Dr. P: Welcome to the show today Roy.
Roy: Dr. Pound, thanks for having me.
Dr. P: Before we get into the billion better brains I want to talk a little bit about the man behind the company. So I’ve see you’ve got a quite diverse background from real estate to business to nutrition musicals. And here you are helping people hack their brains so tell me a little bit about your journey here and what got you interested in this.
Roy: Sure. So back to college in college I was kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do professionally. I was an athlete so I played college football. I was a captain of the team and I also did martial arts. So it’s pretty fine to not only not as active now but definitely in college and after college. I was doing everything I could to improve my physical performance. So we’re working out of time but an eating the right thing supplements. I was I was fine tuning my body for physical performance. And you know I think I always I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. But my dad worked for himself and I saw the flexibility that he had and I guess I just didn’t quite know exactly what it was going to be. And I ended up doing a real estate industry after college doing that for a few years. But what really got me interested about the brain and supplements in general was a couple of things that happened to me. I guess two or three years after college and one was my grandfather going through Alzheimer’s and dementia and this was the first time that I had experienced a really a major health problem in my family and it was really eye opening and someone that that you love to creating quickly and quickly not becoming themselves and losing that kind of power in their memories and who they are was really eye opening to me. And at the same time professionally I was procrastinating. I wasn’t so stoked on real estate the market was crashing and I still had a big to do with a lot of things to do. But I was I was not getting it done. So my own brain wasn’t working very well and I kind of caught on to that as I saw my grandfather go through this and that’s when I when I really became passionate about the brain and how can I improve performance not only now but something that how can I maintain this brain health for the long term of my life. And so yes that’s the background is that I’ve always been an athlete I’ve always taken care of my body but I realized that I really hadn’t thought about my brain. Wasn’t taking care of my brain the way that I was my body. And so that’s really kind of spurred this mission of mine to build a billion better brains and to help as many people as I can improve their mental capacity and mental performance.
Dr. P: I want to go back to how you what are some things that can include you in that maybe your brain wasn’t function optimally and how does one really measure that for themselves and differentiate that from just kind of oh someone would consider overall just forgetfulness.
Roy: Yeah. Good good question. So for me it was the lack of drive and motivation but then coupled with kind of like an inability to concentrate and not able to focus on a task for more than 20 30 minutes. So I think for me it was a motivation drive that I had to do was that I couldn’t get myself to start it. And then coupled with once I did get started a I wasn’t able to execute on the work a my brain was a little bit fuzzy and I would maybe work for a half an hour or so and then kind of go back to procrastination state. So that’s that’s what noticed it for me. But yeah I mean to the sport that I played football I was hitting my head repetitively like this. Lots of sports are pretty violent. And and I think it does affect some people more than others. But yeah that repeated blows to your tier can impact your ability to concentrate.
Dr. P: So tell us a little bit more about that mission build a billion better brains what does what does that mean to you and what are you trying to accomplish by that.
Roy: Sure. So really I believe that mental health and mental decline is the biggest health issue of our time. And you just see it was like I saw a couple weeks ago that calm the iPhone app is now worth over a billion dollars. You know people are trying to unplug people are caught up in this day to day stimuli that we’re in and there’s a lot of stress happening. And at the same time I think there’s a lot of brain fog and I think most people don’t even realize it that that they’re not performing at their best ability. Most people don’t even realize that their brain is maybe you know half the capacity or they’re getting half output. They could if they had optimized for sleep and nutrition. So really I believe that mental health and mental decline is the biggest problem of our time. So that’s why I wanted to jump into this not only because of my personal experiences with brain and we want to build a better brain. So what does that mean. We want to help people think faster. Remember more sleep better being a more positive mood and these are the that I’m trying to build a better brain and these are that I’m trying to build the ideal person that I want to like hang out with you know that I want to communicate with my world is a happy productive focused person and a lot of people are lacking in one or several of those areas. So if we can impact just one area sleep it’s mood if it’s productivity all these little things are going to help build a better brain. There’s so much moving this rat race right now. And you know there’s crazy political news every day there’s you know that the business world is happening so fast technology is moving so quickly you’re just blasted with notifications on your phone the emails you know you people down just get their emails on their cell phone and they’re they’re nonstop connected whereas you know 10 20 years ago when there wasn’t even internet or cell phones people operated in a much different way. You go to work you know when you come home you’re done. You’ve not thinking about work. And now it’s like impossible you’re just you’re on the clock 24/7.
Dr. P: Yeah I just actually I just was talking to a business partner this morning who want to know how much I work too many hours specifically. They wanted a number and I just assume that’s why I said I said I’ve tried answering that before and it’s it’s not that I you know most people you know you know you don’t work that much because they don’t see me very much in the clinic. But I to kind of fall into that category of you know maybe in between something I’ll think about work and it’s not that I I don’t want to use the word have to because I don’t like to use that word but I just choose because I enjoy thinking about work. But then again how do we quantify that because it’s hard to quantify. What do you do for fun? How do you how do you unplug or are you just always unplugged now? I mean I’m assuming that’s not the case.
Roy: Yeah I’m pretty plugged in, but I take conscious efforts to unplug. So when I’m when I’m at home or hanging out with my my daughter she’s 15 months. Cell phones off you know they really make a strong point not to be looking at my cell phone but I’m hanging out with my child. I like to go canoeing and I’ll do that just for like an hour or two out in the middle of day I’ll just I’ll take a break and I’ll go. There’s lots of waterways here in Seattle and I’ll just jump in the water and paddle. And that’s one way that I clear my brain but when when I’m hanging out with people when I’m not working I like to have deep thoughtful conversations like this. Something that is is meaningful something that makes you think something that you know we’re processing science we’re coming up with novel ideas does that’s exciting to me. When someone can be in that state which means you know they’re not stressed out they’re calm they’re they’re thoughtful they you can have a real deep conversation with someone when they’re their brain is pretty stable you know when someone super stressed or they’re in a negative mood. That’s not really the person you want to be hanging up the whole time.
Dr. P: Yeah it is like you said kind of a conscious effort to I like you. It sounds like you enjoy getting out and I live 15 minutes from somewhere I can go canoeing and there’s no cell phone reception you know no 4G out there. So I’m forced to be all. There’s something calm about just sitting there on the water and there’s knowing that there’s nothing you can do to reach anyone right.
Roy: Yep yep you’re on your own for a couple hours. You know some people go a little crazy listening to the heartbeat but I love it.
Dr. P: Let’s get into the way you seem to bring focus though and I want to talk more about let’s cycle to start talking about the brain benefits of something like say magnesium or magnesium and generals. It’s a big topic.
Roy: Most people are deficient in magnesium. So that one study found that I think over 50 percent of adults and then 70 to 80 percent of elderly adults are deficient in magnesium. These are Americans. So why is that? I think the main reason is because methane comes from creamy green leafy vegetables. And most people don’t eat very many of those in it even if you do the soils are pretty depleted of natural minerals. And it’s really hard to get enough magnesium in your diet. So so yeah. You know over time. Most people don’t realize that you’re deficient magnesium but it can cause you know just minor aches and pains. It can cause some muscle stiffness and really that stress. If you need magnesium to those that suffer through stress and so stress can can become more of an issue if you’re deficient in magnesium. Really. A lot of heart issues over time because your heart requires the magnesium to pump. So it kind of starts off as pretty mild things. You know maybe maybe stress maybe the inability to fall asleep but then severe deficiencies can become pretty major problems. And so magnesium I would say if someone was to choose just one supplemental of any supplement they could take it would be magnesium and then yeah for the brain there’s some really interesting studies that are coming out just over the last five years M.I.T. developed a form of magnesium called magnesium framed it. It’s also known as mag teen as the brand name. And this is the only form of magnesium that’s been able to cross the blood brain barrier and there have been significant studies most of them are on elderly folks but they’re increasing synaptic density which then leads to improved memory and cognition. One study they study brain age and I think they studied brain age based on cognitive impairment and synaptic density and so they gave like every brain they studied and age based on okay. Here’s how old you are. But here’s how old your brain is based on the brain health. And after I think 60 days of taking this magnesium supplement they’ve lowered their brain age by nine years. Wow. So so super super powerful stuff. But really that the main benefit that I see people that take magnesium that maybe more taking it in the past didn’t even realize that they were deficient in sleep. So being able to fall asleep and stay asleep longer is the first I think benefit that people will really see and they’re like wow I had no idea that a magnesium could do that. But if you’re deficient you’re going to have problems effectively falling asleep
Dr. P: In my clinic, I work in a in a pain management clinic, and so most people are just looking for something to take to feel better. And so typically you know we can. Like you recommend magnesium. And typically they will start feeling better they will start sleeping better. And and it could be due to like you said this underlying deficiency that they already had which maybe isn’t necessarily causing their pain but certainly is a contributor for sure.
Roy: Yeah. And then you seem as involved in so many things you needed to create neurotransmitters and that’s may help your mood. Needed to to calm down and both your brain and your body the ability to like go into bed and just had your muscles relax you know like people I think are just constantly tight in their muscles in their body and even their brain is kind of wound up and they have a hard time just relaxing and kind of easing everything. The magnesium really helps you do that.
Dr. P: So give us a little bit of information, when one is looking for a supplement what what one should look for maybe some a few clues and two whether they’re making a wise decision.
Roy: Yeah absolutely. So there’s dozens of different kinds of magnesium and I do get a lot of questions because there’s just confusion. You go to a supplement store and there will literally be hundreds of different kinds of magnesium. And so you doctor to your friend tells you that hey I need to take magnesium. It’s really hard if you don’t have the knowledge of the supplement industry. And so the main thing you want to look for is something that’s truly did and that means that this magnesium molecule has been bound to an amino acid and there’s a main reason for that. It’s for absorption because your body orally is really bad at absorbing minerals. It’s just not a very efficient and transdermal. So if you could take a epsom salt bath or take a magnesium lotion that’s really probably the most effective way to quickly get magnesium into your system. But not everyone is taking epsom salt bath on a regular basis. So supplements are very convenient but you have to give something that’s cheerleading which means it’s bound to the amino acid because your body’s really good at absorbing amino acids all of your major food groups are made up of this building block amino acids. And so if you can combine the magnesium molecule two an amino acid then you can absorb it really effectively. So when you’re looking at all the different kinds of magnesium is the most common one on the market will be magnesium oxide and it’s in most multivitamins. It’s cheap it’s really easy to formulate with but it’s only like 15 percent absorbed so it causes some loose stools some diarrhoea some gastrointestinal discomfort because you’re not absorbing it in your body you can’t effectively absorb it. The next kind of greater I would say a little bit better than magnesium oxide would be magnesium citrate. So you know if you’re on a budget you just want to try some magnesium that’s kind of the run of the mill it’s still pretty cheap it’s still pretty low quality. It’s probably only like 30 percent absorbed so most people do pretty well magnesium citrate but it’s it’s not. You still might get some stomach discomfort because of some sort of very well. So really you want to look for something that ends in it a t e and that will be like magnesium glace in it or magnesium treat magnesium 3 and 8. These are magnesium that then bound to an amino acid and using the same down to glazing this magnesium glass it and using this one down to taurine it’s magnesium portrait. So not only are you getting this amazing absorption benefit because you’re combining it with a medial acid you’re also getting the benefit of that amino acid which is cool as well. So yeah there’s the main thing to find something that’s collated and it’s going to you you’re going to see it it’s your chequebooks going to see it too because you can get a really cheap magnesium for like five or ten dollars but this is high quality forms of a mediums are you know causing the 30 to 40 dollars but you get what you pay for these mechanisms actually work. You can feel the benefits almost immediately when you take a magnesium that’s really easily absorbed.
Dr. P: Yeah that’s what I was going to bring up you. I’m glad you led into that because people when they go and look at these different products on online or in the store like you said they’re going to see the these huge price differences and typically will maybe go to the bottom and try and look for the. I mean usually it’s the best packaging right or maybe the most reviews or whatever look at the best or you know whatever we think is the most trustworthy but when it comes down to it you just can’t produce that high quality at a local low cost and b the low cost leader you can’t.
Roy: So it’s it’s hard. It does require some consumer education to know the difference between the high quality magnesium and a low quality magnesium so you’d really have to educate yourself. You want to see that word deleted. To that end an 80 that’s bound to amino acid and that’s the only way you can effectively get a high dose of being single into your system.
Dr. P: And I like that you brought up the Epson salt baths too because I was first introduced to Floating about ten years ago and I try to my wife try to. She loved it. She told my father in law about it he loved it you know. Then he wanted a tank in his house. And we have we actually have some some paste here that we use. You know that will kind of sometimes if you’ve got a sore joint and I’ve had patients who love you know knee pain they just put that paste around their knee and they will have improved. It’s amazing. You know it when you do it like you said transdermally it’s pretty quick and it’s pretty effective but you know now it is messy and it’s hard to you know get done.
Roy: Yeah filling up a bath maybe maybe time consuming as well and costly but I like what you said about being able to just find a high quality supplement. That’s an easy way for us to be able to get get this relief on the go as well. And it seems pretty effective supplements are convenient but yet you have to really dig through and find the high quality supplements for them to be effective. You mentioned floating. I’m a big fan. There’s some great foot centers here in Seattle I try to go at least once a month and yeah when you step out of that floating after being in there for an hour or more and having all of that I mean not not to mention that like meditation benefits but just all that magazine that goes through your body you you don’t feel better. That’s the best that I feel physically is when I’m locked in mentally really when I’m walking out of the float center my my body just feels so light and fluid and it really is amazing for any sort of recovery athletic recovery. Is floating just I think yeah getting all that magnesium into your system transdermal is super effective but like you said it’s hard to do that on a regular basis.
Dr. P: Well if you think education about supplements is difficult, try explaining floating to someone. I tell my patients if they’re like “So what do you do?”, “I just sit there for an hour you just sit there in there in the water for an hour what does it do.”
Roy: Yeah it’s it’s definitely a step in and I’m taking my wife my friends. And yet no one knows what to expect. You know some people kind of go crazy sitting there quiet for an hour but there is nothing better I think. And I guess just to give your listeners a quick quick Kramer you’re in this room or this coffin basically you’re in this pretty small coffin. It’s completely blocked out so you can’t see the water is the same temperature as your skin. And it’s super buoyant. It’s a lot of salt in there so it’s almost this you don’t feel anything because the water is the same temperatures are standing you’re so buoyant that you lose that physical touch almost and then there’s no sound. So you’re basically turning off all of your senses and yet it’s amazing just you and you and your heartbeat. It’s a great way to really organize your thoughts and calm down but the secondary benefit of giving all that magnesium is really amazing.
Dr. P: Now the first time I went in there I came out that she knocked on the door and I like that that was that could have been more than 10 or 15 minutes and then I realized it had been an hour and like what happened. You know it was just such a weird experience you know because time just if you can shut your brain down it’s amazing.
Roy: Yeah. It really is just an easy way to meditate. You know one year she tried to meditate just in your room whatever your leg hurts your butt hurt because you’re sitting down you hear your neighbor you know leaving their house and it’s like it’s really hard to turn off all those things whereas when you’re in a slow tank it just happens for you so it’s really easy to get that deep meditative state very quickly like you said and kind of just time work.
Dr. P: Now I want to talk about Natural Stacks because I’ve actually known about the company for a while and said I’ve been following it and so it was kind of cool how we got introduced but what I found interesting was your commitment to sourcing 100 percent of your own ingredients and so tell us a little bit about that what that entails and why that’s important.
Roy: Yeah it’s a big deal and I’m glad that you noticed that is the way to supplement industry works is that a company like myself will give a formula work or an idea for a formula to a manufacturer and that manufacturer will they’ll do everything turnkey they source the ingredients they they mix it up packaging it they put a label on it and they send it to you. They send it to you if someone sent it into as a supplement owner. Most brands are really hands off on the product which is kind of crazy to me but that’s how it works and many supplement manufacturers are custom sourcing ingredients and they like to because they make money on ingredients and a lot of these ingredients are commodities right so they fluctuate in price based on demand and tariffs and things like this. And so it’s the manufacturers incentive to use the cheapest increases. Because they can market up. I was not comfortable with that. So really from day one I went to the manufacturer and I said I I am going to purchase this ingredient from this supplier. I am going to purchase something from that supplier and I’m going to send them all to you. All I want you to do is blend it and package it then I got a lot of pushback. Manufacturers don’t like that because I’m taking away all the money. But you know we found some honest ones that will work with us and that’s what we do is we purchase all of our own ingredients directly and that allows us control of our supply chain as most supplement companies don’t even know where they’re getting their ingredients. Whereas we have guys really around the world and found who are the best most high quality suppliers for each individual ingredient. If you’re looking at amino acids we get amino acids from national Komodo to the Japanese company highest quality pharmaceutical grade and acids. We get all of our B vitamins are fully activated methylated all of our minerals are related even like our vitamin C we’re getting from Scotland to non gmo sources. I didn’t see which is hard to find. So really every single ingredient I want to find was the highest quality and quality relates to absorption. So what’s the highest quality. Because I want it to be effective and I want to ensure consistency on every batch. So I have to use the same suppliers so that that’s what we’ve done is we source all of our ingredients. We’ve actually posted that on our Web site who all of our suppliers are. So as a consumer you know where everything came from and you know it seems pretty basic but it’s really not many brands in the supermarket industry that are doing this. So right when I when we started National Stacks I saw it as a huge problem that just lack of transparency in the industry and people had this kind of shady connotation with supplements and I said you know why. What’s going on here. And it really was all these reasons one is proprietary formulas. A lot of companies don’t even tell you exactly what’s in the product. So deceptive labelling and you know ineffective doses of certain ingredients but it all starts because it’s really unregulated industry. You know anyone can can put something out in the market and really the FDA is not going to step in unless there’s some severe consumer alerts. You know if you start harming people and that gets wind of it then then they’ll step in but there’s really not many regulatory checks and balances to bring something to market which is a little scary. And then the proprietary formulas and the deceptive labelling and then the lack of sourcing transparency there’s actually a lot of fake ingredients out there to which brand owners may not even know you know certain certain bad groups overseas have found ways to replicate ingredients. There’s a few in botanicals specifically that are known to be highly adulterated and fake. One is grape seed extract. Some group in China figured out how to make a substance made out of peanut holes that would trigger the same test a test to show that this is rapeseed extract. It’s not actually grapes that’s true if peanut shells. That’s crazy. And there’s there’s multiple stories like this. There’s a lot of fake rodeo in the market. There’s a lot of fake Ginko there’s a lot of fake mushroom products specifically the botanicals that are pretty pretty highly adulterated so. So it’s like if you want to actually get a real real ingredient that you know it’s going to work and you know it’s cultivated and harvested in the right way. You have to source it yourself.
Dr. P: And I’ve talked to several doctors and they’re some of their concerns is okay what if you if you have to take a supplement the rest of life is it truly a supplement or is it just something you rely on supplements should be taken to supplement the holes we have in our diet we should improve our diet and so on so forth like you said in the beginning there’s some holes in the diet. But let’s talk about you for just a minute regarding this how many supplements do you take a day. I mean you’re you’re in a supplement company. Are you on all your supplements? Are there certain ones that you take personally and and how can we relate to that?
Roy: Total given day and probably taking 10 different supplements. I do not take the same thing every day. I mixed it up based on how I’m feeling and what I want to be doing that day. Very generally I’ll take a morning Stack and an evening stack and then sometimes during the day I’ll add some things in but in the morning I’m taking a vitamin D3 specifically in the winter in the summer. I only take it a couple of days a week but in the winter I’m taking it pretty much every day. I was up in Seattle where there’s so much sun in the winter. I take our daughter I mean bringing food which is precursors in cold factories that took me and I’ve done some introspective tests in the show and it may be natural a little bit deficient in dopamine. So I really liked that feeling of wanting to accomplish a task of wanting to do something so that got relates really well to me and I take that product almost every morning also take. We have a microbrews cry which is some quarter steps along with some urban meyer extractor we like that feeling of it’s like a an uplifting effect that’s different than caffeine it’s not you know jittery or anything like that. I’ll take that on most mornings just to prove or get up and go. And then you know on a daily basis I typically will take a krill oil if I’m not eating fish that day. I like to human on some days that my muscles are feeling a little tired or worn down. I take magnesium every evening. I think gabba supplements and I’ll take on some days that I really need to get better rest or I know I’m going to have a little bit of trouble sleeping and then I also take medicinal mushrooms or take lions mean at night which I really like to studies on that it’s not something that you’re going to feel neatly. But that’s cool supplements. And then throughout the day I kind of use on demand so. So if I’m feeling like I’m stressed out and a little bit negative mood I’ll take some some serotonin precursors I’m just kind of corrects that and put myself back into a baseline as soon as I can so that I could be more productive throughout the day. So so for me I generally gravitate towards certain supplements on a more regular basis but then I use the other ones that we have as tools and maybe that’s once a week maybe it’s three times a week based on how I’m feeling.
Dr. P: Well just like floating the time flies by and it’s been great having you on the show today. But before we leave just can you let our listeners know if they want to connect with your company. Where would they go?
Roy: Oh for sure. I’m transparent in business, and I’m transparent personally as well. Please feel free to reach out made direct e-mail addresses. Roy@naturalstacks.com. I’d love to hear any questions or concerns that people have. And hello to kind of geek out about supplements and brain health. So please feel free to reach out directly natch. Roy@naturalstacks.com our Web site is www.naturalstacks.com. That’s it. And then if someone wanted to try out a neurotransmitter supplements we’re running a promo right now. TryBrainFood.com. TryBrainFood.com. You can try out neurotransmitters specific products that don’t mean brain through the serotonin brain mood.
Dr. P: Great and we’ll include all those links in the show notes again. Thank you so much for being on the show today Roy it’s been a pleasure and wish you all the best of the future of the company.
Absolutely. That did fly by. We’ll talk again soon. And I understand you’re coming onto our podcast.
Dr. P: Yes. Yes. So it looks like we’re going to be talking a little bit about sleep and the Perfect Fit Pillow. Something that most my patients ask me about.
So yeah I look forward to having you on and I talk with Sean hosts and he’s been using your pillow. And he said he’s already had some amazing results.
Dr. P: Oh that’s cool. I appreciate that.
Yes.
Dr. P: All right. And as you heard Roy tell you the Perfect Fit Pillow is available for sale so if you haven’t got yours yet go to www.perfectfitpillows.com to get the customizable adjustable pillow that helps you keep perfect sleeping posture developed by a chiropractor specifically for people with neck pain. Again this is PerfectFitPillows.com. It’s a great way to show your support for the show. PerfectFitPIllows.com with an “s”.
