Biohacks for Natural Anti-Aging, a Youthful Complexion, and Optimized Well-being

Embrace your natural radiance and learn how to turn back the clock on aging without ever opening your makeup bag! I'm Nika Lawrie, and I'm thrilled to share the secrets of my own makeup-free anti-aging routine. Get ready to discover how a holistic approach, encompassing dietary choices, biohacks, and lifestyle changes, can lead to better health and a youthful glow. Say goodbye to expensive, complicated products and tune in for a wealth of tips on optimizing sleep, hydration, exercise, and more, all tailored to keep your skin looking as vibrant and lively as you feel inside.

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*This podcast and its contents are for informational purposes only and are not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or a qualified health provider for any questions concerning a medical condition or health objectives. Additionally, the advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every individual and are not guaranteed for business or personal success. Use discretion and seek professional counsel when necessary.

Transcript

Nika Lawrie: 0:15

Hey and welcome to another episode of Inspired with Nika Laurie. I, of course, am your host, nika, and I'm so grateful to have you join me today. So if you are listening on the actual podcast, you won't see some of the and I'm so grateful to have you join me today. So if you are listening on the actual podcast, you won't see some of the things I'm going to refer to here in just a second. But for those of you watching on YouTube, you can see that I am pretty relaxed in the way I look today. I don't have any makeup on, I'm in some just kind of comfy workout clothes and I'm just hanging out. It's Friday, I'm sorry, it's Sunday afternoon, my daughter is at a birthday party, my husband is at a work event and I am solo at home, which is kind of bliss for me as a true, true introvert. But I wanted to use this time to bring you a new episode for the podcast. And so why am I here with no makeup on? I do have the ring light to kind of light things up so you can at least see my face, but why don't I have any makeup on during this episode? The biggest reason is because today we're going to talk about anti-aging and, specifically, a natural approach to anti-aging, and I wanted you to be able to see what I look like without any makeup on at all, without any makeup on at all. So I am 38, coming up on 39 here in a couple of months, and I take a really natural approach to anti-aging. I do use some kind of store-bought natural moisturizers and different things for my skin, but I'm very, very particular about what I use, and the companies that I support use very, very clean, natural ingredients. That is something that I am very, very particular about. If you would like to learn more of that, reach out to me and I can tell you more about the companies that I specifically buy or use on a regular basis. I'm not going to get into those today. Today I'm really going to give you some lifestyle techniques that you can use. So really, some biohacks, some hacks on natural anti-aging that you can incorporate into your life right now to start seeing some really profound differences in your overall well-being and the way you feel and, of course, how you're going to look as you age and progress through life and these new phases that each of us face regularly.

Nika Lawrie: 2:29

So what is hacking? Natural anti-aging? So let's first talk about biohacking. As you probably have heard from some of the previous episodes and you can see from my website, biohacking is kind of my favorite thing for women in the way of getting healthy, taking care of their bodies, whether that's losing weight or increasing energy. It could be reducing stress and anxiety, of course, aging and longevity and then really balancing your hormones. Biohacking is the best approach for this, no matter what it is you're trying to do. So biohacking is really like a DIY approach to making small focus changes or incremental changes to your lifestyle that help really make a significant improvement in your health and well-being. So it's figuring out what works for you and your unique body or unique needs. It is not some crazy science or crazy product that you have to buy to make something happen. It's really figuring out what works for you through a natural and kind of holistic approach and really implementing those things over time.

Nika Lawrie: 3:41

So what are we going to talk about today in regards to natural anti-aging or hacking natural anti-aging? So, of course, are we going to talk about today in regards to natural anti-aging or hacking natural anti-aging? So, of course, we're going to talk about lifestyle changes. That's always such a key thing. We're going to talk about a couple of dietary adjustments. We'll talk about a couple supplements sleep optimization, hydration, exercise, and there's some other things that we'll get into today as well. So let's talk about the benefits of really taking a natural approach to anti-aging. The first, of course, is you'll have improved skin health. That's such a huge thing. I know I'm starting to see just little wrinkles here and there or starting to see the little crease lines on my forehead as I kind of start to move into my 40s.

Nika Lawrie: 4:32

And you know, I was born and raised in New Mexico. I live in New Mexico now. I've lived all over the place, but I came back here a couple years ago, and in New Mexico we are blessed with about 300, maybe even like 320 days of sun, and we're actually fairly high altitude, so the sun exposure is even stronger than it would, be say, at the beach, like Florida or California, and so I have been exposed to quite a bit of sun my whole life. We spent a lot of time out in the sun when I was a kid playing. My husband and my child and I are out pretty regularly for walks or working in the backyard or what have you, and then every day I try for walks or working in the backyard or what have you, and then every day I try to go sit out in the sun for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on what the weather's like and how warm and cold it is and all those kinds of things, but just to kind of get some sun exposure there for kind of that natural health and natural vitamin D support. So I like I'm saying I've been exposed to sun quite a bit in my life and you can see that my skin is still very healthy.

Nika Lawrie: 5:27

I'm very careful about that, and so using a natural approach to anti-aging, you can stave off some of the wrinkles or sun damage that you would get without taking this kind of more natural approach to it. So improved skin health is a big part of that. Taking a natural approach to anti-aging can actually help reduce other things like chronic disease. So a lot of the products that you'll see in the anti-aging or kind of skincare world will have a lot of chemicals or different chemicals that are potential toxins to our health and a lot of times it can be correlation, but there are some direct causations with some of these chemicals that can cause chronic diseases. You'll see things like hormonal imbalances. You'll see things like cancer can be related to some of these chemicals.

Nika Lawrie: 6:22

If you'd like to learn more about this, I have tons of other episodes about environmental toxins. I have studied environmental toxins for probably the last seven to eight, maybe even 10 years of my life, and so it's a very important thing. It's a very important topic that I want to drive home with you is really understanding that just because a product is put on the shelf here in the United States or Canada or wherever you are listening, does not necessarily mean that that product is safe to use as well as consume, and it also goes for food as well. The European Union has much stricter laws and regulations than the United States, but the United States tends to kind of be the leader in a lot of these products that are put out on the shelf, and so, unfortunately, they're not necessarily safe. So reducing that risk of potential harm to our bodies is really really important, and so, again, that's one reason why I drive home the taking a natural approach to anti-aging journey as well. So I mentioned it just a moment ago with the toxin exposure, but balancing hormones is really key.

Nika Lawrie: 7:33

Some of the chemicals that are inside the products that we may be putting on our skin can disrupt our hormone function. Our endocrine system, which is what all of our hormones are in, is really the messenger system of our body, and when that gets out of whack, our whole body gets out of whack. Our moods can change. We'll have lower energy, we'll have issues with food and digestion, we'll have memory issues. There's a whole host of things. You'll have weight gain or weight loss. There's a whole host of things that You'll have weight gain or weight loss. There's a whole host of things that will happen when our hormones are out of balance. So really keeping those in balance is so key, and so the last thing we want to do is bring in a product that we think is good for us, but in reality, it's actually damaging our hormones and causing or wreaking havoc throughout our bodies. So really understanding that that can play a key role in there, also taking a natural approach to anti-aging, it can actually help us have a stronger, more vibrant body and it can actually enhance more energy levels as well.

Nika Lawrie: 8:34

So a lot of the techniques that I'm going to share with you here in just a moment are kind of general techniques or techniques that you would hear for kind of anything else is, you know, similar to weight loss, or it's similar to having better sleep, or it's similar to having more energy, and so they're not kind of rocket science changes. Rocket science changes, but implementing these changes into your life can improve basically all aspects of your life. So that's why it will also enhance energy levels. It'll also help you have kind of a stronger, more vibrant body. So what are some of the things that we want to do? What is the whole point of this? Right, sorry, needed a drink there.

Nika Lawrie: 9:19

So some of the first things that I want you to think about when it comes to natural, some of the first things that I want you to think about when it comes to natural anti-aging is going to be making some dietary tweaks. So there's kind of two areas that I want to focus here. First is adding in or incorporating new things into your diet, and the second is going to remove or reduce certain things from your diet. So let's think about the incorporating, the bringing in items. One of the biggest ones that you really want to think about is bringing in anti-inflammatory foods. So there's a whole bunch of anti-inflammatory foods. I'm not going to get into all of them today. You can literally just Google anti-inflammatory foods, or ask ChatGPT and they'll give you an entire list of anti-inflammatory foods. But chat GPT and they'll give you an entire list of anti-inflammatory foods. But one of the things that you really want to look for often are things that are kind of more colorful, so thinking about like blueberries or strawberries. Those things are going to have antioxidants in them that help fight aging and they help reduce inflammation in your body.

Nika Lawrie: 10:22

Another thing to think about, too, is bringing in really healthy fats. So this whole fad of avoiding fats that was prevalent in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s is really detrimental to societal health, and I really want to take a moment here to make sure that people understand there are different types of fat. There are several types of fat that are extremely healthy and that we must incorporate into our diet because our body needs it. All fat is not bad. There are some fats that are unhealthy things that you would want to avoid. One example is trans fat. So a couple of years ago, the FDA actually banned trans fat, but there's kind of a sneaky thing there. So you won't actually see trans fat listed on foods anymore, though it was prevalent for quite a while. For several decades, trans fat was allowed to be in foods, but research has shown how detrimental it is to our health. But the thing to understand is that with the law that banned trans fat, they had a little tiny loophole where it allows trans fat to be in the food if it is 0.5 grams or less. So there's still potential to be exposed to trans fat and you really want to have no trans fat in your life whatsoever. But I kind of digressed here.

Nika Lawrie: 11:48

So let's talk about bringing in some healthy fats into our lives. So things like nuts nuts often have really great healthy fats that you can incorporate into your life. Avocado oil, olive oil and coconut oil will all have some really healthy fats. Grass-fed butter or ghee is another great option to bring in those healthy fats. Butter is not bad for you. Butter is actually one of the best fats that you can actually bring into your life, and so you can use that for baking or incorporating into your daily food routines. And then another one that's always kind of obvious. People know, but you would be surprised how few people actually eat leafy greens. But leafy green vegetables are really really great for helping to increase your vitamin and mineral intake but also supporting healthy skin and healthy body detoxification. You really want to support your detoxification process in your body as you age, because that process kind of starts to slow down and degrade as you get older and you're not able to detoxify quite as well as you may have been when you were a kid or in your early 20s. So supporting the detoxification process in your body is so key for healthy skin and great anti-aging techniques as you move forward.

Nika Lawrie: 13:08

I'm actually going to do a different episode here shortly on how to detoxify your body in a really great, healthy way. So stay tuned for that. But be sure to reach out to me if you have any specific questions about that. There's actually a link in the podcast show notes where you can leave a voice recorded message for me and I may actually incorporate that into a next episode. You can either be anonymous, or I can just take your question, or I can actually include your name if that's something that you would want to do. You can leave all of that in the message. You'll see it in the show notes.

Nika Lawrie: 13:40

So let's talk about some of the things that we want to remove from the diet. So a couple of these are going to be obvious. There's some things I talk about all the time, but you're going to want to reduce your intake of sugar as much as possible. So I personally I love sugar. It is, you know, everybody kind of loves sugar. But I work really, really hard to minimize how much sugar I have in my life and most of the sugar that I'm actually exposed to is going to be natural sugars that come from, say, dates or fruits like grapes or apples or oranges, or I'll try to use honey or monk fruit sugar on a pretty limited basis. Occasionally I'll use maple syrup in baking and things like that.

Nika Lawrie: 14:22

I don't tend to eat very much general kind of grain sugar, cane sugar or beet sugar. I tend to avoid as much as possible. That doesn't mean that I don't eat any of it. I think you know there's a place for things here and there. You just have to understand how to manage that and to reduce the exposure to it as much as possible.

Nika Lawrie: 14:45

One of the reasons that you want to avoid sugar as much as possible is because sugar is really an inflammatory food and so decreasing that helps reduce the inflammation in your body. Inflammation in your body accelerates aging. It can also increase your odds of having a chronic disease, or it can actually kind of be the ground or the foundation to the start of that chronic disease. And it is the biggest factor often for most people in weight gain. And so the more sugar you reduce and the less glucose spikes that you have throughout the day in your body one, the better your fill. But the slower your aging process will be and likely the more weight you will lose as well.

Nika Lawrie: 15:32

And so the next thing I want to talk about, about reducing your exposure to, is going to be processed foods. So this is going to be like really highly processed foods we're talking about like fast foods, so you know, mcdonald's, burger King, wendy's, those kinds of things, but also processed foods you think about, you know, breakfast cereals or granola bars are actually one that is really highly processed. People actually think they're usually healthy and most of them are not great for you. Thinking about, you know, highly processed baked goods, those kinds of things, you really want to reduce your exposure to those for a couple reasons. One is that they're a simple carbohydrate and so your body processes them basically the same way they process sugar. It's going to spike your glucose and it's going to be basically sugar in your body, and so you again want to avoid that as much as possible. The other thing is they often have a lot of additives and preservatives in it that can harm your gut health, and if you want really good health overall, you want to support your gut health as much as possible. Good gut health equals good mental health, equals good skin health, usually equals pretty balanced hormones, and so supporting good gut health is so, so key to overall health and slowing down that aging process. So those were a couple things about food and incorporating things and reducing things.

Nika Lawrie: 17:02

I could do probably 30 different podcast episodes, deep diving into each one of them. That is not the point of today. Today is to just give you some kind of techniques and things to consider on more of a basic level when it comes to natural anti-aging. So stay tuned, we'll get more into them. Or check out my blog. I have tons of resources on my website and blog that you can kind of deep dive more into some of those things as well.

Nika Lawrie: 17:27

So let's move into sleep optimization. So there is a research study that recently came out that talked about women actually needing substantially more sleep for adequate sleep than men do, and most of the studies had been done on men for the last hundred years or so, and so that seven to eight hours of sleep is actually a misnomer for women. For women, you really want to look for adequate sleep somewhere between eight and 10 hours. I know my happy spot is actually eight and a half to nine hours of sleep. That's where I feel best and most restful and I really feel rejuvenated in the morning. So if you're able to add a little bit more time onto your sleep routine, I would highly highly recommend it. For me. I usually go to bed about 9.30 and I wake up about six, between six and seven, sometimes closer to seven, just depending on how I feel.

Nika Lawrie: 18:21

But really, prioritizing your sleep is one of the most important things that you can do for your body wellness and for longevity and anti-aging as well. It'll support hormone regulation, it will support having a better mood throughout the day, it will support you having more energy throughout the day and it'll support a good, healthy body weight as well, among a whole bunch of other things. But prioritizing sleep if there's one thing I can have you do, it will be to prioritize sleep. The other thing that's interesting about sleep is that your skin actually repairs itself while you sleep. So making adequate rest or making time for adequate rest is really key to anti-aging, especially when you want to take care of your skin. So how do you support that?

Nika Lawrie: 19:10

So I talked about giving yourself a little bit longer time period of sleeping, but you also want to have a dark, cool area to sleep. So keeping your bedroom I like my bedroom around 65 when I sleep, so not freezing, because that'll keep you awake, but cooler, so not in the 70s or like 72, because that can be too hot and it'll actually wake you up Having a really dark room. So I actually have two sets of curtains on my room. I have a double rod curtain rod for our windows, we have blackout curtains and then we have some kind of pretty like decorative curtains on top of that, and covering those keeps most of the light out and it's really helpful. I actually, also, on top of that, sleep with an eye mask on so it covers my eyes and it's blackout, dark, and sleeping with that was a game changer for me. It helped me so, so much in being able to stay asleep throughout the night before I would wake up kind of middle of the night, maybe two or three, because I could see some lights from somewhere and it would wake me up and it would take me a while to fall back to sleep. Sleeping with those eye masks it was a total game changer for me, so I highly recommend that. And then the last thing I would say about sleep again, we could do a whole other episode on it.

Nika Lawrie: 20:24

I do have a couple blog articles on sleeping that you can look into, but really focusing on wind down time, so really starting to think about what you're doing before you're going to sleep to help your body fall into sleep easier. So bedtime for my daughter is 8 pm, so we start to get ready for bed usually around 745. I lay with her for a while until she falls asleep, but that's already helped me start to calm down. I keep our lights in our house very dim in the evening, so we're getting closer and closer to kind of that darkness as we move closer to bedtime. And then I often read a book right before I go to bed, just so that my body is sort of mellowing out. I try to avoid looking at screens or watching something on my phone as much as possible before I fall asleep Because, again, as you likely know, that blue light will wake up your body and it will disrupt your circadian rhythm. It will also mess with your melatonin levels and so it makes it more difficult for you to fall asleep. So really trying to optimize that sleep routine as you fall asleep is so key to quality sleep throughout the night.

Nika Lawrie: 21:33

If you are someone that likes to take melatonin in the case of melatonin, less is more so often you'll see the little tabs that come at like five milligrams. I actually suggest cutting that into half and only taking half of that little tablet. So you're looking at maybe one to two and a half milligrams of melatonin. So less is more will actually help you sleep better and you want to take that about two hours before bedtime. So you'd see the spike if you had a kind of a melatonin kind of glucose monitor. It's not glucose at all, but I'm trying to give you an idea of what you would think about. So the spike comes a little bit before you fall asleep and then you'll start to kind of fade out and fall asleep easier. So the key is really taking that melatonin approximately two hours before you actually want to fall asleep, and that will help your rhythm, kind of your cycle, really get in sync.

Nika Lawrie: 22:37

I didn't say that great, but you know what I'm trying to say. So let's move on to stress management. So stress management is really really key for anti-aging. Stress management is really key for good quality of life overall, and so one of my or two of my favorite things is going to be meditation and yoga.

Nika Lawrie: 22:57

When I say meditation, people often kind of cringe and they're like I don't have time for meditation. You know, my brain wanders all the time all over the place. It's really hard for me to meditate. When I say meditation, it can be as simple as three to five minutes, or even just start with one minute. Just set your timer for one minute and just try to calm yourself down. You can do the breathing work, the deep breathing work to help you relax.

Nika Lawrie: 23:24

One of my favorite simple kind of meditations is to think about each part of my body. I start at my toes and I say goodnight to my toes, and I say goodnight to my feet and I say goodnight to my heels. It's all in my head, so I'm not like talking out loud, but it helps you kind of start to calm your body. I do this sometimes if I'm having a hard time falling asleep and you work all the way up through your torso and in your arms and your head and then you do it through your face and eventually to your eyes and eventually you start to fall asleep that way. So it's a great tool for falling asleep.

Nika Lawrie: 23:57

But you can also use it just throughout the day to lower your cortisol levels. So I know when I often get home from like a busy afternoon, I pick up my daughter and we have homework to do and dinner and all these things I'll take three to five minutes to just sit and do nothing. I don't even have to actually meditate, but it's just to sit and literally do nothing and you will feel more rejuvenated and you'll have lower cortisol levels and you'll have more mental clarity and you'll have an enhanced mood and you'll start to feel better and you'll be more prepared to go into the evening to do other things. But you can use this hack any time of the day, whenever you feel stressed. So meditation is really just a tool to calm your body. It does not have to be an hour long of kind of a thing. It can be what works for you. Use the hack and implement it in the ways that work best for you. That's the key.

Nika Lawrie: 24:51

So we touched a little bit on deep breathing as well. I like the box breathing method so you can breathe in for four, hold it for four, breathe out for four and then you kind of repeat that process. There are a billion breathing techniques out there, so try a couple. I have a blog post about a couple different breathing techniques as well, so you can look into that. But you can also just Google. You know, give me three breathing techniques and try and figure out which one is the one that works best for you.

Nika Lawrie: 25:21

But those are great, simple, natural hacks to help reduce stress throughout the day, especially as you transition between areas of your life. So like, for example, you wake up in the morning and it can be sometimes rushed to get the kids out the door and to school and then you get to work. Try, right before you walk into your office and to work, sit in your car for two minutes, just breathe, reset, drop your cortisol, take a deep breath, do your two minute meditation, whatever it is, and then go into work in a different kind of mood and you have better, calmer energy. Do that at lunchtime, do that as you're leaving the office, maybe even before you get into traffic and you're dealing with. You know all the craziness of being on the road. Do that after you get home, before you cook dinner, wherever it is. Implement those. You can do it as many times as you want throughout the day, but it will really make a drastic impact on how you feel throughout the day, what your mood is like throughout the day, your mental clarity. Again, all of those aspects can be improved from very simple little hacks like breathing and short meditation.

Nika Lawrie: 26:28

Um, so, of course, we always talk about cardio exercise, strength training, flexibility exercise, so we talked just briefly about the yoga. But incorporating these activities into your life are so, so key for anti-aging. It improves your skin. It can give you a healthier glow. Especially cardio, running and walking and cycling can actually improve your skin and help detoxify your body. So those are really key.

Nika Lawrie: 26:58

I'm going to do a different episode on exercising specifically because, when it comes to biohacking for women, one of the misnomers that's really taught in kind of the health and wellness area is that women need to go to the gym for an hour a day and work really hard and do all this cardio and then do the yoga on the weekends and Pilates on the weekends, and you do not have to do that to have a strong, healthy body. In fact, doing that too much or working out too much can actually have a detrimental effect on your overall health and longevity, and so stay tuned for that episode we're going to go into how do you actually improve your health through exercise without overdoing it and in the shortest time possible so you can actually have really, really profound effects on your body and your health and your weight and your overall wellness with working out as little as four to five minutes a day overall wellness with working out as little as four to five minutes a day. So you can either you can have an entire workout regimen for the whole week for 20 to 30 minutes total, not a day 20 to 30 minutes total a week. So I'm going to do another episode on that. Keep your eyes out, you know, be prepared for that coming, cause I think it will really change a lot of women's perspective on exercise and make it a lot less kind of intimidating or overwhelming and hopefully support all of you in adding these little exercise hacks into your daily life. So I'm excited to bring that one forward.

Nika Lawrie: 28:32

So I'm actually going to take one more drink, because the next one is staying hydrated, drinking plenty of water and healthy drinks throughout the day really helps flush toxins through your body and it also helps keep your cells optimal and functioning at their best and healthy cells, healthy skin, healthy body, healthy function, healthy energy and healthy anti-aging or longevity as you move forward as well. So plenty of water throughout the day. You know there's the two things like eight glasses of water per day, or drink half your per day, or drink half your weight in ounces of water per day. Those are actually just kind of misnomer things that don't actually mean anything Like. There's no scientific evidence that backs either of those up. I do sometimes do use the half your weight in ounces a day just because it's a simple way for some people to do that math and incorporate that water. But basically, if you're just drinking water when you're thirsty throughout the day, or even before you're thirsty, just drink water throughout the day, all day, just have water with you, you will stay hydrated.

Nika Lawrie: 29:48

The big things that will dehydrate you or any of the sugary drinks so you know sodas, starbucks, those kind of things that can help or actually start to dehydrate you and caffeine is a huge one. Caffeine will actually dehydrate you as well. So avoiding those drinks as much as possible. Now, I'm a big, you know proponent of have some fun, bring some joy into your life. If you're having, you know, one soda a week, who cares? Enjoy life. But if you're having several sodas a day, or even a soda every single day, that's probably a problem. And so it's really starting to figure out how to manage that and what works for you and what feels right for you, but focusing on just having water with you all day. I usually drink a Spindrift for those of you on YouTube you can see it. This is a new flavor, the Nojito, which I really like. So I'll drink those and then water throughout the day as well. So stay hydrated, my friend. I promise it's worth it. You will feel so so much better.

Nika Lawrie: 30:48

Another thing about hydration just real fast that came to mind is hydration so often. If you are having a sugar craving, that may actually be a sign that you are dehydrated. Same thing goes for being hungry. So if you feel hungry, especially at like maybe two in the afternoon, if you feel hungry and you're craving like sugary thing or crackers or something like that, you're probably actually dehydrated. So drink some water, give yourself five, 10 minutes and see if you feel better. If you still feel hungry, maybe have a small healthy snack like nuts or something like that, but usually it's you're dehydrated and just hydrating yourself will actually reduce that craving. So try that before you go eat the sugary thing and see if that works for you.

Nika Lawrie: 31:34

Okay, so the last part of today's episode we're going to talk about supplementing, and supplementing wisely. So there's tons of different supplements out there and supplements come in varying qualities. So the two things I want to say before I tell you about supplementing is one understand that not all supplements are made the same. There are tons of supplements out there that have never been tested for quality. You know, one example is there's been some research studies on vitamin C and some researchers went to a big chain store like Walmart or Target or somewhere and they bought some vitamin C supplements and they tested them and the supplements came back actually having no vitamin C in them whatsoever. And so it's really important that, if you are going to take a supplement approach to anti-aging, that you find high quality, really good supplements from a verified source and that they're very transparent about how their supplements are made, what's in their supplements and where they are sourcing their materials for those supplements from. So so important because supplements are not regulated by the FDA or any other government entity, so it's sort of a free-for-all out there. So when you go to supplement, make sure that you are coming at it from a very careful sort of skeptical approach. I'm not saying skeptical that supplements are skeptical. I'm saying be very conscious and aware of the companies that you engage with when it comes to supplementing. Protect yourself and make sure that you get really clean, verified supplements and herbs and minerals that are in them as well.

Nika Lawrie: 33:27

The other thing that I will say is, before you start supplementing, if you have specific health issues or you are on specific medications, please be sure to talk to your physicians before you start supplementing them, because different supplements can have really profound impacts on different medications and also different chronic diseases, and so you don't want to take something that will may interfere with the medications that you're on or that could, you know, cause that disease to get worse. So always be very careful when supplementing. Talk to your physician before you start supplementing or bringing in supplements into your life. That also goes for regular old things like taking a daily vitamin or daily mineral. Those things can also have impacts. So really be sure that you talk to your physician before you do that. So let's talk about three different things that you can do right now. Again, if you've talked to your physician, things that you can bring into your life.

Nika Lawrie: 34:30

The first thing that I would always recommend is omega-3 fatty acids. So we do not get enough omega-3 fatty acids in our normal lifestyle as Americans, even people you know Canada, same as Europe. Europe's a little bit better, but there just isn't enough omega-3 fatty acids in our life and these are so, so key. So where do we find these? Most of these you're going to find in fish oil supplements. These things can help reduce inflammation and really support healthy skin health. So looking for a high quality omega-3 fatty acid is super key. I take mine almost daily. Every once in a while I'll miss a day here, but I take them almost daily.

Nika Lawrie: 35:16

The next would be vitamin D. Vitamin D is essential for bone health. It's essential for immune function and regulating your mood. So you do get some vitamin D from sun exposure, but if you're wearing sunscreen, that'll block your ability to create the vitamin D. If you're wearing clothes, that also blocks your availability of making that vitamin D. So unless you're outside for most of the day, basically naked, you are not going to be able to make enough vitamin D just from sun exposure. So, especially for those people who are, you know, northern hemisphere or don't get a lot of sun exposure, increasing your vitamin D supplementation can be really beneficial.

Nika Lawrie: 36:02

But you want to take a vitamin D that is mixed with a vitamin K, because that helps you increase your absorption of vitamin D. If you want to learn more about that, reach out to me. I can give you some brands or supplement options that I really like to use or prefer to use, so that DK supplementation has to be taken together. And then the last option that I would suggest is incorporating a probiotic into your daily supplement routine as well. So a probiotic will support good gut health, it'll improve your skin health, it'll improve or create a stronger immune system as well, and it feeds all those great little bugs in your gut. Microbiome is so, so key to support those, because that's what really supports better absorption of nutrients that come from the food that you're eating on a daily basis. So, again, talk to your physician if you have any medications that you're currently taking or you have any chronic diseases that you're dealing with before you supplement. But there are some great options right there. There are a ton of other anti-aging supplements. I'll get into those in other shows, but for the sake of time today, those are the three that I really support and encourage you to look into.

Nika Lawrie: 37:21

So if you want to learn more in a quick, easy way, you can actually sign up for the Biohacking for Babes newsletter. There's a link in the show notes and if you sign up for that, you will get my free healthy living guide where I deep dive further into environmental toxins, into great foods to eat, into hydration, into sleep techniques. I talk about different chemicals that are found in our food that you want to expose or want to avoid exposure to, and there's tons of resources in there. And then there's a bunch of QR codes as well that give you discounted codes to some of my favorite companies that I work with. So check that out.

Nika Lawrie: 38:02

It's a great resource. It's yours totally free. I think it's like 20 pages. There's some recipes in there as well. So check that out in the show notes and sign up for the newsletter. We never spam you. We simply send usually bi-weekly, sometimes weekly, tips and tricks around biohacking. So you'll get those hacks for your daily life. And with that, my friends, I thank you so much for listening. Please reach out to me. Let me know how I can support you and help you biohack your way to ultimate wellness and health. Have a great day, my friend. I'll see you in the next episode.