The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #156 - Jean Fallacara

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Hi, friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation that I'm about to have. So, the backstory that led up to today's conversation, probably last fall-ish, so fall of 2021, maybe a little bit before, I was reached out to by the staff of Biohackers Update Magazine and they were talking to me about writing some articles for that magazine. I did a call with the-- Now, you're the owner, right? You've acquired it.

Jean Fallacara: Yeah. Since January 21, actually, yes. I'm the one there taking this team to the next level.

Melanie Avalon: Well, that you are doing. So, I connected with Jean Fallacara, who I'm here with and we had a phone call to connect and just realized, maybe not surprisingly that we are into all of the same stuff and have so much to talk about. He was so, so kind. He actually put me on the cover of that magazine for the November issue, which was just so surreal and I'm so grateful and honored. I will put a link to that in the show notes, friends because you've definitely got to check that out, as well as a current issue. We connected, I read Jean’s book, Neuroscience Calisthenics: Hijack your Body Clock. I dived deep into his content. If you follow him on Instagram, it's one of the most motivating Instagram’s as far as just really seeing what the body can do performance wise, I mean, this man is mind blowing. What's so cool and what he talks about in his book, and I'm sure we will talk about in today's conversation is the incredible role and connection between the mind, our mindset, and our physical performance. Not just how it-- I mean, everything and we'll just dive into this. But the mindset as well as the actual, what's happening in your brain neurons, how that's affecting things, this book also goes into all of the biohacking stuff and biofeedback. And so, there's just so much that we could talk about. I'm very, very excited. Jean, thank you so much for being here.

Jean Fallacara: Melanie, it's an honor for me. Thank you for having me on the show. It's funny because yeah, you just remind me that the first time we spoke on the phone was actually a fantastic time, because it's the whole meaning of what is connection. And that was exactly it. Connection like a deep connection into everything. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: We really connected, and we were just talking all about that. Yeah, it's so, so amazing.

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, it was funny, because it’s like that [unintelligible [00:02:46]. I think this is the way that we're made human. We're vibration and energy. Even if you're at certain distance, just the tone of your voice, and the way that you communicate with others can make sense or not. But this is it. We just started talking and we talked, and we talked, and then we kept chatting, and talking, and then going deep into what you were doing. It was obvious and so well deserved to have you on the cover of the magazine. Sure, we couldn't miss that.

Melanie Avalon: Which was so so amazing. Thank you again. This is such a rabbit hole. But now, I'm just thinking about how-- Because you talk in your book about the role of music, and language, and how different parts of our brain interpret words versus sound versus music versus movement and I just wonder when you meet somebody and you're talking on the phone, I wonder how much of what you hear is-- your reaction is based on their literal voice? What goes beyond that?

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, well, its frequencies getting through the phone and you hear and getting almost the reproduction of the exact sound that you'll have to talk face to face. At least, it's a great copy, because it's using the same ups and downs in frequencies. This is probably the way that you can get connected with somebody is because you probably are totally in phase with those frequencies because they are probably the same as you will have in your cell, in your body, and in everything. I don't know, this is the new story of quantum energy and this new big trend that is going on. I am a true believer of this extra sensorial communication like feeling the aura of somebody else. I'm the true believer. And at the same time, it's a paradox, because I'm a scientist. Most scientists are just like, it's very difficult to demonstrate that now we can show that some people when they are happy, they have some sort of light around them when they're anxious, they're turning to be very dark. But we're just opening those doors or kids will know better, will find a way to communicate the proper way. But this is some sort of sixth sense and this is what is happening. Yeah. So, I need to answer your question, of course, it's a response of our brain, [laughs] it goes from there.

Melanie Avalon: I love that so much. And, of course, we're already talking about quantum physics. It's funny because you and I were talking right before this call, and you're talking about your book, and how if somebody were to read your book, because it dives really deep into all of the science and stuff, and you were talking about, if somebody just read that they might get a different view of you in their head because your persona is a little bit different in real life? 

Jean Fallacara: Totally opposite. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, can you tell listeners a little bit about your personal story, who are you? [laughs]

Jean Fallacara: If I had the answer to that I would be super happy who I am really because every day I discover another part of myself. Sometimes, it's pleasant, sometimes it's less pleasant but I think the real definition of who we are will probably be completely modeled at the end of our life. Who I was when I wrote that book, the same guy I’ve always been I would say that the book doesn't reproduce the person I am with my friends, family, and so on, because it looks like a very academic writing of what is happening in your brain, what are the parts of the brain, what is the neural connection? And time to time, you jump with some sort of, I would say, our originality putting some very tiny part of what my life is in reality into it. But I was reading it back and I go like, “Oh, my God, this book is really bad.”

Melanie Avalon: It's not bad. It is not bad. [chuckles] 

Jean Fallacara: I look like a professor and I'm not. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: It's a little bit of a conundrum because in order to have a conversation about a complex topic, you have to have a baseline knowledge. If you're engaging with your reader, you have to teach them all of this stuff. it's mandatory that you have this potentially “dry material.” So, it can be I think a puzzle. How do you communicate to people? I don’t know it can be hard.

Jean Fallacara: It is true and you are so right on that because today, I think the key factor of everything happening on our planet is communication. If you master communication, you master several aspects of life. I agree with you that you need certain baseline to make sure people understand the concept and the precepts of everything beyond our brain, our body, our functionalities, our mindset whatsoever. But the goal probably in my next book would be to do some vulgarization, make it more accessible to people to understand scientific complex system without having to go through the whole knowledge of wordings, and theories, and stuff like that and when you get that concept and you can transpose it to anyone, I'm literally seeing anyone from the age of 10 to the age of 90, and they understand it fairly completely, your mission is done. When you get to be too complex, then maybe it's because you don't get it the right-- You know Einstein, I think Einstein was saying-- Yeah. [laughs] If you cannot explain it simply that it's because you don't know it.

Melanie Avalon: Was that his quote or somebody else who said like, “Everything should be made as simply as possible, but not simpler,” something like that?

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, and it's true. I think our universe is dictated by science. The basis can be explained by science, deep and completely, almost everything except probably God. Even starting from there, you have to remember that some people, they just don't like science, but they're super interested in knowing how they work, how their body work, how their brain work, even being interested in deep science. If you make that accessible to these guys, it's fantastic. Biohacking is a bit of that because you look at those all these biohackers around the world, they're not all scientist far from there, but they're using a lot of concepts that is coming from science.

Melanie Avalon: I was actually thinking about this this week. I was thinking how, because we have a lot of conflict in the world and a lot of people not agreeing on things, and I was thinking if it boils down to it really the key issue with everything might always be people trying to communicate what reality is and disagreeing on it. Because if we all agreed on the same reality and communicated that way, I don't know how we would have arguments about anything.

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, it would be a bit septic in terms of-- The world would be not that exciting as it could be, but to a certain extreme communication. The problem with communication is recommunication. It's because when two people are starting to argue, whatever the length of the communication, most of the time you will end up by having those two people taking their paths in an opposite direction and staying on their initial [unintelligible [00:10:41]. They spend hours fighting and arguing on things to actually just transpose their ideas, not listening to others. This is the fundament of this universal communication problem we have, and the wars, and things like that. Then it's the mass effect that is created by good communicators that can enroll people that are not always thinking the right way, but they're just absorbed by the idea of, “Why this sounds good. Okay, let's do it.” Anyway, people are involved into war, and making crimes, and horrible stuff just because they're on that pattern. If you took them separately on a different story and you had a glass of wine with them at night, it would be totally different things.

Melanie Avalon: That's why, it's a reason for this show, I like to bring on people of completely opposite opinions and perspectives, because it's very easy to get in an echo chamber and just hear what you want to hear. So, going back to your personal story, when did you first get interested in everything that you're doing today, which is a lot of things? But I know you struggle with ADD and things like that.

Jean Fallacara: You know what, it's a super power for me because my whole life, I've been this kid. I was this kid that I was not in the term of hyperactivity doing stuff all the time, and moving, and jumping everywhere. I was more in the intellectual stage of it. I was bored at school, I was always learning from books, I was interested in paintings, history, philosophy, prose, poetry, mathematic, physics, everything, and I couldn't stop learning. That was my main problem and every time instead of going to play with kids and others, I prefer to create stuff, even if it was building machines or trying to get mechanical parts together. 

So, that ADD opened a lot of doors for me in terms of seeing the world, and what is possible, what is not possible, and it's been that forever. At the end of the day, I can say that, of course it's exhausting because you cannot sit on a table. If you turn your head and you see a book with the title that attracts you, automatically, you jump on it. But the problem that you're facing there is you cannot keep your focus in reading. So, you have to find techniques to read in another way, or diagonal, or jumping from words to words, but accumulating data and information in your brain. That is good because our brain is plastic, so this is the goal of learning. 

On another side, you're going to spend hundred years of your life just learning because you're going to forget things that you're not using. [laughs] Is that on purpose or not? I don't know. But I'm coming from that world, then I went through study, I was fired-- expelled from school.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? 

Jean Fallacara: Yeah. I was 17 and I was going on my bachelor actually, and I was expelled but that didn't stop me because I went back home, and I studied by myself, and only seven got their bachelor, it was in biochemistry. On the seven got it, was the sixth best of the class and me. So, I was pretty proud of that.

Melanie Avalon: So, you got expelled, you self-studied, and then you went to college and got your BS?

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, exactly. I was expelled from the school, and it was five months before the exams, and I studied on myself, and in June when the exams were to be done, I just signed up myself-- by myself as somebody else coming from the outside on that bachelor and I ended up because it was bachelor in biochemistry, and it was the same class I was following actually before being expelled. The six good from the class got it, and one outsider and it was me, and that gave me the opportunity to understand that when you want some things in life, you set your goal and nothing can stop you. As simple as that.

Melanie Avalon: So, to clarify, bachelor like a college or high school?

Jean Fallacara: When I was in France, remember? 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, right.

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, bachelor in France is the equivalent of high school here, I guess, grade 13 or something like that.

Melanie Avalon: And they do it by subjects like it was a science?

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, there you have like mathematics, science, biochemistry, chemistry, psychology, or language in the arts. I was in the biochemistry, you know what, which is a very specific one. And actually, it was a school at that time made only for girls and we were-- [laughs] other than five girls in that school and four boys, the three were ugly and I was the good looking one. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness. That's crazy. So, where did you go from there because I love learning? So, I'm the same way.

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, I know you are that. I know that. It's like that side. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: So, where do you go from there? 

Jean Fallacara: I think, so from there, I had my graduation and like, “I'm going to go to university right away.” Went to university. [laughs] I couldn't go to those courses and things where you sit for three hours, and you have to listen to somebody that is telling you what is written in the book. So, same pattern. The first year, I failed and I said, “Okay, there's a reason behind it. It maybe the way that you want to stick to the system and be like others.” And I thought back of what happened before and I said, “I'm going to go same way.” And I went from that way, and I moved from Strasbourg Street down to South of France at that time, and I went to the university there, and at the same time, I was a DJ.

Melanie Avalon: Nice. Was it electronic Mozart yet?

Jean Fallacara: Yes, of course. Yeah. I was DJ, I was doing radio shows, and I was racing cars as well at the same time as studying, being busy all the time. Months after months, I got my diploma in immunology, genetics. I ended up being first on the promotion when I went to university in immunology. And then I moved from there to studying biotech where I ended up being an engineer, which is okay, I guess.

Melanie Avalon: Question about when you were doing the DJ because you talk a lot about music in the book. Were you doing the classical electronic music yet?

Jean Fallacara: Trance music was my best bet there because the harmony, and once again we're talking about diversion again. The harmony and the mix that you can do with sounds is outstanding which you can do with techno music. People consider electronic music as boring and the redundant boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, which is not true actually. If you look at the response, the frequency response of techno music is as high as classical music. Yeah, and the effect on the brain, classical music was studied widely on kids, on teenagers, on adults. But techno music seems to have some similar, but different effects on the terms of putting you into trance. This is interesting because they call it trance music, because they had that feeling at that time that people dancing on those music words just in a trance mood. But now that we have all the tools to look at what that music is doing, it's really putting you into a flow state which is very close to trance.

Melanie Avalon: Going back to the very beginning of our conversation and we were talking about how somebody's voice would resonate or not with another person. So, when it comes to music, are there like objective types of music that will have this effect on people, like, it doesn't matter who you are or do certain people respond to different types of trance music?

Jean Fallacara: Of course, it's really depending on the person itself. But in general, I would say that effect on one type of music will trigger pretty much the same effects on everyone’s brains. But is the way that you accept it, you like it, you don't like it, or you have some concept that I'm against—in your mind I'm against techno music. Whatever you were going to do, you put techno music unless you do it as a brainwashing, the effect will not be perceived the same way. It is proven as well that on certain person trance music has a deeper effect and apparently, and this is subject to party mix, people that have the tendency or subject to addiction are more into being affected by trance music than others.

Melanie Avalon: That's interesting. I have a thought about that. Quick question before it. Every single night-- It's funny. People will often ask me my biohacking routine and what I do to wake up and then support my sleep at night and I always leave this one out and I don't know why because I think it is so, so important for me. Every night I play this track on YouTube, I think it's 528 Hertz. I think it's so important to me and I just forget I'm doing it because it's such a part of my habit. But it's funny.

Jean Fallacara: It's your routine. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. It literally makes me just wind down and it's funny if I'm talking to the phone to somebody at night, I feel it can even affect them sometimes.

Jean Fallacara: I’ll try that with you.

Melanie Avalon: We should it. Yeah, for listeners, if you go on YouTube, there's all of these different hertz tracks that you can listen to. Is that a similar thing? 

Jean Fallacara: Yes, it is, it is, it is. It's always the same. While there is a basic principle about those frequencies is like, we tend to reproduce what our planet is having as a natural some sort of emission. There's all this debate about those white sounds, binaural sounds, what is the best music, and what is the frequency of the music that you need to have getting into your brain before sleep, or after sleep, or whatsoever. There're definitely some things. I do listen to music, but you know what when I'm in Boston, I'm even sleeping with some background music.

Melanie Avalon: So, when I sleep, I'm completely quiet, but some people do have that, that music.

Jean Fallacara: I don't do that when I'm in Montreal, but I do that when I'm in Boston it's because I don't know the vibration in Boston are really different. In Boston, I’m on the 21st floor, in Montreal, I’m more like in the middle of a very quiet place. When I was going to my cottage up north, of course, I was sleeping with no noises, just nature which is the best. It's like that and it's different. But yes, I do need that and I actually even put some binaural sounds in my bedroom here. To tell you if I sleep better here or there, I'm not going to lie, I'm not sleeping better in Boston.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Well, that's why you got to bio-hack and do what you got to do. Okay, wait, let's circle back to, so you said that people who have more of an addictive personality are more attracted to this music. Okay, so what is an addictive personality?

Jean Fallacara: The thing is there is more and more studies on these addictions. The reward pattern going into our brain that makes us being addicted to certain things, or substances, or things like that. But now, the big discussion is, it looks like people that are prone to addiction are actually people with higher IQ than others. It is strange. What do you think on that, yeah?

Melanie Avalon: I was thinking about this actually right before this because I had never contemplated, because you talk in your book about how learning and acquiring information, and especially if it's something unknown that all of this release dopamine. I was thinking about how historically it would make sense that learning would release dopamine because that is how you're going to become a smarter being and survive in the world. And so, then I was thinking addictive behaviors are releasing dopamine. So, maybe the type of person that is naturally seeking dopamine and seeking addictive behaviors is also the type of person maybe have a higher IQ like that type of mind?

Jean Fallacara: Yes, because why are you trying to learn something's new, it's because you have that reward by knowing something's different and if you know something's different, automatically you feel more accomplished. I think that the goal in life would be to know everything on [laughs] on everything. Yeah, that's impossible. But novelties in your life brings some happiness already because it's new and it changes good in general. Learning some things new, open doors to learning some things even newer, or even different, or in different fields. So, the more you go that way the more probably you become addicted to the learning process and raising your baseline of serotonin, I guess, and not getting back to it. I'm not sure. But I think, yeah, you're right on that probably you are right. The IQ you know that now IQ is something that people are not even relying on too much. They're more looking at the emotional intelligence, but your emotional intelligence is fragmented and is more flexible to play with when you know things and when you know how to behave and you can learn those things by reading, by watching, by listening.

Melanie Avalon: This is a question I had for you. You talk about how the role of enjoying what you're learning how you learn it better if it's something that you are enjoying. Can you transfer that enjoyment? For example, could you be learning something that you don't necessarily like or not that excited about learning, but while doing something that is fun, so you're releasing dopamine from something else can that hack learning that way? 

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, it is actually doing something fun or somethings you for learning in the child way of it. Kids-- when they are kids, they are learning by playing and they retain all these information because their brain is open to receive this information and to store them. If you are forced to learn something, you're going to forget it anyway. Remember when you were in school and there is, like, I don't know, you go to-- geography for me was the worst thing. Geography and they're like, “Okay, you need to know where America is, where Africa is, what is the capital of this and this?” At the end of the day, I was always questioning myself, “Why is that? Why do you need that in your life to operate properly?” You're like between 13 and 14, and you look at that learning, and you just forget it. Then it comes back when you become adult because you know that it's necessary to know where is Africa, where are those countries and the capital, these things. 

But when you're younger, those things they don't stay in your memory. They don't [unintelligible [00:27:50] and the country. But in school or at home, and you're learning to do some things new. At school, you're learning some things that catch your interest. Automatically, you're going to listen to your professor, you're going to look at what is in the classroom, and that hour that you just spent just flew opposite to the other one that hour seemed to last four hours. You enjoy the process. If you enjoy your process, automatically, your brain response is to build memory because our brain is plastic. We all know that and it's faded everywhere. Today, neuroplasticity seems to be the new trend after being vegan or gluten free. Now, you're neuroplastic.

Melanie Avalon: Vegan, gluten free person with neuroplasticity. I had never really thought about that before. It's really interesting. We all go through the schooling system and yet, we walk away from it, like you said, having attached and found enjoyment from one certain aspect of it compared to all of the rest. I wonder if that's chicken or egg. I wonder if when you're a kid and you go to school, do you come to it with your brain already going to a certain type of topic or is it how it's presented to you and you like it, and then you'd like it, because you like it and it's like self-fulfilling? I wonder why certain people like different things when it comes to learning?

Jean Fallacara: Well, I believe that it's a mix of both. Remember one particular field of learning that you loved, and then suddenly you change classroom or class, and you have the worst professor that is taking over that subject or topic, and it turns out that you hate it after that because it doesn't fit. We're talking about vibration again. The information doesn't pass from your professor to your brain. You love that. This is a good example. You have mathematics, and the year after the professor is different, you hate mathematics, and you suck at it, because you hate it so deeply that you're not even capable of solving or memorizing those things. This is it. We've been through this process, everyone, I think. Even people that skipped school or left school at the age of 14, they do remember having some phases where it was not just because they were not open to learning that things, but it was because what it was brought to their attention was not appropriate for them the way that I was brought to their attention. At the end of the day, we're just human. We need to, again, have a nice communication back and forth.

Melanie Avalon: Another question about dopamine. You actually answered a question. I don't know if it's a question, but it's something I was unclear about for a long time until I read your book and it was also-- The two pathways of dopamine, I didn't realize there was one-- I guess, is it the mesolimbic and then the, what’s other one, the nigrostriatal. One of them relates to what I always thought was the entirety of dopamine, which is that pleasure response to things. Then the other one actually relates to motor activity and physical movement. I was always interested in how the role of dopamine and Parkinson's, and I didn't really understand how that all came to play. I was wondering what is the role of dopamine and these feel-good neurotransmitters in not only our mind, like, how we enjoy things, but also our physical activity which leads into what you do with exercise and calisthenics?

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, so this is the thing. You have this pathway of rewards and it's very different. It could be like, you're doing some things and it's going great, and you're super happy, and yes, you did it good, then you release dopamine, and you have pleasure of that reward, okay? Do that thing 10 times in a row and get the same reward you're going to get almost bored at the end of doing it and you're not going to feel the same pleasure of doing it, okay? That's one. The other one is, you could actually prepare yourself to get rewarded. This is one of the most important bio hack I would say in a way to optimize your performances whatever they are. Not just physical, intellectual, or others. By thinking about the pleasure that you're going to get when you're going to achieve that goal and that pathway, I believe is way more important than the strict reward pathway of releasing the dopamine. Dopamine at the end of the day what does that mean? It helps neuroplasticity. Here we are, again.

Melanie Avalon: The whole “woo-woo idea” of visualizing, it actually does something for us in the present.

Jean Fallacara: This is exactly what life is all about. You set your goals. First, you need to have goals in your life. If you don't have goals, then of course you're not going to achieve anything, you're not going to be happy, and you're not going to be-- Well, overall, you're not going to be happy in your life. But the difficulty with everyone is like, “Okay, I want to set goals, I want to be happy, I want to get my dopamine release,” and they're not capable of setting goals that are realistic enough. They set goals that are not attainable. Visualization can allow you to see, “Okay, this is way too far for me, I'm not going to make it without being negative on that pattern of thinking.” But if you visualize where you want to go, and you can make steps in between it to attain the extreme goal of that, so the visualization will help you to say, “Okay, I'm going to go through this step, I'm going to prepare myself. When I make this step, check, one.” And you're happy every time that you get over that step and that builds up memories, memory learning, and of course makes you retain the skills or the necessary movement patterns, instructions, thinking, connecting dots at the end. This is the thing. Connecting dots to get through that step one, step two, step three, step four. 

If you jump into the situation without thinking about it and without having the plan to go there. So, this is called visualization. If you're skipping that part, you're not going to make it and you're not going to get the same trigger. It's not going to take the same pathway for dopamine. Of course, I'm not saying that it's not good having surprises, it's actually very, very good in terms of dopamine release. It raises your dopamine very high, because it's unexpected but setting goal, I think that visualization is probably the key to build yourself up stronger, more efficient, and more accurate, I could say.

Melanie Avalon: We need to have specific goals. It sounds they can be big goals, but they actually need to be achievable. We need to see an actual step by step path that can get there and then we imagine those steps.

Jean Fallacara: Exactly, because otherwise you're not going to get there. This is why I put that no plan B. It’s because once you set that goal, there is no plan B. It's your plan that has to be followed. And don't think about an escape plan. As soon you start thinking about something's different than your goal, be sure that you're not going to make it. It's impossible. You're not convinced, you're not dedicated to it. So set no Plan B, look at your actual goal, visualize it, imagine yourself doing it, and you do it, and then you'll get your dopamine release. That dopamine release has been studied and it seems to be related to some substances that are very close to cannabinoid substances as well.

Melanie Avalon: What about using substances that affect that? So, things like CBD and stuff?

Jean Fallacara: Well, this is the big dilemma of my life, to be honest.

Melanie Avalon: You talked about nootropics and smart drugs and all of the different things.

Jean Fallacara: Exactly, exactly. And even one, nootropics, I think they're natural stuff that are okay and some have very solid basis like scientific basis. If you search on PubMed, you're going to find a ton of article about creatine is a nootropic. But some others like extract of, I don't know, the tooths of tiger dead in India, and the people who claim to be nootropic. There's no proof of that. And have difficulties with those things and you have to separate them from actually chemical substances like microdosing, or LSD, or psilocybin, or even stimulants like, Adderall, Vyvanse, all these things. They all have a different impact on your brain. And now, to be honest, I've tried many of these things, not LSD and microdosing. 

But the problem that is generated there, it's always the addiction that comes with any magic term, the drawback of that while trying to implement those natural pathways by sports, reading, learning, achieving some goals. On my personal experience, I think it's way better. The impact on your overall health is almost none compared to whatever you take. Nootropic, it's okay as long as they are natural, those ingredients are well balanced. I have nothing against that. But now that I've tested other substances, sequel stimulant, I can tell you that don't go that way. It's not necessary. It's a short cut that you're probably going to regret one day. 

Melanie Avalon: I feel one of the most famous ones of biohacking world is probably, Provigil. Did you ever take that? I haven't taken it. I thought if I did, I'd be awake for—I’d probably never go to sleep.

Jean Fallacara: Yeah. The impact is, yeah, that is the thing. It's a drawback. It is affecting everything we try to optimize. At the end of the day, we biohacker try to get the perfect life balance in terms of health. So, you try to extend your sleep, you try to extend your exposure to sun, you try to expand your mindfulness, self-awareness, and all these things. When you go into those substances and answers, [unintelligible [00:39:37] there is that, yeah, you're not going to sleep for two days, [chuckles] see it goes against the principle and all.

Melanie Avalon: I just know I have a really addictive personality. 

Jean Fallacara: Oh, you probably have because your IQ is very high. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, so, I can't really touch anything. Even coffee, I don't have a lot of.

Jean Fallacara: Because you compensate with wine. [laughs] 

Melanie Avalon: I do love my wine. That was one thing we bonded over, our love of wine. Yeah, which speaking of, yeah, how do you feel about the role of alcohol and wine and health?

Jean Fallacara: This is the thing. Remember, I was born in France. Wine is normal. I drink wine every day and it's been, I don’t know, 25 years that I'm probably drinking half a bottle of wine per day, even if I train or whatever. I think it is good. I think that people that are against drinking wine, I respect their principle and I respect the fact that you don't like it. But don't ban it because its alcohol based and today we see that there are a lot of benefits in drinking wine. It seems to be a bio hack by itself and you know it better than anyone there.

Melanie Avalon: I was actually just recently revisiting and researching the latest literature on, how it correlates to health or longevity and also disease and mortality. Because we got a question on the Intermittent Fasting Podcast about it. They had read some study saying that alcohol is a type 1 carcinogen and any amount is too much. I found this really good review from 2022. It's very recent. And it looks over what it considers to be the good reviews and meta-analyses of wine-- of alcohol. Is it wine? I think it's alcohol intake. Yeah, and it basically concludes that, so in general, they often say that it's a J-shaped curve for mortality and different diseases, but they basically conclude that the studies are all over the place and find all different things. My takeaway from it is, so, yes, alcohol is a carcinogen. But if we just look at correlational data, and epidemiology, and populations drinking wine, clearly it can correlate to health and longevity, and also to issues. I think it probably is very-- I think if you step back that says that there probably is a very healthy place for wine in one's diet and it might be more complicated. When the issues arise, it is probably very independent to the individual, how much they're drinking, what they're predisposed to. But I don't think the point of all that is, I don't think we should say, because it's a type 1 carcinogen that means that you shouldn't have any. That's a black and white approach.

Jean Fallacara: Exactly. Well, the resveratrol, okay, the studies and everything behind it, and it was super extended and extensive studies on that and wine was actually stated as a fantastic product for longevity and for boosting even mitochondria as a supplement because of resveratrol. This is the problem for society, again. We have communication that goes one side, one way and they take one pinpoint part, and they extend it to the extreme. And then you take another pinpoint spot of the same product and you extend it to the extreme like alcohol gives cancer.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, because like the resveratrol, it's like we want to put all of the benefits to this one molecule and focus on just that for the positive. Or, on the flipside like you just said, we make it all about the alcohol and the negative. When maybe the entirety of the drink, and it's synergistic effects, and it's integration into your diet and your overall lifestyle. So, I'm team wine.

Jean Fallacara: [chuckles] I'm with you on that. [laughs] No, we're the most complex machine ever built. Of course, every time you take one single molecule on the side, you can find whatever effect you want for it. But we can't forget that we're complex systems and we have one that is chemical and electrical that drives everything in our body. Of course, electrical that generates chemical neurotransmitters, neurotransmitter creates movements and things like that. But then, on the side of it, you have your own thoughts that have fantastic effects on everything. When you inject those substances like wine, it's a fricking complex liquid. It's not just like water and color red inside. It's super complex. It comes from bacteria that have worked hard to transform sugar in alcohol, and all the process of fermentation, and things like that. Once again, it's super elaborated. It's not a simple liquid with one molecule into it. So, of course, it has different effect, good or not. At the end of the day, it's just everything. Don't abuse. Don't abuse on everything. It's not good whatever you do.

Melanie Avalon: I can't let you be here and not talk about your engagement in calisthenics, which I keep hinting at. My thing, okay, cool exercise or concentrated workouts at the gym is not my forte. You and I talked about this on the phone. I live very active, and I wear weights during the day, and I move around, but I don't really do-- Well, actually, my new thing that I'm doing is the lazy man's way out. I've been doing a lot of EMSculpt muscle stimulation.

Jean Fallacara: But that's a good one, actually.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, I'm obsessed. [laughs] I've been doing my hamstrings, and my glutes, and my abs, and my arms, all the things.

Jean Fallacara: But it's a bit of a shortcut. 

Melanie Avalon: It is. It's amazing. It is not that pleasant sometimes, but the effects are-- I'm really, really impressed with the effects. For listeners, basically, it stimulates your muscles and makes them contract a lot within a short amount of time and it does it deeper than you could consciously and you basically build muscle later from just lying there. So, that aside, calisthenics. I'm so fascinated by this. For listeners who are not familiar, can you talk a little bit about what that is and what is neuroscience calisthenics or is it always calisthenics?

Jean Fallacara: No, well, actually calisthenics is, it's one of the oldest sports coming from Greek. It's a mix of movement and grace. It's the beauty of making some movements that are quite difficult to do of course, because they require to have every single muscle of your body to be involved in the process of that. When I started calisthenics, I was fascinated actually because I saw a guy coming in a gym, jump on the bar, and just holding that. It's called front lever position. It's like you are flat, doing a plank but reversed and hanging on the bar. I was just like, “Holy, smoke, how can you do that?” It's really impossible for human to do that. I was with a trainer and I go to a trainer, “I want to do that.” My trainer was like, “No, man, forget it. You're too old.” I was like, “What?” He goes, “Yeah, it's for kids. Then you're going to have your tendons and your joints. You require-- you cannot do that after 25” and I'm like, “You know what, I'm starting now today.” I've learned so, because I'm a learner all the time. I started to try to gather information about calisthenics, and what it was, and where it was coming from. But actually, it was simply coming from gymnastics adapted to street workout. So, basically, it's gymnastics without the rules of gymnastics, but still keeping the same forms and movements. It was done by people that had actually no money, because they couldn't afford to go to gym. So, they weren't doing body workout outside and going those things inspired by gymnastics. 

I've been raised in a family with a bit of money. Everything that was coming from the street, of course, attracted me, because it was a rejection of the education I got [laughs] and that's it. Being punk is part of it. He came to really grab my attention and from there I started calisthenic, doing these movements and gym. I started to take it very seriously because the effect that it was doing on my brain was really different than any other sport. I want to check what was studied in gymnastics in University of Miami in Deep Psychology of Sports Department. They had few publications on that. I was fascinated by the fact that gymnastics in general and they studied that was an addictive sport, but required people to be into the flow state. Since probably the age of 10, flow state is something that has fascinated me so much and it's probably a reason why I tried those substances as well trying to get this flow state in a way or the other.

To go back to calisthenics, I started to train calisthenics and I was so dedicated to it that I was using technique to trigger the right neurotransmitter at the right time to be able to perform better movement, learn them in a way that it was probably faster than others. In few months, applying those principles, basic principles and couple of bio hacks that I'm going to talk about in a minute. People in the field of calisthenics were looking at me and were like what the-- How did you come up with this progress in so short period of time? My answer was always a funny one and I would like, “It's because I'm a cyborg. I process information.” [laughs] That's why it's Cyborggainz on my Instagram. But at the end of the day, the principle is very simple. If you know how to put your brain in a phase of better learning, faster learning, those movements that triggers a lot of neurotransmitters and put your body to certain extreme conditions like you can hold your feet in the air defying gravity just on your arm that requires certain training, a certain adaptation. I loved it so much that I studied actually how to implement those trigger every time you want to perform better, and go further, and go faster, and learn, and be stronger that I came up with this concept of neuroscience calisthenics.

It was easy for me because it was all based on neuroscience, not pretending that it's the achievement of neuroscience, but it's basic principle of neuroscience applied to a sport that requires every single part of your body. So, neuroscience calisthenic was born. I'm a businessman. So, the first thing I've done is, I trademark that name and then I wrote the book.

Melanie Avalon: What are some types of calisthenic exercises that people might be familiar with that they're already doing? Is a push up, a pull up? 

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, it is, it is. Anything related to push and pull is directly linked to calisthenics. Anything that is related to body workout, so the basic principle of calisthenics is, you want to start calisthenics, start doing some pushups. Simple as that. And this is the way you need to start. You need to be able to do pushups, you need to be able to do pull up, you need to be able to lift up your body, and of course, you need to train your core, which, by the way if your core is solid, your whole body is solid. It's not cold core for no reason. Then movement from there, of course, when you look at the majority of people look at calisthenics, so, when you see people doing handstands, which is one of the most known figures. You do handstand and people, “No, my upper body is too big, no--" You're that type of person. And then you are the other type of person that is the opposite. They start today, but they would like to have the handstand achieved.

Melanie Avalon: Right now?

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, exactly, tonight, it's impossible. Everything will require process, and discipline, and practice. Practice makes perfect. But you can practice in a way that is more efficient than just practicing. This is the principle. The basic principle of neuroscience calisthenics actually, it's telling people that when you go to work out or to practice training, put your mind, align with your mind, prepare your body, provide your brain, and your training will be efficient. If you don't go training that way, multiply by 10, 20, or 25, the time that you will be required to get to the same goal that you have set and of course, you have visualized before.

Melanie Avalon: The neuroscience part and that hack that you created for people to make progress faster, like, what are people doing.

Jean Fallacara: Okay, to better perform and it's known by any science applied to sport, performance based is often related to state of flow, okay? To get to the state of flow where you're doing something that is so easy to do, but still requires some efforts and you do it in a way that it's almost natural for you, it's a long process to get there. But if you are able to prepare your brain to get into that flow state and then make your training in a flow state, every single rep, or move, or practice that you're going to do involve a series of neurotransmitters that will act in very defined part of your body weights and considering it the reward pattern that we're talking about before, and you make sure every single training that you are making are efficient enough when they're accomplished, you end up your training also with some feeling of achievement that are crucial for performance and progress. In simple words, you can implement stuff like cold exposure that are really basic biohacking techniques. Cold exposure before or after sports, meditation before entering to your workout. And sometimes, you can use stimulators that are more artificial, I would say and natural biohack. But one of the things that I've been using long time was tDCS, transcranial direct stimulation, I've been part of those-- user of the [unintelligible [00:55:59] Neuro, you remember that headset, screen? The company went bankrupt, so he was like--

Melanie Avalon: Is it Muse or--? 

Jean Fallacara: No, Muse is very basic, no offense, neuro was really using a particular technique of sending electrical signal with some small peaks into your scale. I was using it and I found that I was really progressing fast and no placebo effect, because I'm trying to avoid all the BS around those people selling stuff, and pretending that it's working, and is improving your neuroplasticity. So, that one worked very well. Fortunately, the company went bankrupt.

Melanie Avalon: So, how did you know there wasn't a placebo effect? 

Jean Fallacara: Well, if you align your mindset by saying, “Okay, I'm not convinced that this product is really working. I just want to measure” and you take measurable data during your workout or after, preferably after, so you don’t butcher what you're doing. Then you know that it's probably not the placebo. The placebo was some pre-alignment of your thought that you're taking something that is going to act on your body. So, avoid that part and say, “Nah, it's not going to work but I want to try it.”

Melanie Avalon: And then you measure?

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, you take measurements. This is important. Biofeedback is always one of the most crucial parameters of things to do, it's because it gets you to a point where you know what you're doing. But the funny story after all these years, I'm not wearing any Oura Ring and they're very good, those things. But if you know your body enough, you're your own biofeedback tool and you almost don't need all these things to know where you're going or what you're doing. This is a bit of principle of what I would like to see in the world is, people capable of knowing that we have limits, we have potential. Most people know their limits, but they don't know their potential and they don't want to see it we're capable of doing so much. Everyone, not just me or you, you more than me, but everyone on this planet.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Actually, speaking to that, so you're talking about how when you first saw calisthenics and the trainer said, you couldn't do that after age 25, so you also say in your book that the difference between basically somebody in their 20s and their 50s really is just their mindset. To what extent, just speaking of literally, the actual potential limits of things. How much of it actually is mindset? What role does aging play? Because presumably, it can't always be mindset, can it? There’s must be some limit.

Jean Fallacara: No. Well, our cell structure and system are certain limits and our genetics dictate, give the expression of our gene, dictate the way that we're going to probably get older or fade out and away. There're things that we can control and there're others that we cannot or we can hack actually. But what is the part of the mind? The mind can have impact on a lot of aspects of our health in general. It cannot change genetic or expression of genes, but it can impact it in a way that you absorb certain elements or others more than others. What is the part of it? I'm not capable of giving you an exact metric as a scientific guy would try to do. [laughs] But I can tell you that mindset is probably 90% of what you're capable of achieving in terms of performances, and intellectual development, and is probably only 10% on what you can achieve or change in terms of staying young and not having wrinkles or less mobility and things like that. There's this factor of, it's not controllable by your mind. You need more than that.

Melanie Avalon: Well, it actually relates to what I was talking about with the EMSculpt and how they say. I don't know the exact science of this, but they say that it makes your muscle contract more than you actually could because your mind stops you from doing that.

Jean Fallacara: It's true. That is true, actually. This is one of the first concept that I will tell anybody that starts when you get to the point where you do reps or sets and you get to do, I don't know, you're doing 10 reps for example, if you do weightlifting, and you're at six, and you're just like, “Ah, no more. I can’t do more than that.” This is very basic fundament. But you're only at 40% of your real capacity is just because your brain that is made to be in the safe mode all the time will trigger neurotransmitter to tell you or to make you think that you cannot go further than that. Why it is doing that? It is just wants to protect your body from-- We're lazy-- or not lazy, we prefer rest instead of running. We prefer doing nothing instead of being active. We prefer to not moving instead of moving. We prefer just to be on the autopilot system and control system. This is it. When you do EMSculpt and you cannot even go against that argument that they say it contracts your muscle more. Probably, others muscle, yes but not mine.

Melanie Avalon: Not yours, because you've been able to lift that limit.

Jean Fallacara: Exactly. When I'm at my 100% that I think, I'm probably, honestly without being arrogant or egocentric in this, but I'm probably close to the 90% of my capacities.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. I believe it looking at your Instagram?

Jean Fallacara: But I still have 10% to go.

Melanie Avalon: I know. That's amazing. When there are those stories of a mother lifting a car off of her baby or something. So, is that basically just the brain letting the body do what it could do all along?

Jean Fallacara: Yes, of course. We have this trance and remember we're coming from monkeys. How many of us are able to hang up on one arm and stay for an hour there? Monkeys can do and they don't have muscular fiber different than ours. It's the same principle, the same system. They use it differently, we're not. We became very lazy in our modern world society because everything is easy to do and effort is almost useless. But if you put the effort into it, you can build back those things that we had in our heritage and bring back the strengths that you could have like lifting. While lifting a car because the kid was under, it's more some sort of adrenaline effect that triggers some super strong electrical signal to the muscle that contracts all at the same time. But let's pretend that you can control your neurotransmitter and you're able by yourself to trigger the same pattern with the same molecules that gives you that instant one split second trance that would be awesome. But in terms of performance for sport that short is going out because it's a very short period of time. But ideally it would be able to trigger maybe less adrenaline, but still all the concept of these super strength that the mother had when she lifted that car in a way that you're going to go above your 40%. And this is what I'm trying to do with neuroscience calisthenics as simple as that.

Melanie Avalon: I'm inspired now. [chuckles] I need to start doing this.

Jean Fallacara: I’m going to get you there. 

Melanie Avalon: I know. So, for listeners who want to start doing this, how do they start?

Jean Fallacara: They start by leaving their phone when they go to the gym.

Melanie Avalon: What if they're listening to music on it?

Jean Fallacara: Well, okay, listen to music, put it in-- Now, everything is Bluetooth. So, there is no wired. So, no excuse to have the phone close to you. You can leave it in a drawer and put your headset. Yeah, and music is very good actually when you do sport. But this is the first thing. Second, put your attention to what you're doing and avoid to talk to others. It's real. What I'm saying, but people that are working out together and spend 90% of their workout time talking and chatting that's not an efficient one. Of course, it's social and it's good. It's good for the brain. But you can do socialization after if you're dedicated to what you're doing. I don't want to sound like too drastic or radical on that, but this is true. I'm a strong believer that when you engage in something in life and you decide to do it, you have to go all the way. Otherwise, you better just not do it or not say it. It's the same for sports, too. 

Way too many people want to perform, but they don't put the right parameter and setup in place. Yeah, I want to start calisthenics and I'm going to the gym with a phone, chatting, looking at the girls that is doing handstand there. And oh, yeah, nice, walking around and things like that. And then not trying to focus and then they complain because they're not performing. You want to start, put some dedication into what you're doing. That's the first thing. And discipline yourself to be able to get into that state of mind. The flow state is one of the most important for performance, achiever or control state, I posted that on LinkedIn recently. I would dream of a world where the leader of the world would be able to put themself in a flow that puts their worker and colleagues into a flow state as well. But to get to that type of world in our modern society will require a lot. Corporate America is different. You need to work eight hours and we all know backed by science that we're not performers eight hours in a row. We can perform 90 minutes in a row. That's the maximum timespan that we are able to concentrate on some things. In those 90 minutes, it's just 12 minutes that are very intense.

Melanie Avalon: A lot of barriers to overcome, but a lot of very valuable information and it's very implementable once we change our mindset. Well, this has been absolutely amazing. I am just so grateful that we've connected and the work that you're doing is just really, really incredible and life changing. What resources would you like to put out there? How can listeners get the magazine, how can they follow your work, how can they get involved?

Jean Fallacara: But first of all, you are exceptional, okay? Not me. What you do is exceptional. I'm just trying to give some tips to everybody and to make this work better in a way or the other, simple. Yes, the magazine is one of the best tool, I guess, out there like Biohackers Magazine is the first and only magazine dedicated to biohacking first. But the beauty of that magazine, it's because people like you Melanie, and many very elite and knowledgeable biohackers are contributors to our magazine. This is why it's so interesting because it covers different aspects of our life with serious backup, science backup as well. An interesting bio hack that I would not even sometimes think about and not even know, so that is the reference. If this is the best thing to probably subscribe and you can subscribe on biohackersmagazine.com. As simple as that or follow the page on Instagram as well by @biohackersmagazine at first step.

Melanie Avalon: Well, I will put links to all of that in the show notes. And friends, there's been a lot of guests on this show on the cover of that magazine, you've had Shawn Wells, you've had Catharine Arnston with her algae company. I haven't interviewed Ben Greenfield, but he's been on the cover. So, you've definitely collected a really amazing body of work.

Jean Fallacara: [unintelligible [01:09:28] Yeah, and recently we had my friend and cyborg as well, Mark Divine. There're two cyborgs on this planet and apparently, he was the first and then he said, “No, you were.”

Melanie Avalon: So funny. That is amazing. Well, we will put links to that in the show notes. The last question that I ask every single guest on this show and it's just because I realize more and more each day how important mindset is, which is so perfect. So, what is something that you're grateful for?

Jean Fallacara: Life. Just that. Life. Life is about being happy. Happiness can be found everywhere when you decide to get it. I'm grateful for being alive. Every morning I wake up and the Sun is there, I can see it, and I know other people and I can communicate. I can talk and can see things. Not everything I say-- I don't watch TV. So, I'm not exposed to those BS around the world. I'm trying to stay positive and things I'm grateful for life and you now?

Melanie Avalon: I love that. That brings everything full circle, because listeners-- You and I first started talking before this, that's what we were talking about. I was thinking, “Man, I wish we were recording this.” So, we got to say it now because we were just talking about how wonderful it is to just so enjoy life and wake up.

Jean Fallacara: Yeah, life is beautiful. You can see it that way and it can be. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: I agree. Well, thank you Jean. I am so, so grateful for your work and all that you're doing. You are incredible. I mean that. I'm so excited to see the future of everything that you do, and stay in touch, and meet you in person in the future.

Jean Fallacara: Absolutely. I can't wait for that and I'm so grateful for this invitation and Melanie your gift. So, I'm grateful for that that we got to know each other. It's fantastic. It was meant to be actually.

Melanie Avalon: I agree so much. Well, thank you. Thank you for being here and I will talk to you later. Thanks. Bye.

Jean Fallacara: Bye.

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