The Human Longevity Project | Jason Prall 

Greg: Hello and welcome to the Pacific Center Podcast. My name is Dr. Greg Lane and I will be your host as we explore many interesting topics with many amazing people from a variety of professional backgrounds over the months and years ahead. The focus of this podcast will be the intersection of the traditional healthcare practices of various cultures and the modern scientific research on peak physical and cognitive performance. The show will be delivered in an interview format. Our guest today is Jason Prall. Jason Prall is a former mechanical engineer turned entrepreneur, filmmaker, and health optimization practitioner. Due to 20 years of his own health challenges, Jason was given the opportunity to discover the reality behind his symptoms through this process. He began working remotely with individuals around the world to provide solutions for those suffering from complex health issues. In 2016, Jason transitioned from working an integrative disease care model to a model of health optimization and lifestyle medicine. In May of 2018, the lessons culminated in a documentary film series called “The Human Longevity Project” which uncovers the complex mechanisms of chronic disease and aging and the true nature of longevity in our modern world. So, Jason, welcome! It’s so nice to have you here in our studios, down in beautiful San Diego.  

Jason: Yeah, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.  

Greg: Yeah. So, I’m going to dive right in. Your bio describes you as a “longevity and optimal health practitioner.” So why don’t you just share with us, what does that mean?  

Jason: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a difference between not being sick or not having a disease and optimal health, right? So, how many of us today can truthfully say that we are in a state of optimal health? Probably not many. And I think the reason that is is because of our lifestyle choices and the environment in which we live. And this really was the crux of the investigation for “The Human Longevity Project,” right? We wanted to go around to people that are living into their 90s, 100s in a healthy way and really look at a lot of their lifestyle practices, both today and 70 years ago, and also the environments that they live in today, and also 70 and 80 years ago. So, you know, I think  we have to make a strong distinction between these two facts, that not being sick is not the same as being optimally healthy, right?  

Greg: So the absence of disease is not the idea of health and furthermore, optimizing health is really the kind of key word there that draws me in. It’s like, what is really optimal health and wellness? I mean, health and wellness is such a catch-all term. I think for the past decade or 15 years and we’ve kind of moved into this optimal or, you know, peak experiences, peak performances. 

Jason: Yeah. And I think that, you know, we so often try to quantify things in the disease model and also in the health world. And I don’t know that optimal health can really even be quantified, right? I mean, if you look at lab markers for example, you know, how can we really discern what is even optimal, right? Because optimal for you may be very different than optimal for me, right? Our bodies are very different, our lifestyles are different, our age is different, all these things operate differently. So really, when we look at optimal health, I think we have to just – it’s almost a subjective question that we have to ask ourselves, “How do I feel, how do I, you know, in my everyday world?” And that could be how I’m thinking, I’m feeling emotionally, but also how I’m feeling physically. Am I sleeping well? You know, how are my relationships? How is my life? Am I happy, right? I mean, these are the things that I think that we have to look at when it comes to optimal health. So, it’s very subjective. It’s almost an art form, you know? The art of living, so to speak, that we might hear coming from the eastern traditions, right? So, there are ways we can quantify, sort of, disease to some degree. But I don’t know that we can fully quantify health. So I think it’s a very subjective matter that we have to look at, introspectively.  

Greg: Are you actually working with clients? Are you coaching people, so to speak, on optimizing health? 

Jason: Yeah, I have a few clients left. But really, I’ve been moving out of the practitioner space into one of the health education space. So I did have a number of clients previously but I’m sort of dwindling down and cutting out those services and really focusing on, you know, the philosophy of health, the ideas that are around health and lifestyle, and how I can reach as many people with those concepts as possible. And that’s really where I want to live because at the end of the day, living healthy is not something that you can put on paper and say, “Here’s what you do, x in the xyz.” It’s not that at all, right? It’s really an idea. How can we give people an understanding, a global perspective of how they can approach their life? And that’s really what they have to take into their own life, right? It’s almost teaching a person to fish as opposed to, you know, giving them a fish.  

Greg: Right. And I really appreciate what you said. You’ve sort of transitioned from working in that one-on-one coaching, if you will, with an individual to this broader mission, if I might be so bold, of yours is to really educate. And with your Human Longevity Project, wow! I mean, what an undertaking to have done that. And so, how did you get interested in moving from optimization of health and longevity and moving into longevity? I guess they’re sort of inextricably bound, but how did you get interested in the concept of longevity? Or what came first for you?  

Jason: Yeah. Well, you know with my health challenges, right, never. I had knee pain at 13 years old that was chronic, that stayed with me for 20 plus years. I had severe dermatitis, which is a skin condition, on my face when I was in my 20s. So these are the things that prompted me into self-discovery. In the discovery of how I can be healthy because everything that the doctors were giving me, you know, the solutions that they had were not sufficient. You know, they didn’t really do the job. And so, you know, this is back in the early 2000s, right? I mean, so the internet was just starting to kind of come into its own but nevertheless, that was my opportunity to discover really what was underneath these things, right? And so, it was a long path in sort of peeling back layer after layer after layer, because there’s a lot there. Sure, it’s the things I was eating, it’s the things that I was using in my household products, it was the way I was sleeping. Though all my behavior, right, it was involved. Not to mention, you know, things like emotional trauma and childhood developmental trauma that I had to uncover. And these patterns, these behavioral patterns that we developed that become sort of our personality and to peel those layers back. And then, you can even go deeper, right, into the subtle body. I mean, there’s lots of layers here that we can get into. But then today, I kept peeling back and understanding more and more of this. And as I did that, you know, I worked in sort of the integrative functional medicine model for a while and this was running lab work, functional lab work, and that was great. And it was useful to some degree but part of that process was, really, it maintained the disease outlook, right? It was really trying to label a disease or label a dysfunction and then address the dysfunction or disease. And you know, even though we were trying to do it in a functional way, it was still looking at disease. So the thing that I recognized in that process was, wow, we’re missing this whole component of how do we teach people to be healthy. What does it mean to be healthy, in terms of lifestyle? And the reality that I identified was if you have health, then disease can’t exist, right? So, it’s like shining a light – if the light’s there, then there is no darkness. So why don’t we focus on that, as opposed to trying to dissect and analyze and get into the weeds with disease? Let’s teach people to be healthy and trust that the body has the mechanisms – the body and the mind have the mechanisms – to restore balance, to become healthy again if we eliminate the blocking factors and some of these things that are throwing us out of balance. So that’s really where I, sort of, started to place my consciousness, if you will. When it came to clients and then, you know, from there it was a matter of saying, “Okay, well, there’s sort of these universal concepts that we have. Why would I spend my time regurgitating the same thing to each client,” which is: we’ve got to focus on sleep, we’ve got to get to emotional trauma, we’ve got to change the way we look at diet and behavior, and all these things. Why would I keep going over the same stuff with one-on-one when I can just reach a large swath of people with the same message? And that’s really where, you know, that’s how the Human Longevity Project idea was born, as a way to reach more people. And we just use, honestly, we just use longevity as a lens through which to look at a lot of this stuff. So, you know, and I think what better way than to go around the world and speak with somebody that’s 105, right? Still riding a bike, has his wits about him, is in relatively good physical shape, and hear his story, right? And so, when you hear somebody like that tell you what they think health is and where it comes from and how to live and then you hear something from, you know, an integrative oncologist or functional medicine doctor at the Cleveland Clinic or a Chinese medicine expert or whatever, and you hear the same things that’s based in research, modern understanding, and something that’s through experience. Yeah, then it starts to really hit home. And so, that’s really what we did. 

Greg: So, in the end, how long is the Longevity Project?  

Jason: It’s nine episodes and really, each episode is sort of trying to focus on a different area of health or well-being. 

Greg: So, disclaimer, I haven’t watched all of them.  

Jason: It’s a lot, it’s a lot. I don’t know that I’ve, honestly, actually watched all of them after they’re finished.  

Greg: Yeah. I just want to say, the quality is amazing, the quality is excellent. And the people that you interview are incredible and the production value is amazing. And so, for our listeners who haven’t seen it or aren’t aware of it, they must. It’s a must-see, it’s not to be missed. It’s humanlongevityproject.com. 

Jason: The film is called The Human Longevity Project, you can find it at humanlongevityfilm.com  

Greg: Human logic.  

Jason: To be honest, it’s a lot of content. So there’s, you know, it’s somewhat entertaining. But I will say, this is very educational, it’s very info-packed, you know. And so, that was because we wanted to make sure that it was high quality, so it was somewhat entertaining to watch.  

Greg: Yeah, for sure. And so, some of the people that you had on there, Dr. Kalish, well, I’ve seen some of the people in some of the disciplines that are included.  

Jason: Yeah, Dr. Dan Kalish, Paul Chek was involved. We had, who is probably one of the the best immunologists out there, Dr. Aristo Vojdani. We had Deanna Minich, who is a fantastic personality in the functional medicine world. We had Dr. Jeffrey Bland involved. We have people like JP Sears, who may be known for more of his comedy, right, but who’s got a tremendous amount of wisdom in the emotional intelligence, emotional health space. We have some, not doula, but midwives involved. So you know, we looked at birth even and how that impacts things. We look at emotional health, we look at, you know, connection and community. Dr. Mark Hyman is involved, Ben Greenfield. We’ve got people from all kinds of disciplines from the physical health to the mental health, to emotional health, to child birthing, to circadian rhythm function and how the body functions on cycles, environmental toxins experts like Lara Adler. Dr. Jolene Brighten, who’s really an expert in the female health and reproduction. You know, Emily Fletcher on meditation. I mean, there’s so many components of health, that we’ve got people in metabolomics and even Dr. Tsoukalas from Greece. I’m talking about metabolomics. So we’ve got people from darn near every spectrum here trying to contribute their their understanding, that really comes back to lifestyle. And so, it’s funny because so much science is needed to explain such basic lifestyle practices. But that’s where we’re at and that’s, sort of, the way we think in the west these days.  

Greg: So I was talking to our producer, Todd Luger, over lunch and we were talking about preparing for this and just thinking about longevity. And and we were we were both reflecting on faith, if you will, not necessarily if you’re religious or not but faith in something. And what did you find in terms of, you know, your explorations with regard to longevity and faith?  

Jason: Yeah, I think it’s funny. Now, there’s been work that’s been done on this topic, right? Longevity and trying to find the common factors, you know? And some things have been a spouse, community, and some connection to a higher power or whatever that might be. I really, actually, don’t think it’s either of those two things. I think really what it is, it’s not a matter of being religious or having connection to something greater. I actually think it’s connection, period, connection. So it’s having connection, right? Humans, we need connection. Whether it’s to another human, whether it’s to a pet, whether that’s to the earth, whether that’s to a concept of God or universe, however you might frame that. I really think that’s what it is, I think we need connection. And so what we found, whether it was in Okinawa, or in Sardinia, or in Greece, or in Costa Rica or in the US, it’s really connection that is a key factor. That is important for health, for long-term health. And I think, really, what it comes down to is simple biological terms. You know, really from a nervous system standpoint, right? You feel relaxed, like we’re taken care of. We feel like that we can rely on something else. And we feel like there’s some love, some connection of love between, like I said, whether it’s a pet or whether it’s the earth. So I really think it’s connection. And you can see that we’re missing that here in the US, in particular, and in the west. So much of our society is missing connection. I think we have more community than ever, I can go online and find community in a heartbeat. I’ve got community in my apartment complex, I’ve got tons of community. What I lack is the ability to connect with people around similar topics and to really find that heartfelt connection. So, you know, this is where we we brought in things like the people at Heart Math to direct this stuff, right? So, it’s sort of this heart-brain coherence. And so there’s deep science, I think, in a lot of this. But at the end of the day, it’s very simple. I think it really is this idea of connection to something other than ourselves.  

Greg: I’ve had firsthand experience with a patient that I was treating with acupuncture. Long story short – very troubled, lived in a house with an estranged partner, they lived behind closed doors, they never spoke, there was always this anger. And she turned to Heart Math and she had her device with her when she came in, and she would get treatments and I could see her just drop down in this beautiful sense of calm. And like you’re saying, connection without me doing anything. She just had this Heart Math, you know? No acupuncture, no herbs, nothing. 

Jason: Absolutely. And something that’s really great – this is where something like meditation can really come into play, right? And the places we went, meditation was not a thing that people did. Even exercise was not a thing people did. So, you know, this leisurely exercise is part of their work, it’s part of their life. In fact, that’s basically what they did all day long, was move in some way or of some way. So it wasn’t a matter of exercising, it’s good, it was like they were always moving. You know, they don’t meditate, none of the cultures we visited meditated. That’s not to say that meditation isn’t good. In fact, it’s probably more of an argument that we need to bring in meditation into our world because it’s so chaotic, so overstimulating. Something like meditation can help calm the nervous system down and reconnect us with ourselves, in something greater than us, which can can come through a felt experience. So, I think it’s really sort of a psycho-spiritual state and that we are finding when we have these connection points to something else.  

Greg: Did you happen to go to – there’s a place in Italy, I think, that has the greatest concentration of centenarians? 

Jason: Yeah, so the original work was done by Michel Poulon. I was a demographer out of Belgium and he identified this region in the mountains of Sardinia, right? So Sardinia, Italy. And don’t tell some Sardinians that that’s part of Italy, there’s still this sort of sense of of separation. But, you know, this is a very interesting place, in these mountains, in these villages.  

Greg: What’s going on there?  

Jason: And that’s just it, right? Everybody’s trying to figure this out for the longest time. And I think there’s a lot to really look at, if we want to speak in terms of science and understanding longevity. First of all, I think a lot of the longevity hot spots are isolated. This is why you see so many islands, right? So you have Okinawa and Sardinia, which are islands. You have the parts of Costa Rica which is, sort of, it’s not an island but it’s on its own in a peninsula. You know, Icaria, which is an island in Greece. And so, why would that be? And, sort of, my hypothesis is that really what determines longevity are two primary biological factors. Let’s say one is the continuity of the genetic code, right? So this is our human genome, but it’s also mitochondrial genes and it’s also the microbiota that we have. So if you can imagine that – just from an evolutionary, biology way of thinking – from that lens, then the the genetic code gets optimized for that environment, right? And so, it’s not a matter of good genes or bad genes or any of that. It’s just, it’s optimization, right? It’s the adaptive nature of the genetic code for a given area. And so, if you have somewhere that’s isolated, then over time it’s probably going to become pretty well-adapted to that area. The other thing that comes with that, though, I think is culture. And by the way, Sardinia – according to an archaeologist that I spoke with in Sardinia mentioned to me that their genetics were some of the oldest in Europe. That was preserved better than most because when the Romans came and tried to conquer Sardinia, they actually got pushed back. So the Sardinians held them off and they’re notorious for being, sort of, warriors in that sense. And so, a lot of people stayed there. And so, you didn’t have this kind of mixing, if you will – genetically-speaking – with the rest of Europe. And so, they kind of maintain a really strong genetic code. The other part is the culture. Can the culture be maintained and what is culture, right? If we really think about it, especially pre-industrial revolution, the culture is really a way of – it’s sort of an operating system for the society, right? How can we operate, given our environment, and what’s been passed down through time? Yeah, so it’s really just an operating system. And there’s a lot of great operating systems which is why you can have these cultures around the world that do very different things, eat very different things, behave in very different ways, and can still live a meaningful life. And that is really healthy into their old age. So, I think that’s really what was preserved, is the optimal way of living in the context of their environment. So whether it was in the mountains or whether it was at sea level, there’s very different ways that we can think about that. And so, that’s really what was preserved. And I think what we’re seeing now is – this is all fascinating because right now is a very unique point in history where we’re seeing these culminations of these, sort of, centenarian groups. Because as the industrial revolution took hold over much of the world, much of the western world, we’re starting to see – first of all, in order to classify groups of centenarians as being something special or concentrated, it has to be birth records, right? So you can imagine 200 years ago or even right now, in the jungle or what have you, a lot of places don’t have birth records. So there might be a lot of centenarians at a high percent but we wouldn’t know. So you have to have some of – this is where this weird point in history, where we can go back far enough and track birth records, relatively. But also, has to be sort of secluded or the modern western way of life, this industrial way of life, has not penetrated that culture, right? So it’s sort of this weird mix of can we go back far enough and get records but also, can we insulate it from this new modern way of living, which we know brings chemicals and all kinds of different things that are not conducive to living a long, healthy life. And so, there’s only a few places around the world that we could say that that’s the case, yeah. And so, as we go forward, this is the conundrum that we’re finding. The records are, of course, as for 100 year olds, are going to improve, right? I mean, this is the way forward. We’re going to have better records but also, we’re now seeing more penetration of this western way of life. So if you take place like Okinawa, the records are getting better and better. If you look at 100 year olds, because you can, they’re starting to filter into, what, 1918? So that’s 100 years old now. But we’re also seeing McDonald’s, and Starbucks, and more cars, and this mixing of genetics – and, you know, which is not a bad thing – overall, I’m just suggesting that all of this may not be conducive to longevity of the region. And you have people leaving the region, you have people coming in. So it’s almost impossible now, from a demographic standpoint, to really find a place that’s going to happen. So this is what we’re seeing. Okinawa is now – the life expectancies is dwindling, you know, they’re not as healthy as they once were. So, both the life expectancy and the health is declining in these areas so they may not be so special anymore. And we’re starting to see that. So again, I can imagine a case that in 20 years, none of these places are going to be known for their longevity because the younger generations have been moving around and you have all these new western ways of life coming in, you have tourism. So, you know, I think we’re a really unique inflection point in this historical context, that we may not find this. Or, it may just move to somewhere else that we find that they have records and the western way of life hasn’t penetrated too much and so they’ve been insulated from some of these modern challenges that we’re seeing now. That’s a unique scenario. What the US and some of the more pronounced western cultures are now, I think, are emerging out of the downsides of modernization. And we’re now using that same sword to wield a new era in longevity, so we can now use this modern way of life to bolster our health and bolster our long journey.  

Greg: Right, it’s biohacking and optimization.  

Jason: Exactly, of all kinds of things. I mean, we are going to get into the wildest of wild technologies that can help us live healthier lives.  

Greg: I mean, we’re monitoring every step we take, absolutely. Some of this is going to be detrimental.  

Jason: And some of it’s going to be helpful. I think that the tools that we can use to track things like, you know, sleep trackers – that’s very useful. Some of these other things, you know, Fitbits, yeah maybe not  

Greg: Notice you’re not wearing a Fitbit, by the way. I’m wearing traditional prayer beads.  

Jason: Yes and I think, to be honest, some of this technology can actually do more harm than good. Yeah, I think the real key is can it can get us to change behavior and can we track, you know, something meaningful like sleep quality – probably the most meaningful thing we can track, really, is sleep quality. So, we’re at this weird time now where I think a lot of the technology that was harming us in the past is now moving into a new era – that we’re using it to help us live healthier lives.  

Greg: Do you think we’re – I mean, we’re both in this meal use so we see it, we live and breathe it every day – but I don’t think we’ve hit a tipping point, in terms of our culture, do you? I mean, I think we’re pretty far from it. I mean, especially with when you think about political dynamics, and social dynamics, and geographical dynamics of even just our own country. Yeah, I don’t think we’re really near a tipping point.  

Jason: No, I think we’re always moving and creeping and it’s so dynamic. Yeah, I think it’s always sort of emerging and new. And I don’t think anything, I don’t have any dire forecasts for the US, in terms of health. I think we have some big issues. You know, the new technology like 5G and some of the wi-fi and electromagnetic issues that we’re starting to see, I think that’s a big thing to look out for. I think people will reject it before it gets too detrimental. You know, it’s really the things that are under the surface that are sort of sneaky, that we need to really look at things like indoor lighting, right? I mean, it’s so sneaky and so small that we would think it’s not really that big of a deal. And the lighting itself is not really that bad but if you think about the way we live indoors most of the time, in front of computers, we’re not getting outside into natural light. Now, why does that matter? Natural light, you know, has frequencies that indoor lighting does not have. It has more of a power, I guess you could say, of some of these frequencies and those frequencies of light are very tuned to our biology. We’ve been, you know, tuned to that for thousands and thousands of years since we’ve been on this planet, right? So, and every every biological organism is, you know? I mean, there’s very few organisms that don’t have some component that is guided by light and so, we really rely on that to guide our biological processes. And once we remove ourselves from that natural environment, we’re now opening ourselves up to operating that is not familiar. And so, you know, there’s some of these things that I think we have to become more aware of, but we are. I mean, this is what the science is showing. Even in 2017, the Nobel Prize was given to somebody that’s looking at circadian biology, right? This idea of light and how it affects our biology. So, you know, those are the things that I think we have to really pay attention to and this is simple stuff, you know? In fact, we don’t have to even get lost in the science. We just have to accept the fact that we probably should be going back to a more natural way of living as much as we can. Knowing that we’re going to continue this technological advancement and it’s going to continue to be a part of our lives, and that’s okay, the question is how can we bring forth some of the old ways of living while also incorporating some of the new things in an intelligent way? So it’s really about being having that discernment with the technology as it comes out and not just accepting all this new stuff, thinking that it’s technology so it’s always good and it’s always fun. It can be detrimental.  

Greg: What’s your take on supplements for longevity?  

Jason: I think supplements are great, I think supplements are fantastic. Now, that comes with a huge caveat, which is: how do you know what to take, when to take it, how much to take, and when to stop? Yeah, the body’s so dynamic. I think we have to start with the philosophy that the body is perfectly designed to deal with health, right? To give us health, it’s what it does. It is a dynamic organism that’s going to respond to environmental factors, the way you think, the way you emote, the way you behave. So if we understand the body is perfectly designed, then that’s a great place to start. In other words, it’s not lacking anything. It doesn’t need something that it doesn’t already have. It’s really about how do we tune that to get the most out of it? Now given our chaotic environment, yes, we can use tools – whether it be acupuncture, or light therapy, or the nutrients, and supplements, and hormone replacement. And there’s all kinds of tools that we can use: chiropractic adjustment, cranial sacral therapy. I mean, it goes on and on, right? These things are very beneficial and I include supplements in that same category. The question is, you just have to know what: when to take, what to take, and how much to take, and when to stop. I think that is the key, given the fact that our soils are fairly depleted and that we’re getting food that’s not optimally grown. I think we are missing some of the, I don’t even want to say vitamins and nutrients because I think it goes way beyond that, I think it has to do with the magic of life. Yeah, you know, the things that we can’t quantify, right? Because, you can grow more organic apples, cut into slices and create apple chips out of it, put it in a bag and sell that. And that’s very different than eating an apple off the tree itself. So there’s just a lot of things, exactly. Yeah, let’s just say it like it is, absolutely, 100%. So I think there’s just things that were missing and that come down to biological life not being, sort of, really respected with the food. So, you know, some of these things like probiotics – really high quality, I prefer spore-based probiotics – but even prebiotic foods and supplements. And so, yeah, there’s things we can do. Again, it’s really hard for most people to determine what to take and when to take so I don’t like to start there. I don’t think that’s a good place to start if you’re dealing with, you know, sub-optimal health or disease or dysfunction. I don’t think it’s the best to reach for supplements. If you have a really good practitioner you’re working with that knows how to use those in an intelligent way, I think that’s really the idea, you know? And this is where, you know, increasing yin and decreasing yang and all these sort of Chinese medicine philosophies are really a great place to start. When it comes to supplements, I think the Chinese medicine philosophy is probably the most advanced that I’ve seen. When it comes to supplements, and herbs, and tinctures, and these type of things, I think the western philosophy is off-the-mark quite a bit. 

Greg: It’s hard too. Yeah, I mean, the strength of Chinese medicine is that we deal in systems. And it’s really hard to navigate down to the micro-soil cellular level, to get that level of balance that a person might need. So I was just wondering…  

Jason: And I think this is the problem, too. That as technology has become more advanced, we’re looking deeper and deeper, right? Which gives us a more narrow and narrow viewpoint. So, literally, we’re missing the forest through the trees the deeper we go. And this is exactly what we’re trying to do, we’re trying to target something inside the mitochondria. It’s like, okay, great, but what about the big picture? What about the cellular, cell as a whole? What about the exercise or matrix? What about the system? I mean, we’re just missing all that. So, I totally agree. I think Chinese medicine has the philosophy of looking at systems, that’s the best approach, in my opinion.  

Greg: So, with what we’ve talked about, is there anything more you want to share about the Longevity Project that we haven’t talked about? 

Jason: There’s so much but, I mean, there’s nine episodes, right? Now we’re taking this stuff, so we can go. 

Greg: I really want to get into your next project, which is really intriguing to me because of my personal interest in traditional medicine. So your next project is really exploring traditional medicines around the globe. And I’m fascinated, obviously, with this next project and I think we may be working with you on certain things.  

Jason: Yeah, forward, I know you guys have a lot of resources that can help us to flush some of this out.  

Greg: So what’s the next step? What’s it called, first of all?  

Jason: Good question, everybody has that. Yes, we have really poor working titles here but we’re actually in the phase of mapping it out and executing on some of the filming. But the idea is to go around to traditional cultures around the world, right? Whether that be the North American natives, South American natives, the shamans in west Africa, the Ayurvedic and yogic practitioners, the practitioners in places like Bali or Tibet, and Chinese medicine, and the aborigines of Africa or of Australia. These type of things. And really explore each culture and bring forth the essence of their healing – mind, body, spirit, right? So, what practices do they use to heal the mind, body, spirit and what’s the philosophy behind it, you know? Where did these practices come from? I mean, if you look at some of these shamanic ways of healing, they use things like egg healing and it’s like – it’s fascinating to think that they can do this stuff – but this is, you might call it, “folk wisdom,” right? It’s using practices that are developed over many, many generations and they’re successful. And you know this because they’re continuously being used. If they weren’t successful, they would have gotten rid of them a long time ago. So there’s all kinds of different practices that they use and our idea is just to really go into these cultures and explore them firsthand and try to bring forth the essence of, really, what’s behind some of their teachings. So it’s not, you know – we can look at Chinese medicine – it’s so insanely complicated, I mean, you can study this stuff for decades or generations, it’s so in-depth. And so, the goal is not to try to explain the nuance of all this stuff but, really, bring forth the general essence, right? Why do they think the way that they do? What are some of the practices that they use and and what are they healing? You know, when we talk about qi and something, what are we talking about, right? And so, we want to get to those cultures and really get their understanding and their description of what’s going on at the various levels. Because, you know, I’ve talked to enough shamans and they speak in different languages. And I don’t mean, well, they can speak in English but they speak a completely different language about what they’re healing and why they’re healing it and what the real problem is, right? So, I think a lot of this stuff is really fascinating when you get to this different level of thinking and how it can be applied. Because, what we think of as autoimmune disease may be a completely different line of thinking in some of these traditions, in these cultures, it’s not what we say in the west. And this is, I think hopefully, this viewpoint is starting to go away. But the body attacking itself? I mean, that’s not only a ridiculous notion that the body would ever attack itself, but I think we’re missing the bigger picture. Even on the biological level, you know, we just stick to biology as if this is a mechanical thing that’s happening in the body. And it’s like, no, we know that there’s emotional traumas that are involved. We know there’s psycho-spiritual issues. There’s, maybe, past life stuff, according to some cultures and traditions. There is, you know, inherited traumas that can affect us, even western science is acknowledging this now. So I think there’s just more to it, you know? When we talk about spirit, and soul, and energy, and subtle bodies, and etheric bodies, and there’s just all these cool things that and our goal is not to say, “This is how it is,” the goal really is to explore these different ways of thinking and operating and see what emerges on the outside of that. But also, to bring in, bring it forth to modern science, right? You know, shamanic drumming and African dance. And we know that drumming can now put the brain into a different conscious state that may infer benefits, right? So there’s a lot of the stuff that we now are understanding in modern science that, you know, these people have been doing for generations. So we need to, maybe, explore some of those ancient ways of thinking and operating and see how we can bring those forth into our new western paradigms.  

Greg: Absolutely, that sounds fascinating. And so, are you aware that the World Health Organization is coming out soon, probably within the next year or two, with their new ICD-11? 

Jason: I don’t even know what you just said.  

Greg: So ICD stands for Internal Classification of Disease, okay. So we’re on ICD-10 right now, before that was ICD-9, etc. So ICD-11 will actually include traditional medicine, so our terms like Spleen Qi Deficiency will actually show up in the ICD-11. And so, practitioners can code that so they can submit that bill to get reimbursed by insurance companies. So this is all happening. As you’re exploring you know traditional medicines too, the World Health Organization has identified and – I don’t know which ones – probably like, for sure, Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. Beyond that, I don’t know which other traditional ones, some of them are obviously more popular.  

Jason: Yeah and ingrained in our minds. And I think, you know, there’s really a lot happening. I think that what I see in medicine is that – and we can even come back to the archetypes – these are the masculine logical left brain, sort of, frameworks that have been dominating for so long in the west and now what we’re seeing is the feminine, the heart center, that started to emerge, right? And what’s funny about all this is that if you actually go back to some of the prophecies from some of these ancient cultures in South America, the shamans and the wisdom keepers of these ancient cultures – now, let’s talk about the eagle and the condor, okay – and this idea is that this is supposedly brought forth thousands of years ago. This prophecy said that the eagle which represents the masculine, the logic, the scientific viewpoint, the west – basically, that the western framework is going to become so powerful and so dominant that it was almost wiped out. The condor which is the feminine, the heart, the indigenous tribal societies, and sure enough, we’ve basically seen that. We’ve seen that the west has become so dominant, it’s almost wiped out the condor. And yet, there would be a point and they projected about 1990 that the last cycle would end and the condor and eagle would have an opportunity to share the skies together and create a new way forward for humanity. Didn’t say it was going to happen, so we had the opportunity. But from my viewpoint, that seems to be exactly what’s happening. That now, the indigenous ways are making their way out of the jungle. They’re making their way out of the villages in ancient, you know, Asian societies and the yoga is coming to the west, right? And Chinese medicine is now really flourishing, you know? Acupuncture is becoming more of a thing we have, Ayurveda is seeing a resurgence. So we’re seeing, sort of, this thing happening and I think the feminine is coming back and we’re coming to a new way of operating that doesn’t have to be so scientific and logical and left-brained. That it can be experience-based, that it can be subjective, that it can be more heart-centered approaches. And so, I love it and it’s, I think, it’s just going to continue this path because the other way just didn’t seem to get us that far, you know? It was good and I think there’s a lot of good that came out of it, sure. But it just seems to me that the western sciences, all it’s doing is confirming what the eastern sciences have been doing for thousands of years – which is really funny, you know? It’s just a matter of continuing that work and saying, “Oh yeah, I guess they’re right.” You know, it turns out meditation is good, right? You know, we have to do research to figure that out. It’s funny to me but you know, that’s the way we are. That’s the way we operate, and that’s how we think, and it just validates it more and more.  

Greg: So I was just thinking, that was the exact term I was thinking – it validates our experiences, validate. You know, we could be doing one thing for two thousand years and it could be working but unless we prove it over and over again and document it, our western minds can’t agree on that it’s good. 

Jason: But it’s so funny because inherent in the research is the acknowledgement of the thing that we’re denying, right? And what I mean by that is every valid study involves, you know, placebo-controlled double-blind studies. Yeah, so what we’re saying is that the placebo is so powerful, we have to try to exclude it from our research because it will dominate and cloud the results. So what we’re saying is the mind itself is so insanely powerful that we can heal ourselves with our mind, so we got to exclude it. And yet, we’re denying the very things that we’re trying to exclude from the research because it’s clouding the results. Yeah, so it’s sort of an ironic twist that we’re validating the thing that we already know is impacting our research. 

Greg: You were at the Pacific Symposium – we shared that workshop together, Paul Chek’s workshop, fantastic and awesome – did you happen to catch Ted Kaptchuk’s presentation, The Penetrating Divine Illumination?  

Jason: No, I didn’t, that sounds fantastic.  

Greg: Yeah, he’s a Harvard research professor, he’s an Oriental Medical Doctor, he wrote The Web That Has No Weaver, one of the pioneers in Chinese medicine in the west. Anyway, so he was talking about a lot of what we were just speaking about, about placebo. And, I’m not going to get into Penetrating Divine Illumination.  

Jason: But there’s a lot of these, right? There’s the Maharishi Effect, right? Which is, sort of, this example of people meditating that impact the way the world functions. We have Heart Math now, suggesting that humans perhaps are somewhat psychic on a global level. That we can, sort of, anticipate events and that heart coherence is involved with this stuff. We have a lot of these examples. We have Lynne McTaggart looking at biophysics and it’s in her book, The Power Of Eight, which I love, which is basically a group of seven or eight people that come together with the intention of healing the other. And it turns out, they all receive healing when we focus our attention on that. So just with intention and meditation and focus, in our mind, we seem to be able to create amazing things. So again, I think we’re just using the modern science to reiterate this fact. And I think so many people have had experiences that we might call divine or, you know, this sort of magical healing from God, whatever people want to determine.  

Greg: Spontaneous healing, Deepak Chopra wrote that book, right? But we’ve got spontaneous healing. 

Jason: Yeah and medical qigong experts that can do amazing things. So we’re just coming back around to this and I think it, unfortunately, takes some experience. Somehow, you have to recognize it to be true, we can’t always wait for research. Research is so limited, due to funding and the incentive, you know? If there’s no incentive to study something, why would somebody study it? Let alone dedicate millions of dollars to research this, which takes many years to come out. And there’s all kinds of fraud in the scientific community, and that’s just a part of the thing because there’s money behind it. So, you know, I think a lot of this has to do with bringing about some of these ancient ways. And I think it’s trying to experience them yourself and seeing what’s behind that curve. And that’s really the best thing to do.  

Greg: So where are you going with the new project, what’s your itinerary?  

Jason: The idea, hopefully – we’ll see what comes out, really – it’s about, at this point, trying to make connections and seeing what cultures end up emerging. But you know, the idea is to go into Peru, into the mountainous regions of Peru to work with the shamans. In the mountainous regions, they use plants – you know, san pedro is a plant medicine tool and I think they do egg healing there. And then also go into the jungle where they use, you know, ayahuasca and some of the other tools in the jungle, which are different. So we want to explore that. We want to explore the North American natives with sweat lodges and these type of things, you know? I think west Africa is interesting, the shamans there use a plant called iboga which is a really powerful plant and so we’ll see if that comes about. But we definitely want to get into, you know, the areas of Tibet, and India, and China, and some of those regions. So we’ll see, kind of, what ends up coming out of this. But the idea is to get enough of a variety and, hopefully, what I think we’ll see is commonalities in each of these traditions. And the way that they think about the human experience and healing the mind, body, spirit. 

Greg: So before we started recording, you and I were talking about the challenges of making those connections. And then, you know, responsibly exposing some of these more sensitive areas. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about what’s on your mind, with respect to those challenges?  

Jason: Yeah, I think it has to do with the consciousness of where we’re at in the west, right? Everything’s a business, right? Everything is profit-driven and that inherently is not a bad thing but I think we have to balance that with the respect for a lot of these cultures, and traditions, and locations, and medicines. Something that we’re seeing, you know, emerge quite profoundly and abundantly right now is ayahuasca, right? This plant medicine that’s been used in, traditionally, Peru and in the Amazon jungle, it’s a profound healing tool. I’ve had the experience myself, I am a huge proponent of using ayahuasca in the traditional way. The reality is that, yes, there are human components to the plant and the way we use it in ceremony and tradition. And so there is sort of a human thing to it, which is to say that we may not necessarily have to take with us the human components if we want to continue this work with ayahuasca. But I think there is a way of using it that has been understood and respected in those communities. And so, there is something to learn from them in that aspect, which is to say that we can’t commercialize this thing. I don’t think it’s a good idea, I think there’s a lot of downside to it, I think there’s a lot of danger in it because it does really take the person to a very intense level of healing. So you have to have practitioners, or shamans, or curanderos that understand how to work with them, and I do. From my experience, there is a profound energetic aspect of this stuff that they work on another level that is not just in this physical reality. So if we bastardize that and commercialize that, I think there’s a lot of downside, you know? There’s a lot of issues that we can create for ourselves. The other things like Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, meditation, breath work, also amazing tools but we can also miss the point, right? And we see that in the west with yoga, a perfect example. We have hot yoga, we have goat yoga, I mean, it’s just getting ridiculous.  

Greg: Beer yoga, that was my favorite. When I saw it, they called it “boga.”  

Jason: Okay, yeah, so this is the commercialization of these traditional practices. Now, I do inherently believe that it overall is a good thing, you know? Any yoga that we’re doing here is probably better than no yoga, so to speak. But I do think that we can miss the point and it can get so skewed and led down the wrong path, that it’s not necessarily what was intended and we’re not getting the benefits that I think have been taught. So this is the danger, I think, is that if we’re pulling it into our sphere too quickly and their consciousness isn’t there to accept it, then it just sort of gets whitewashed and we use it in ways that really are not optimal. And to use something like – imagine Chinese medicine – if somebody’s trying to use Chinese medicine or acupuncture, if somebody doesn’t know acupuncture, they don’t really know where to put put the needles. They don’t understand the points and they’re just putting needles in somebody, “I’m doing acupuncture.” And it’s like, well, no you’re not. And then somebody says, “Well, it doesn’t work, didn’t work for me.” So we’re missing, you know, that component. And I think, again, coming back to ayahuasca, another great example. “I heard it’s dangerous, I had a bad trip, but there’s sexual abuse happening,” and that’s all due to commercialization. And so, again, I think we just have to be careful.  

Greg: Recreationalizing.  

Jason: Absolutely, absolutely.  

Greg: Especially with something like that. Psilocybin is a good example.  

Jason: It’s a perfect example. And I think, you know, we can get to a lot of levels of how that’s a bad thing, ultimately. You know, I don’t have a pessimistic view on any of this stuff. I think it’s going to come out, I think it’s coming out, I think it’s going to continue to come out, and I think it’s all good. I just think that if we want to play this game, in my view, it’s all going in a direction and it’s just a matter of how much suffering we want to endure in the process. Do we want to take on these modalities and these healing tools with an adult mindset? With somebody who is responsible, somebody who is respectful and mature? Or do we want to take them all like kids or like teenagers and just throw these things around and see what happens? And we can do both, you know, it’s just a matter of really where we want to go with this stuff. So I think this is, sort of, the conscious co-creation that we have and what role do we want to play. And my job, I see, is to help coax this into the mature conscious arena and not leave it to this, sort of, childlike wonder and play around with the stuff foolishly. Hopefully, we can have a positive impact on the consciousness of these things and we can use them in a way that is very successful because I think there can be, you know, we can’t capitalize on this from an economic standpoint. We can commercialize this stuff in a responsible way, we just have to make sure we’re not bastardizing it.  

Greg: Are there certain areas that you don’t know what you’re going to find? It sounds like you’re pretty well-educated on certain areas. You can know the tools of the trade that you know down south, you can get the ayahuasca, you get some plant-based medicine. You know, there’s going to be some dance in African medicine. Some acupuncture. Is there some place you’re not quite sure what you’re going to get? 

Jason: I actually think there’s going to in every place. I think there’s gonna be stuff that we don’t know, that I don’t know. I’m familiar enough but I think there are so many tools that they use. And the way that they use it, I think, it’s gonna be so interesting and so fascinating. I mean, if you ask a shaman in the jungle, “Where did ayahuasca come from, how did you learn?” He’d say, “Well, the plants taught us.” Yeah, so it’s like, that’s a discussion point that can be really opened up, right? I don’t even have a clue what he’s really going to say and how how it came about. Same thing with acupuncture or Chinese medicine and breath work. Like, how the heck did you guys – where did this come from? I know it was taught through a lineage and it’s been around for a while but where did this come from?  

Greg: We get that question all the time with acupuncture because it’s millennial, right? Well, on the battlefield, the warriors were hit here and all of a sudden their headache went away there. Or, you know, the sage meditated for 24 hours straight and envisions the whole meridian system.  

Jason: So, I think there’s some really cool stories. And again, we don’t even get lost in the stories, right, because it’s neither here nor there. If something works, it works. That’s really all that matters, right? But I think there’s some fun stories to uncover. And then there’s some, undoubtedly, there’s to be some stuff that I have no idea what’s underneath the culture. I mean, egg healing is a perfect example.  

Greg: So what is it? I’m not thinking about it.  

Jason: I don’t even really know. I actually bought a book on it so I could figure out what the heck is it from. I believe it originated in some of the tribes in South America, in the jungle I think, don’t quote me. 

Greg: You’re on air, everyone’s recording.  

Jason: I believe they take an egg and they rub it all over your body and it’s just, kind of, an egg in a shell, right? So imagine the shell – dry, raw real estate. And they just kind of rub it around your field, your energetic field, and then they crack the egg and somehow they’re able to read the egg and that picked up some aspect of your energetic template that you’re working with that they’re able to figure out. And then, I think from there, they can prescribe different modalities whether it’s herbs or teas, or what have you. I don’t know.  

Greg: So for you at home, do not try this at home. 

Jason: I mean, but there’s a way I can imagine that this works, right? We know that water holds memory, it holds information. We know this, right? I mean, Pollock’s work has shown us this, and many others, right? So this is a reality that we are starting to understand. So could it be that your energetic field, which getting into Chinese medicine and acupuncture, we know that this has been a practice, right? This way of reading the field of somebody and that each organ and system has its own, sort of, unique signature of energies. Could it be that in the egg, which is a gelatinous structured water type of substance? Could it be that information is being stored in the field of that egg and then read somehow? I mean, I don’t know. But again, there’s books on this stuff. You can go Google this on the internet and learn about it. There’s people practicing. This is exactly the type of stuff that I want to uncover and say, “Hey, what the heck is this? How did somebody think to do this? And what are you reading and how does it work?” And again, they may not use scientific language to explain this, nothing. But that’s okay. If I can pull forth the essence of what they’re saying, then I think there’s a lot to learn and we can sort of translate that with our English language and our scientific language and maybe try to pull that out.  

Greg: Yeah, that’s always a challenge for me as a practitioner, is translating biomedicine into traditional. You know, it’s incumbent upon the practitioner that’s practicing the traditional medicine to be bilingual because western scientific-minded practitioners, they don’t want to be bilingual, right? But they recognize, at least now, that something is going on, right? You know, if your patients are getting better by egg healing, great!  

Jason: Well, let’s look at the chakra system, right? This is something I generally found that people either believe in the chakra system or they don’t. Yeah, there’s very few people in between. But you know, if you look at the research, the wisdom of the chakras, they each have their own function, they each have their own color associated, and they each have their own frequency, and many other things, sure. But let’s stick to frequency and color. There’s lots of people out there now practicing with tuning forks and, you know, all kinds of musical instruments to balance or harmonize or bring back into resonance these chakra systems. That may sound ridiculous to some people, but we also know that cell function has resonant frequencies and that you can actually kill organisms with certain other frequencies. So we can bring cells back into resonance just by using sound and this infrasound is being used right now in biomedical sciences and in biophysics. So again, you know, drumming and these tuning forks and sound bowls and singing bowls, they use in Tibet. I mean, again, you aren’t stupid, you know these were not primitive people, they’re very intelligent and they have tons of wisdom and it’s been carried on for thousands of years. So we have to at least suspect, you know, starting off with a scientific hypothesis that something is going on there and how can we understand it, right? So using color and sound, I think, is a very interesting way to think about how the body works. There’s no reason to think that that wouldn’t work, right? There’s no reason to think knowing what quantum physics is looking at right now, in terms of everything being sort of energetic waves and operating with spin and movement. Why wouldn’t we think that, you know, wavelengths of light and wavelengths of sound can impact our biology? It seems completely reasonable to me and this is what many universities and research departments around the world are looking at, particularly in places like Russia and China, they’re looking at all this frequency medicine, right? So pretty reasonable to start there, we just have to understand it. 

Greg: So you’re going to start off, you’re telling me in February/March?  

Jason: Yeah, hopefully we’re going to start here pretty soon. I think some of this is weather-dependent, right? So if we’re going to go down here to the Amazon, like, there’s a wet period and dry period so we got to go in the dry period there. So, I mean, this is the funny thing. To be honest, and I actually credit some my experience with ayahuasca that had given me the outlook of just going with the flow, it was the first time that I recognized that I can’t control life. It sounds, sort of, obvious but really operating in the flow of life and letting things come to me as opposed to trying to track things down and make things happen. So I was very Type A and a really profound ayahuasca experience helped me understand that to operate with the flow of life and really with at ease. And so, this is how we approached our last documentary film series. We were scheduled to go to Okinawa and in two weeks we had everything booked, we had our flights booked and we were ready to go. But we were two weeks out and we didn’t have a translator. We didn’t have a way to get around the island because you can’t rent a car, it’s much more difficult there to rent a car. So we didn’t have a place, we didn’t have 100 year-olds to talk to, we didn’t have a translator, we didn’t have a way around the island. So, you know, we weren’t stressed out. We actually ended up emailing a yoga studio that had an English website and said, “Hey, can you connect us with anybody?” And they connected us with, sort of, a liaison and ended up picking us up in his car – his Maserati – and drove us around the island and introduced us to 80 year-olds, 90 year-olds, 100 year-olds. And that’s, I mean, it worked. So, there were some lucky breaks, let’s just say, in our process of filming the last docu-series. That this is how we’re approaching this one. So, to some degree, it’s mapped out. It’s, sort of, quasi-planned but really it’s a matter of the connections that we make and who comes forth and how we can approach that. And so, it’s really, we kind of just fly by the seat of our pants and go with the flow. And I am so confident that it will work out, that we’ll meet the people that we need to meet, will bring forth the cultures that we need to bring forth, and it’ll all flow just like it’s supposed to. You know, we have to show up. We’re going to sit back but it’s also not like we have to control this thing and plan it out for it to be successful. 

Greg: How long is this journey to take you, years? 

Jason: Yeah, I would suspect. Probably a year, you know? The last one took us about a year and a half but we did, I mean, we did over 120 interviews so that was, you know, including the expert. So the travel itself was probably only a six month venture and the rest was trying to get the local professionals, you know, the doctors and the experts. So we’re not going to have as many this time. Ten days in each area, you know, seven or eight areas. So it’s only, you know, three months of filming in that regard. So, yeah, we’ll see. I think it’ll take probably a year to execute, given the fact that we have other things going on as well. 

Greg: And so, editing time included in that final project?  

Jason: Yeah, hopefully, in 2020 we’ll have something ready to be released. We’ll see.  

Greg: The film opening, how’s that going to be?  

Jason: Yeah, we’ll probably distribute it online on our website and so, we’ll keep people posted as it develops. But yeah, we have The Human Longevity Project that we’re relaunching again here in May of next year. So, hopefully, we’ll have more people engage with that and that’s a free event. So we’re going to be launching that and you can watch that for free, all nine parts in early May. So people can go to humanlongevityfilm.com and just sign up for notifications and we’ll let you know when that’s showing again.  

Greg: Yeah, that’s a really important series to watch. As I mentioned at the beginning and I want to watch the whole thing, I’d watch a lot of it. You have to watch, you don’t have to sit down and watch it like the Mahabharata, you know? So, anything left? I mean, I know you completed The Human Longevity Project. Were there any stones left unturned from that, kind of, going backwards?  

Jason: Yeah, I think there’s so much, right? I mean, really what we try to do is focus on the areas that we thought could be the biggest levers, right? So, you know, things like circadian rhythm, things like child-birthing, and rearing things like the environment. And then, some of the biological aspects like the microbiome, and the microbiota, and the immune system, and mitochondria, and how all that works together. And then, you know, the lifestyle factors. So there’s probably a lot left unsaid. But I think at the end of the day, the big message that we tried to confirm was that health is an innate, given your body knows how to be healthy, it was designed to be healthy. Really, it’s incumbent upon us to take health back into our own hands. And I think at the end of the day, it’s really a matter of getting back to the simple life, simplifying everything. The more we try to overcomplicate it, the more we’re likely to get into trouble. And if we can just simplify our thoughts, simplify our emotions, simplify our actions, our behavior, our food, our everything, our whole lifestyle, your calendar, your closet, your shampoo, you know? Everything, just simplify it and use less, do less. That really seems to be the balancing point, right? It’s not a matter of not doing things, it’s just, we’re over-doing everything right now. You know, except for moving – it’s probably the thing that we’re not doing enough. But actually, one guy in his – I think it was in Greece, he was a 99 year-old – he said, “You know, when I was young, the body was busy and the mind was still. Now, the problem is that the mind is busy and the body is still.” And I thought, that’s the perfect summary of the problems that we see in the west. We are overthinking, we are. You know, our systems are just stressed to the hilt but our bodies are not moving enough. And so to some degree, it’s slowing that mind out, moving a little bit more, simplifying life, and that’s it.  

Greg: So I have a little story to share with you. In my neighborhood, there used to be a guy, he was over 100, driving his car around. He’s no longer alive but he used to drive around with his wife, who was somewhere around 100. And his name was Fred. Anyway, so I ran into Fred one day and I said – because I knew he was over a hundred – I said, “Friend, what’s the answer to longevity?” And he said, “Beautiful women and coffee.” “I can’t argue,” I said. And I knew this about him, he used to work for Folgers so I get the coffee.  

Jason: Well, and what’s funny is when you talk to somebody that’s 100 years old, their life is so simple, right? So, we have to take the historical context of things, right? When you talk to somebody that’s 95 years old, that lives in Ikaria, Greece, they were born in 1923. So most of them didn’t get electricity in Ikaria until like 1960 or 70.  

Greg: So no TV, right?  

Jason: Yeah, God forbid, right? No Netflix. Fifty years of their life with no refrigeration, no overhead lighting, right? Think of all the things that we do with electricity, transportation of food. So, 50 years with none of that stuff. Water is different, like, everything’s different. So, you know, when you ask them the secret to long life and health, they’re going to give you a radically different answer than maybe what is needed. Which is to say that the way that we’re living is very, very different now. So we have to remember that there’s a historical context to anybody that’s 100 years old, especially in these remote parts of the world. You know, these mountains of Sardinia, very different lifestyle growing up. And you can even see this with the food, you know? A lot of them said that bread was different back then, that their bread was so healthy. It was a part of every every meal.  

Greg: Well, they baked it themselves.  

Jason: They know, they were. They took a donkey and would grind right to traditional grains and they would grind them and then they would make them themselves. They would, you know? So everything was different. And a lot of them would say that they can’t find bread like that anymore, it doesn’t exist. Meat – that some people wouldn’t eat meat anymore because of the way it’s being, you know, raised. And I’m talking about in remote parts of the world, not factory farming like we do here. I mean, they’re eating meat that’s much better than what we have but yet, it’s not as cared for nearly as much. Then the food is different, right? So, you know, everything’s changed and so we can’t simply look at their life and say, “Okay, what did you do?” Because we can’t do that anymore. Sorry, you’re never going to live like somebody that lived in 1948 in Korea.  

Greg: Yeah, right. What you’re saying, it’s resonating with me. I’m thinking about certain fad diets that are existing right now and, you know, people are claiming that this diet – I’m not going to mention any diets because I don’t want to offend anything.  

Jason: You offend everybody, it’s really what happened. That’s what we did, we basically offended everybody because what we said is that that’s not a diet. You have to balance this out – depends on your state, depends on your age, depends on all these things. But the fundamental characteristic is real food. Is it grown in good soil? Is it, hopefully, local? And is it, maybe, seasonal? Yeah, that seems to be the main factor. It’s not the other stuff, you know? Because you can be vegan and eat the worst diet ever. You can be paleo and eat a crappy diet. You can eat, you know, there’s any number of diets can be completely poor as a general concept but also particularly poor for you, right? And Paul Chek mentioned this in his lecture, actually, at the Symposium. I’m forgetting his name but the researcher in the early 1900s who basically would take cadavers and measure the length right from mouth to anus, right? And he discovered a 100 difference in length, some people had that 21-foot length and some people would have 42.  

Greg: It’s fascinating.  

Jason: So that right there suggests that, you know, some people would be able to handle more plant foods and grains and tougher foods to break down and some people might do better on more of an animal-product diet. As even a starting point let alone, no matter what age they are, because that’s going to determine these things. And their local environment is also going to determine things, right? So, you know, eating tons of fruit like they do in Costa Rica may not be very good for somebody who lives in in Iceland or Ireland, right? 

Greg: Or, you know, the Inuits that eat mostly traditional whale meat, right? Or cold foods, if you put plant-based diet cultured.  

Jason: And let alone – thinking about sort of paleo-style – I mean, the Inuits are one of my favorite examples because a lot of them would actually eat the intestinal contents of some of the animals. Like, who do you know is eating intestinal contents of animals these days, right? Who do you know that’s foraging for all their their food, you know, and picking these leaves and roots and berries and flowers and all these things. You know, not many people I know are eating that way. So, to say that we should be eating like somebody who did 10,000 years ago is sort of silly. The general concept is a good one but it’s not realistic. So, we’ve got to forget a lot of those diets and go back to a more simplified version of everything and one that agrees with our system. And it can very well change over time, depending on the disease state that we’re in and depending on our age, right? And I think the thing that we described in the film is that forgetting even that – what you eat, what you’re eating – it’s a matter of when you eat, a lot of times. And this goes back to a lot of Ayurvedic principles. I don’t know about Chinese medicine, if they get into this? They probably do.  

Greg: Absolutely, very deeply.  

Jason: Exactly. So the timing of foods is very critical.  

Greg: Yeah, everything. I mean, Chinese medicine says you eat regular meals at regular times. But beyond that, the way in which you eat is more important than what you’re getting. You know, if you and I are sitting down enjoying the meal together and we’re good friends, that’s a lot different than if we’re sitting down and we’re standing and we’re agitated, right?  

Jason: Or you’re eating in the car, that’s a good one. Yeah, and then we get into this exact thing in, I think it’s episode three of our series, this is important. And what you notice with a lot of these cultures that we visited is that they would either offer thanks before they ate or they would pray or they would say something, right? And so, it’s basically – even for getting more esoteric analysis of that – at the very least, it’s putting them in a parasympathetic state, right? Being in a state of gratitude and gravity. And so, there’s a lot of ways we can physiologically explain this stuff. And I totally agree, that the context in which you eat may be the most important over what you’re eating. And I think that there’s a lot to think, that’s the case. Yeah, even modern research which shows that you can eat McDonald’s and if you’re on a beach with friends in a happy calm state, it digests much differently than if you’re eating McDonald’s in a car, stressed out on the phone while driving with your knee. And yeah, there’s just so much nuance to it that you can get lost really easy. So, to dumb it down and say you should follow this diet or that diet, I think is overwhelmingly simplistic.  

Greg: Well, it just shows people are looking for answers, I think, which is a good thing, you know? They’re looking for ways to improve and oftentimes, you’re just getting misinformation. So that’s why it’s so important that we have, you know, health educators or life educators or coaches, whatever we want to call ourselves or whatever you want to call yourself. That’s why this work is so important and I really appreciate the work you’re doing right now and I know that you know. I’m really looking forward to what’s next.  

Jason: Me too, I’m excited to get going because it’s been brewing in my mind for a while. Actually, over a year now. I was really excited to do this type of thing.  

Greg: And who’s on your team right now? The same production team?  

Jason: Yeah, we have our filmmakers. John Dahlgren, he’s sort of the creative visionary of a lot of the production work. Him and Joe Rignola, as well. And then we have a really good editor, Mike Skopkoff, and he’s fantastic in terms of what he can see on the back-end and how to put this together. So yeah, we’ve got a very small crew but we’re all sort of familiar with this type of content and it just seems to work really well. 

Greg: Yeah, exciting. Well, Jason, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you. I know our listeners are going to be really happy to check out The Human Longevity Project and hopefully the next one, name unknown. Yeah, we’re gonna find something good coming soon and we just are so appreciative of you coming down today and sharing your experience with us.  

Jason: Absolutely, thank you so much. I mean, our values and the way that we approach this stuff is so aligned that it’s an easy conversation. 

Greg: Awesome, yeah. And we’ll see more of you around here, I’m sure.  

Jason: Alright, thank you. 

Greg: Thanks, buddy.