What's Your Health ROI? | Big Think

What's Your Health ROI?

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Professional biohacker Dave Asprey says the healthier you are, the better you're paid at work. So taking care of yourself doesn't just serve the ego, it can also provide for your family.This can differ between men and women, however, as the latter face age discrimination more heavily.Taking measures to benefit the health of your mind and body can get you ahead in the workplace culture of youthfulness.

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DAVE ASPREY:

Dave Asprey is a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, professional biohacker, the New York Times bestselling author of Game Changers, Head Strong and The Bulletproof Diet, the creator of Bulletproof Coffee, and the host of Bulletproof Radio, the Webby Award–winning, number one–ranked podcast. His new book is Super Human (2019).

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TRANSCRIPT:

DAVE ASPREY: A lot of people think that taking care of your skin or just wanting to look good is about either sexual attractiveness, or it's about ego. But it turns out it's sometimes those things, but quite often, it's something different. It has to do with wanting to be able to take care of your family. Because people who look healthy, they get paid more. This is just how it works, and there's abundant evidence to do that.

And I've seen this in Silicon Valley. We know, throughout all of, at least, North America, that the length of time -- this is actually studied -- that a woman is considered to be with executive presence is lower than it is for men. Because somehow, guys can have wrinkles and gray hair, and we look distinguished. But for some reason, that's not the case with women. That's not cool. And it turns out -- here's a dirty secret -- it's not that different. In Silicon Valley, guys over 45, do you know what they start doing? They start dying their hair because it turns out that there is a culture of youthfulness. And if you want to play in that game, whether you're a man or a woman, taking care of the way you look is important. It turns out also that, if you do it not with artificial makeup and stuff like that, but you do it with the things that make you healthy, guess what else happens. You don't just look healthy, you actually can live longer.

So how do you make your skin look better from the inside out? One of the biggest things is regularly using grass-fed collagen protein. The studies that are out there that look at how quickly mammals replace collagen in their tissues show that it takes seven years to replace half the collagen that's in your body. That means, I'm on probably year 11 of eating collagen on a regular basis. I think I'm doing pretty well for my age. I do a lot of other stuff too. But if you do this regularly, you see a difference.

There are other things that are in Super Human, like red light therapy. You couldn't do red light therapy 10 years ago, because they didn't make red LEDs that were strong enough. It turns out there's narrow frequencies of light that cause a thickening of your skin that reduce fine lines.

So we're in this world where we can send a signal from the environment around us into our skin and into our hair to make them thicker and healthier, where we can eat things that cause our body to be able to make healthier cells, healthier skin. And when you do that and you avoid the things that cause inflammation, magic can happen.

So these are things that, when you do it for your hair or your skin, all the other organs in your body that you can't see are also going to benefit. And end of the day, you are not only going to look younger at work, your brain is going to work better at work. And if you want executive presence, whether you're a man or woman, say something smart. And if you are 70 years old and doing that, and people don't even know that you're 70, because they think you're 50, because you have amazing energy, but you have the wisdom and knowledge of an extra 20 years of experience, you're going to run circles around all the kids around you.