and gravity will pull it down.

Daniel Baird [00:50:06]: Essentially what happens is you fold underneath the table and your lower body comes in, like a c shape your body takes, and it essentially lubricates the spinal column. And I've been doing this three days a week for the last, I think, two years. And I don't want to say I'm pain-free because I'm going to jinx it and I'll knock on wood. But that has been the biggest game changer for lower back pain. And I think a lot of people deal with l four, l five herniation, and they don't realize it, and they experience low back pain. So when you're sitting in the chair all day, your lower back is essentially taking a beating, and you're not training your lower back to take a beating. So by doing this reverse hyper and making an effort to make it a consistent part of my day to day training routine, I have essentially bulletproofed my lower back from the stressors of sitting in a chair driving in the car, or bending over the wrong way to pick something up. It's like, okay, my lower back can take that beating.

Daniel Baird [00:50:59]: And oftentimes the low back and the glutes are something that we don't really train with that level of intensity for preventative cause.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:05]: Yeah, yeah, I'm very similar. If I don't take care of my back, I'll get some SI joint issues and occasional sciatica, I have mild l four l five degradation. And so for me, I don't have a reverse hyper. I think if you were to have the ultimate gym for back, you'd have a reverse hyper. You would have a glute raise or a glute bridge machine for like, loaded glute bridges. And you have some form of traction, you know, like an inversion table. The teeter Dex two is fantastic.

Daniel Baird [00:51:37]: Have you seen the Monkey boots?

Ben Greenfield [00:51:39]: The Monkey Boots? I have those. Yep, those are fantastic. As well. As well as the gravity boots. But you know what? My number one, even though all these things, foam, rolling your butt, reverse hyper glute work, walking with the swing of the arms to lubricate the spine. Number one thing that I do, you'll never guess.

Daniel Baird [00:51:56]: I was going to say walking because that's the other component that I am religious about. But no, I don't know.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:03]: It's a Yoga trapeze. I have one hanging in my living room. I hang upside down from it sometimes two or three times a day, at least once a day. There's about. There are like 100 exercises you can do when hanging in one of these Yoga trapezes. And by the way, for folks needing a visual, you go to the show notes. I'll link to the reverse hyperexercise, I'll link to a yoga trapeze video so you can see how this works. But I just have about six different moves committed to memory.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:30]: And at some point during the day, you know, just hanging there, just like the bike in my office or the kettlebell on the floor of the office, or, you know, my walking treadmill. So I got to walk by it all the time. So I do it and I hang upside down. You can do hip flexor stretches, you can do decompression, you can swing. And I've used the inversion tables before. I've used the reverse hyper. I don't own one. If I own one, I'd use that more also.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:52]: But this yoga swing or Yoga Trapeze is a game changer. I think mine's from a yoga body, and it's incredible. I teach people coming to my house how to hang upside down this thing. You can hear their back just popping up and down and everything's decompressing and very similar to what you do with the reverse hyper with the weight. You can even hold a kettlebell, a small child, or anything that allows you to kind of traction your spine as you're hanging from that thing. So my wife jokes that someday she's going to find me at like 06:00 a.m. in the morning with a concussion from the yoga swing finally breaking and, you know, plunging me headfirst down into the living room floor. But it's my secret, man.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:28]: The Yoga Trapeze.

Daniel Baird [00:53:29]: The Yoga trapeze. So is it mounted into the structure of the house or is it a standalone tool?

Ben Greenfield [00:53:33]: So our house is kind of built like a big barn with railings and poles all over the place. So I just have a hanging from the stairwell, essentially going up the stairs kind of off to the side of it. So I'm just kind of like hanging in the middle of the living room.

Daniel Baird [00:53:46]: That's crazy. We find these little things and they just become consistency. And I think that's what the body craves, is the body craves consistent action. Right. If I don't take my walk, like, I go out and I live in Delray Beach in South Florida, and I go out and I have this loop, it's 3.2 miles, and I go out and, like, my body feels it. If I take a day off from doing that walk, right, my mind feels it, too. But ultimately, it's just like we become these creatures of habit. And when you're people like us who are very internally aware, we have that internal sense of awareness almost to a fault.

Daniel Baird [00:54:16]: Right. We notice when those routines aren't as, you know, concrete in our life, right? Those are things that unfortunately kind of do become requirements. So it's harder to stray away from them a little bit, if you know what I mean.

Ben Greenfield [00:54:30]: Yeah. And then once you start wearing the organic underwear, that becomes a part of the loop as well. Hey, you know what I'm going to do, Dan, you're a fascinating guy. I'm going to link to your work, what you do, and your channels. But then also, folks, if you're listening and you want to deal on this NADs' line or you want to check out the panty promises for women or look a little bit more into some of the studies and some of the things that Dan and I discussed in the show. Go to BenGreenfieldlife.com/nadspodcast. That's BenGreenfieldlife.com/nadspodcast I'll link to everything there.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:08]: Dan, anything else you want to throw in for people while I have you here?

Daniel Baird [00:55:11]: No, I would say I'm just, I want to say thank you to everybody out there who's kind of supported the business and the brand in the last couple of years, since launch. You know, my family has been super supportive of this being my first real endeavor. My team is awesome. You know, the reason that we're able to grow is because we've got a great, great team in place. And then I would say thank you to you for having me on the show. This is a cool experience, and I'm grateful to be able to come on here, share parts of my journey, hear about your journey, and just kind of promote this overall theme of wellness optimization and just mindfulness, right?

Ben Greenfield [00:55:43]: Yeah, my pleasure, bro. Here in the world, healing the world. Want one or two balls at a time.

Daniel Baird [00:55:49]: Exactly. And then I will throw in one more thing here. Actually, you can find us at NADSunder.com NADSunder.com. our social is adsunder and if you're inclined to follow me, my Instagram is Dan Baird1. And yeah, that's it.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:05]: Got it. Sweet. I'll put all that in show notes, folks, at BenGreenfieldlife.com/nadspodcast. Until next time, I'm Ben along with Dan Baird from NADS signing out. Have an amazing thanks, Ben.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:19]: Do you want free access to comprehensive show notes, my weekly Roundup newsletter, cutting edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life, and a whole lot more. Check out BenGreenfieldlife.com.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:36]: It'S all there.

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