Now if you want good skin, you have to have good blood flow so that the blood is flowing, carrying oxygen and nutrients to the tissues. And then also now detoxing, carrying away metabolic processes, metabolic waste products are free, and co2. So if you don't have good blood flow, you're not going to have good,
good function of your entire system, if you will.
So no high performance our strategy would be complete without high performance skin. I'm excited to welcome Rachel Varga, to the show today to talk about bio hacking skincare, anti ageing, and how you can really look and feel younger by embracing natural approaches without having to resort to aesthetics, and other things. We're going to be talking about what works, what doesn't, what's toxic for your skin, what the impact of things like EMF have on your skin, for example, and how you can protect yourself. We're talking about the importance of gut health, oxygen and circulation, and how those impacts their skin. The things that you can be doing at home to really enhance your radiance and glow, and cool new peptides and things like that. I'm really excited to welcome Rachel Varga to the show. She is the host of the top podcast Rachael Varga podcast. She is an international clinical trainer for physicians and nurses. She's a celebrity skin experts been featured on Dave Asprey, JJ, Virgin and more. And she's also a five time academically published award winning author in the field of regenerative and aesthetic nursing. She really knows her stuff. He's also absolutely lovely. And he's going to share with us today, how you can really upgrade your skin. So without further delay, let me introduce you now to the lovely Rachel Varga.
So, Rachel, it's so fun to have you on the show. We just got off an Instagram live together, which I loved. A very warm welcome to the show. It's amazing to have you here today.
Thank you for having me, Angela. And we are both two fellow biohacking nerd deaths with our blue blocking glasses on. You can also see, it's funny when we go to different events and conferences, I always notice who's wearing their blue blockers. It's almost like this indicator that Yep, they're on the right track, it's the eyes and the skin around the eyes is actually the first part of the the face to show signs of ageing. And we can talk all about that we can talk ways to slow ageing, almost get the best Hair, Skin nails of our life with research backed information based on some publications that I've put out as well. So I'm an open book today, Angela, let's I'm excited.
I'm so excited to kind of quiz you on all anti ageing because I do wear so I have like daytime glasses that I wear sometimes. And then on my phone, I have like a blue light blocking shield, hockey shield that I use and on my screens. And then when it hit kind of 630 That's kind of my time in the evening that I transition into yellow and then proceed purposes really, and move into the red. But tell me about that because I remember speaking to Dr. Jenn Haley about this and she was talking actually about even wearing sunscreen potentially in front of a screen. And he explained what the problems are around the blue light and ageing the skin?
Well, it just so happens I'm writing a literary review research article on this very topic, I'm actually doing three parasites in the skin electromagnetics and the skin and blue light in the skin. And when clients meet with me, they oftentimes are on relatively the right track with their health and wellness and all of that and they just want to get their skin on point. And then I start to ask them questions about their routines. What are they doing? Are they washing their face twice a day, morning and evening? Are they wearing sunscreen? And oftentimes what I hear is no, I'm just working from home, I'm not wearing sunscreen. Okay, here's the kicker. Here's the data for all you all you biohackers out there, the blue light coming from your devices and your screens and the blue lights. Unfortunately in most of our homes now, that wavelength of blue light is actually penetrating 100 nanometers deeper into the skin than the naturally occurring UVA and UVB rays that you're getting outside. It is absolutely imperative to ensure that you are wearing sunscreen on the high real estate areas every day in my opinion, face, neck, chest and hands, the sides of the neck as well as even the tops of the arms. And the the most important thing to know about that is to make sure you're only using mineral sunscreens, not these BB cream CC creams, Primaris tinted foundations that have a blend of chemical and mineral sunscreens, but they're marketed Does mineral I see this all the time? So easy thing to do is grab your sunscreen or your beauty product and look at the back or go on the manufacturers website and look at the active ingredients. If there's any active ingredients other than zinc and titanium, say there's an evil ban zone or oxy Ben zone, anything that isn't zinc or titanium in that active ingredient section with like a percentage, that's a chemical sunscreen filter and need to stop using that because it is actually interfering with your healthy hormone production. If it kills plant life imagine what it's doing to you.
That's the thing, isn't it? I'm curious actually what your thoughts are. Like we're planning to go to southern Spain in a few weeks time. And it's not going to be that hot there at this time of the year. But obviously the heat doesn't necessarily show the strength of the sun. What about what do you recommend them for even like just not myself but my kids when you're going in terms of sun exposure to put on the children how much time for example? What are your thoughts? And what does the research say?
I'm a big fan of actually using pregnancy Safe Kids safe products on myself for my haircare my cleaning my deodorants. So essentially what that entails is ensuring you're using products free of a couple of key toxins, which I'm going to list out. And you're going to have to start doing this with your dish soap, your laundry detergent and your cleaning products. Every single thing that you're purchasing for cleaning and personal care products. It must be free of parabens, phthalates, sulphates. Even if it says it's like a plant based sulphate, artificial dyes fragrances, sometimes fragrances are okay you do have to check with the manufacturer, it could just be a proprietary essential oil blend, which is not various, of course not tested on animals. When it comes to sunscreen for you as a mature woman listener, maybe some men out there and wanting to have products that are fine for your little ones too. That also won't make you look like a ghost. I actually offer a wonderful 20% zinc sunscreen that basically for me, I'm a Fitzpatrick skin type two. So traditionally we'll talk about this why I'm not so responsive to the Sun anymore as I used to be but previous to doing biohacking taking adaptogens antioxidants I would burn in about 10 to 15 minutes. So if I wanted to have some beautiful time outside as an outdoor enthusiast, I would really need to either cover up or make sure I had sunscreen on my arms or barriers of the body. And the worst part of that is if you're using the wrong sunscreen, it can make you look white like a ghost. So the trick is using clean products that are micronizing not nano but micronized zinc, and then this one particular that are referencing to its ultra zinc 20% It just blends in and looks like you've just put moisturiser on I even recommend having the sunscreen and a Hydrating Lip sunscreen too. That's only mineral sunscreen in your handbag at all time. So instead of reaching for hand cream, go for this sunscreen that will also act as a hand cream. And then it will help to prevent sunspots,
which is on an honesty from driving. Right. I think that's the key
driving and walking. Yeah, absolutely.
to optimise my sleep each night there are two things that I did on my non negotiables. The first is to get outside and get early access to morning light. And the second one is to block blue light in the evening with blue light blocking glasses. The best lenses I found are those by Bong charge, they don't let any of that sneaky light come in underneath the lens which I used to find really annoying when I was reading my Kindle and things like that. These lenses block all the blue light and they're super high quality and the great thing is they look really stylish too. On charges glasses are made in optics laboratories in Australia. They're not mass produced in factories in Asia. And they have science backed technology that's been tested to ensure they work and as I say they have dramatically improved my sleep I'm sleeping longer, deeper and I'm feeling refreshed the next morning and the cool thing about their glasses is they come in non prescription prescription and reading options. They also have glasses for every need including computer glasses to help with digital eyestrain, light sensitivity glasses for helping with low mood and migraines and the blue light blocking glasses that I'm using for improving sleep. I also have other amazing products such as Blue, low blue light bulbs, red light therapy devices, EMF 5g protection. I have that on my mobile Phone I have that on my kids mobile phones and I also wear their bond charges, EMF blocking bracelet, and their 100% blackout sleep masks all backed by science and bond charge ship worldwide in rapid time with easy returns and exchanges. And you can save a cool 20% of any of their products in their range, simply go to bond charge.com forward slash Angela and use coupon code Angela to save 20% That's BONCHARG e.com/angela and use coupon code. Angela to save yourself 20%
I would love to share my story as how I no longer am as reactive. Yes,
please do because I'm wondering like in my head is like I'm thinking is it sceetos I've ever been really curious?
Yes, absolutely following a low inflammatory lifestyle so no toxic seed oils, no canola oil, anything that can be inflammatory. It's essentially the sun's rays which is on adulterated beautiful life force and energy are we need the sun to survive. We need the sun in the morning and evening for our circadian rhythm. So it's not anything to fear. And yes, getting as much of that full body exposure couple of minutes a day is a really good idea. I personally even as a double Board Certified Aesthetic Nurse Specialist, I do not fear the sun. What I do is ensure I have great products that I place on my face, neck, chest, hands, top of the shoulder sides, the neck, and then I take some very hyper focused antioxidants and specific supplements to basically give my body this internal defence when I started to really enhance my immune support a few years ago, and I started taking more NAC Kusile Turin Xang green tea extract different antioxidants like superoxide dismutase more omegas follow a low inflammatory diet. And that includes not eating leftovers over 24 hours they release histamines and making sure that my food is highly focused to supporting my epigenetics. So no longer eating kale or oat milk or anything like that. Things that could be quote unquote, marketed as healthy or we've been programmed to believe is healthy, could very well be inflammatory for us. So thankfully, as biohackers, we have access to incredible test kits out there, I won't drop names if you don't want me to there. But there are some great test kits on the market. And I'm sure that you're aware of these as well, that it's a simple stool test. And it basically gives you a readout of your super foods, your minimise foods and your flat out avoid foods that highly recommend doing that. And I started to observe that I could be outside in my bathing suit in the summer months. And I was like what the heck I've been reading or working out here. And I'm not burning like a tomato anymore. So it's this concept of chocker blocking your body full of antioxidants as well as adaptogens leading a low inflammatory lifestyle, which will allow your body to be less, more resistant to sun damage. Now there's also a more advanced layer to this, which I am researching in the world of peptides. So let me know if you have any questions. And then that can be a really cool topic today.
Definitely I want to dive into that. Before we go into the peptides. I just want to ask you when you're looking at the skin, right? So you're looking at burning so for example, I don't tend to really burn in the sun. If I put sunscreen on or I don't if I'm out there. I don't I tend to just kind of go from there. I guess my father was Lebanese, so maybe it's that skin tone. But how much is that playing apart in terms of our risk factors for skin cancer? And do you think for like purposes of vitamin D production? I know you mentioned morning and evening for circadian rhythm. I'm just really curious. How much time is ideal in terms of spending time in the sun because you see so much across social media with different doctors and biohackers saying don't use sunscreen, build up your own defences but don't stay out too long, and then other people saying you should have at all. I'm just curious.
Yes, well, you and I Angela are very different skin types. I'm a Fitzpatrick skin type two. I am a European mutt. And when I go into the sun, I would be more prone to burning because I don't have as much melanin in the skin and we're going to talk about melanin with peptides as well and some research on this. So someone like myself is at a higher likelihood of developing skin cancers and skin cancers are very serious, because what can happen is those skin cancer cells can basically leach into You the Body and create other issues. I've even had precancerous lesions removed from a few naughty years in my late teens using the sun beds. So after that, that was a bit of a wake up call for me to be a little bit more aware. And for someone like yourself, you're more of a Patrick skin type three, so you are a little bit more prone to more bronzing or then there's Fitzpatrick skin type four. And of course, what we're talking about here is not medical advice. It's educational information only. If you think you have a medical condition, you must seek the guidance of a licenced physician. Now, these are all important factors to consider on how you're going to react to the sun. One of the misconceptions that I see is people think, Oh, I'm just gonna get a base tan, and that will give me protection. That is not true. Now in the world of peptides, there was actually a substance called Malana tan one, which research on this began in the late 1990s. And then they discovered okay, we can make this formula a little bit better. And now we have Milena 10. Two, and this works on four different pathways. And it not only helps the body to create more melanin, so it's fabulous for someone like me to actually give me a tan, instead of having to go the self tanner route, which I've done for many years and work with excellent organic self tanners that do give a lovely colour. However I am on this train myself of investigating this particular peptide, because I'm very interested in the anti ageing, antioxidant hormone balancing libido enhancing cognitive enhancing properties, as well as peptides from this one guy. So it's a very exciting. And then what's interesting because of the law, it's Malana 10. Two is considered the Barbie peptide. There's also there's a few key three key elements that gives it that name. Number one, it makes you tanned. Which was essentially a side effect the nice side effect. Yeah. Number two, it enhances libido. So not just you know physical performance in men, which is where Cialis and Viagra come into play. It's also a bit more of a feeling of connection, and libido enhancement. And then number three is actually appetite suppressant. So then there's also those other benefits that I listed off as well. And you can find this research a great resource for this stuff is peptides.org. You can basically look on any peptides you want. There's tonnes of research on the studies, and how long this has been available. I'm the type of practitioner having performed over 20,000 rejuvenation procedures since 2011. I've seen things go very wrong with lasers with injectables, not by my own doing, however, needing to correct things from other individuals that unfortunately had not great experiences. And one of the things that I learned was to never jump onto anything when it's brand new. And I really learned this in the facial injectable world with you know, this bright, shiny new product comes out laser, it can be an actually anything skincare, injectable laser surgery, body contouring all this stuff. My recommendations for being a more conservative type of provider is to okay, it's been studied for a while. It's been on the general population now for seven to eight years. And why I take that timeline for looking into rejuvenation options, things with same things with peptides and stem cells, where peptides and stem cells are now is essentially where Botox was in the 90s. So when I was at, and I have an opinion on that as well, there are cleaner options on the market, which I'm happy to get to talk to you about published research. Absolutely. People need to know these things. So when I'm sitting in the room with 40 of North America's top stem cell peptide doctors, and they're kind of in a cowboy phase right now they're figuring out the protocols, the dosing the applications, the products themselves are going through, like the example in the line of 10 One 2,000,000,010 Two, it takes a few years for the protocols to be better established the products themselves to maybe go through reiterations I've seen this embody contrary in medical aesthetics as well. So that's why I always like to just kind of take a step back a few years ago peptides got really popular BPC 157 PT 141 Mallanna tan, everyone was talking about this a few years ago and after a few years, practitioners that are offering these things in you know some of the most premier anti ageing long Gravity aesthetics clinics, they've been working with them now for a while. So things are getting better honed in, for example, ways to reduce nausea that can happen from some of these products. So that's the position I like to take is I like to just kind of sit back and be in that observer. I'm a researcher. And so that's what I like to do is review things. How long has it been studied? How long has the product been on the market? How long is it now being used on the general population, and, you know, the products themselves and the protocols are starting to now get honed in. And that's typically when I start to do deep dives.
I agree with you, I think sitting back a little bit. I was gonna ask you about another one. What about GH K copper, in terms of this topical application is where I've seen it. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, there's a lot of mixed information out there on copper, as well as other things like micro needling. And Copper has traditionally been used in topical skincare products, for pigmentation reduction for brightening up of the skin. And there are some people that have copper sensitivities as well. So that may be something to take into account. However, I actually have a copper Peptide Serum right beside me. And it's mixed with hyaluronic acid, lactic acid, all sorts of good things. So one of the things that's coming up for me now, which I think is worth discussing, is just because you see a hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, A retinol, a copper peptide, or this other side, listed as a hero ingredient. In the labelling and the marketing of a product, what actually really matters is the stability of the final product. So say the hyaluronic acid can actually be absorbed, it's the right molecular size, that retinol isn't or vitamin C, vitamin C, can very much become a free radical if it's not kept stable and oxidises. So that's where the sophistication of formulations comes in. Some of the best skincare products that I work with, I work with about 15 different brands. And I have since 2011. And I see what people keep coming back for I've seen what people get results for. So there are different ways to use some of these actives topically. And there's also different ways to use some of these actives in a more transdermal sense, say with your mole rolling. Now this isn't do not buy these things from third party auction websites, you want to make sure that you're getting a really good product, you're getting a really good roller, a lot of the rollers that I'm seeing sold online by various different companies are made in the Orient, the metals themselves are an alloy. So think about that for a second could be a mixture of metals that you don't know about microscopically, if I've looked at some of the analyses on some of these dermal rollers and things for home use, they can actually be up close the the needles or blades, and I even seen it in even in my local hometown, a needle coming out from the barrel on the tool here and actually getting embedded in the skin. So I trust I trust rollers that have been manufactured since the 90s. And there are some excellent protocols to go along with it. There is the how
do you do that you have to be in terms of those needles, because I've seen different sides, like one skincare company I was using, they're like actually, you don't need to go very deep. You're just literally a very, very small needle just to help the product owner tick penetration because you're not stimulating Are you on your own, you'd need to go into clinic to stimulate that collagen production is my understanding. Because it's yes, invasive procedure.
So oftentimes, when we think of micro needling, we think of that picture of that celebrity Kim K with a red face, right, the Vampire Facial also, if you will, no, you do not need to go that deep, you shouldn't be seeing any blood, it shouldn't be painful. So there are a few different depths that I work with, there's actually three that I work with. So what it comes down to is a client's skin how deep I might want to start them with or if they're wanting to focus on more deeper acne scarring, or C section scar is more laxity to the abdomen or laxity to the top of the knees. So different depths can be used for different things. But essentially what we're wanting to do is create little holes in the skin to allow the products to be delivered not just topically, but transdermally 100 to 1000 times deeper. Now what's important to consider with that is most products on the market are intended for topical use only not transdermal. So you have to be very particular, which products you're using with Derma rolling. And I was fortunate enough when I started in the medical aesthetics industry in 2011 to actually work very closely with the research assistant I have one of the four doctors in there was a doctor in Western Canada and on the west coast here in us in the UK and South Africa, they all sort of discovered these, this option for at home collagen stimulation pain, mutation reduction, kind of at the same time. So I was very fortunate to have actually seen clients in their 60s and 90s that had been diligently doing a really great practitioner grade skincare routine with micro needling. And they actually had more collagen in their skin than some people that I would be seeing for different facial type treatments in their 20s and 30s. So I started to really pay attention to this very cost effective time efficient option. However, you need to have the skin stable with a couple of key basic skincare products. Talk to the skin with actives like retinol, copper, hyaluronic acid, lactic acid, and then start to integrate the things like Derma rolling, a lot of clinics are offered at offering in clinic micro needling, some of them are better than others, some of them are using radiofrequency with it. But this this is a tool to me that's really stood the test of time. And again, very cost and time efficient.
And what do you do? Do you just clean it with like alcohol? Yeah, so
there's actually a whole protocol that I give my clients I have this entire dermal rolling checklist of the order to do everything and how to take care of the product itself, as well as offering ongoing support because there's definitely a little bit of learning curve. And I know we have like a 45 minute hour long podcast so we can leave it at that there. I will say that there are very specific ways to to clean the skin, apply the products used roller care for the roller that I love to walk my clients so
awesome. And we'll link actually in the show notes to consultations with you because I think a lot of people be interested in that. I often get asked what skincare Am I using and there's a range that I absolutely love that gives me kind of plumping effect the anti ageing, and the radiance and glow that I'm looking for and that is youngers I absolutely love their products I use their bio retinol serum, their hyperbaric oxygen mask, I use their adaptogenic hyaluronic acid firming boost their green tea serum before use my red light in the morning. And I use their biosci peptide spray and their niacin based lip gloss which gives this beautiful plumping effect in addition to their care any D flagship product. And you can save yourself 20% off your first order by going over to youngest.com and entering code Angela Foster 20 at checkout That's why OUNGG O S e.com and enter code Angela Foster 20 checkout to save yourself 20% off their entire range. Just kind of thinking then around. One thing, one question I had was in relation to any D skincare. That's kind of more and more prevalent in the biohacking. I was just thought wondering what your thoughts on that in terms of what you've seen results wise. And the site was
one of my good friends is actually a formulator for likely the one you're talking about. So I was chatting with him. And it was actually kind of like a biohacker dinner. It was quite lovely. And we're all exchanging ideas. And I think some people are really onto some things. However, I do like for new actives to be on the market for a while and see some consistent results with it some research, research and development photography before and afters. I'm really particular with what I suggest and put my name behind. I'm excited to see I'm seeing methylene blue in skincare, I'm seeing it ad we've been seeing peptides like matrics or 3000 and copper peptides for for decades now. And it's just I always take new things with a grain of salt, because I never want to waste anyone's time and money. I like to sleep very well at night and ensure that I am suggesting something that is a benefit and isn't just trendy. So I'm really excited to see some research on this. I think that's all very exciting. Supporting the skin on a mitochondrial level is very fascinating to me, which is why I love red light therapy for that as well to get that application essentially of the mitochondria in the skin. That's what that kind of technology is all about. It's photo bio modulation. There's also different ways that we can get skin rejuvenation using light therapies which is where lasers come in and in Some Sanders studies which actually shared on a Dave Asprey, his Podcast, episode 668, which you might have heard me on Angela. Yeah, I
think did that. So I was listening to yeah, yes, I referenced
a couple Stanford studies, there are some laser technologies on the market that can basically work as a magic eraser to break up deposits of melanin in the skin, which would be termed as a sunspot or an age spot or broken capillaries read acne scars, and also helps to promote collagen. And even on an epigenetic level allow those skin cells to be expressing in a more youthful way. They even compared a subset of individuals from their 30s and their 50s. And after the photo bio modulation, this is a Stanford study, the 50 year old skin cells started to express themselves more like the 30 year olds, which is very interesting that we can achieve that I'm a huge fan of lasers. However, one thing to note, and I won't make specific laser type recommendations here on the programme, lasers are because it depends on your skin type, and all sorts of different variables. Lasers are the number one point of litigation and where things can go wrong in medical aesthetics. So going to a reputable clinic with great technologies that have professional staff is really important. And I basically help my clients figure out where to go and what to do. Because a lot of clinics I actually had a from from the city that I previously lived in, she she messaged me and did a practice consulting session with big city rejuvenation training to for other doctors and nurses and all that. And she said, Oh, I got this device, this laser and I'm going to start you know, trying it out on friends and family. And she mentioned the brand name and I never heard of it. So you have to be very careful. A lot of places are buying even counterfeit lasers or really low quality leaders. So there's really only a handful of lasers that I like and I spent about three years getting my hands on and actually using and studying the patient response, pain, outcome, the healing time, the cost for treatment, analysing all of that and there is a lot of garbage out there. I'll just be the first to say that so I have a very short list of what I am.
So yeah, people really need to do their research because there's a laser actually that I keep being I think you know when you see the ads pop up, it's an at home laser Lima or something and I keep looking at it and wondering, but I was always concerned with laser actually causing potential damage to the skin if you're not using it correctly,
that's a great topic to bring up. I just yesterday did a lovely session for a fabulous 74 year old woman and she had actually purchased one of these online and it actually she said made some of her pigmentation darker. So it really depends on the wavelength, the heat the energy also what you're doing skincare wise as well. So there there is actually one light based at home therapy that I can get behind because it's from a very reputable company they understand on a metre wavelength. It's not only for skin it's also for pain also so it can be used for this is I mean this is what they claim I'm not making these claims. However I did find benefit from it for neck so one of the reasons I got so big into biohacking is obviously Dave Asprey is a friend of mine. And that helps and I was also into car crashes and dealing with pain, Whiplash, headaches, fatigue, I saw huge skin signs of inflammation after those crashes, which is fascinating to see. And so that's why I continue with all of these healthy living low inflammatory biohacking practices and lifestyles. And the funny thing is, is I started to notice Hey, I'm getting the best skin of my life and previously to employing biohacking as a, you know, double Board Certified Aesthetic Nurse Specialist. I would literally have to go into the clinic about once Well, no, no go into a clinic I have the laser $160,000 Laser right next to me. So I would just zap the little red spots postinflammatory hyperpigmentation. pH is the technical term after a breakout and that just wasn't going away is that redness it was that visible sign of inflammation on the skin that I would have to laser off because my body wasn't able to manage inflammation. And then I started to eat the right foods follow a low inflammatory lifestyle and I'd be at about 60% in clinic rejuvenation. 40% homecare now I'm actually at 90% skincare dermal rolling healthy Living practices and only 10% in engineering. Very interesting. So
that's and that's from die. So what would you say are the major things?
It's not just it's not just from diet, it's from reducing stress. Yes, chemotherapy to start was really important sleep sauna and grounding. Clarifying. There's actually a couple of key bio hacks, this will actually be a good segue into some of the key bio hacks for the skin. And there's actually five Can you guess what some of these five might be? Angela?
I think one of them I use on my face, which I think you've mentioned already, which would be red light therapy. I definitely use that. Sauna I love for kind of skin clearing and detoxification. So that kind of, I guess that's two different thoughts because I use an infrared in terms of light therapy. What else do I do the derma rolling that you've spoken of ours working about peptides? What else? I think just the me, sunlight makes a huge difference to my skin, just actually fresh air. You know, if you're not outside, it kind of dulls it.
Yeah, so you definitely hit on a couple key aspects there. So I've identified five key bio hacks to help you get the best hair skin nails of your life, okay. Oh, air, water, lighting, electromagnetics and detoxing. So you touched on a few of them. And let's just specify now. So in regards to air, this is why washing your face is so important. Most homes have mould okay, I don't care how new your home is. If you don't have mould, you could have VOCs off gassing from a new build or whatever. Anytime you go into a big box store, you're also just getting inundated with VOCs. If you smell it, it's in your brain. It's actually passed that blood brain barrier in your nose and your brain registers it as a smell. And so if you smell something that doesn't smell good, I want you to like leave because you're actually getting chemicals VOCs which are harmful. So air purification in the home is key having air purifiers in your bedroom in your main living space throughout the home really important. dirt debris. Pollution mould, when they sit on the skin actually creates oxidative stress and accelerated ageing. So acne pigmentation, signs of redness and inflammation. In certain countries and cities in the world, especially in the Orient, there's very high levels of air pollution. And we actually see more prevalence of skin redness, sensitive skin and acne and pigmentation. So air is absolutely essential. Now the next is water. Making sure you're drinking reverse osmosis distilled water, no tap water. If you're out at restaurants they're serving you tap water. So if you're out at a restaurant, ask for like a Pellegrino. That's great. I love mineral water. If I'm on the go at an event, I will not drink plastic water bottle water that water is dead, you're getting BPaaS from it. So always go for four products that are in glass. So that's a great kind of On the Go get yourself like a case of Pellegrino or carbonated mineral water, have it in your hotel room and just drink that throughout your your stay. And the other thing you can do with water is structured and also hydrogen is it. When you hydrogen eyes, your water, you're literally transforming your water not just into h2o, but you're actually infusing more hydrogen gas into it, which can have this beautiful antioxidant event benefit. We can literally turn our water into an antioxidant. And I did that actually, during a really long fast I did a five to seven day long baths in the desert at you know, seven 8000 feet in altitude. And it was really good for fueling. So you can
do hydrogen tower using like that. Yeah, the hydrogen is fabulous. Because sometimes when I look at them, even though really good companies, they put like other things, where Yeah, and that was the concern to me because I was doing it for quite some time. And then I was like, Oh, I'm not sure.
You can actually there's different water systems available. And some of them I recommend and use myself that actually use a cathode. So it's essentially using a power source to create the hydrogen gas in the water. Yeah, so personally, I like that a little bit more. And then the other thing is to structure your water and you can structure water using various biohacking technologies that are on the market by literally placing your water next to some proprietary arrangement of semi precious stones metals with an amplifier or you can even do it with a certain types of minerals as well. And it water water next
to my sensate.
Yeah, yeah, great. So the water in nature is free flowing. It's already ideally structured the water in our body structured. When we drink water from the faucet. It's going through 90 degree curves it loses its ideal bond structure nature. So that's that's why I structure your water can be really great just to make it more bioavailable, so that when you actually drink it, your body can, it's more bioavailable, it doesn't take as much energy to transform that water back to structure. It's very interesting. So that's water, and then then air water lighting. So you mentioned getting sunshine. Firstly, in the morning for circadian rhythm balancing, it's going to open up different pathways in the eyes to up regulate hormones, and then sun gazing, I would do cold therapy and distract myself with the sunset. And that was really nice just to kind of tone down. What I would recommend before actually buying a red light panel is to remove as many LEDs in the home as possible. LEDs penetrate 100 nanometers deeper in the skin than what we get outside. So I postulate hair loss, facial pigmentation, accelerated ageing, circadian rhythm and balancing. Many of you already know these concepts of junk light. So any LEDs you have in your home say in your ceilings, trying to switch them out to halogen. Sometimes they're like a puck LED light you have to change the entire fixture. Press me go halogen, the lighting so much more beautiful. And it's much better for the skin and ageing. So air water lighting and electromagnetics huge fan of actually wearing EMF protective clothing all the time. I wear them when I sleep or I use different blankets. And it's usually a silver type of woven material. And I've tested this actually with my EMF reader right here. I did realise I was electromagnetically hypersensitive, more sensitive than others. So some of the practices I would do would be hopping my four by four and go 200 miles out of cell phone reception and just have an off grid day get out of the house all this huge outdoor adventure. But one of the things to point out when we're on our computer on a zoom call, we might as well be sitting in front of our router. So I actually I need to launder my EMF clothing so it's in the laundry pile there. But oftentimes I'm business on top and wearing my EMF clothing down below. And the first night I slept with EMF protective clothing was the first night I had 100% sleep score with my eat sleep. And so I was like okay, there's something to this and then I started wearing them all the time. And then I saw this upward trend with my HRV. So that was that was pretty, pretty conclusive for me that conclusive.
I'm a big fan of that EMF blocking clothing. How is that impacting the skin? When you're when you're talking about skin? What's the interplay there?
The research on EMFs in the skin is dry eyes. So 50% of the North American population I have 11 plus years in ophthalmology. So an ocular plastic so you have your that kind of like the hierarchy if you will, is your your standard primary care medical office, dermatology office cosmetic dermatology plastic surgery and ocular plastic surgery. So that's where I've sat for 11 plus years in my career. And so the eyes are the first area of the face to show signs of ageing. That's why eyelid surgery is very popular for reducing access hooding to the upper lower eyelids for say the face to age. And skin cancers around the eyes. 10% of all skin cancers occur right in the periocular area, eyebrows bridge of the nose, top the cheeks, yes, because it just gets so much, so much light. And so if 50% of the population are impacted by dry, you have to think about for a second what we're in front of all the time, we're literally on Zoom, we are getting bombarded emails, whatever. I mean, a lot of us are living in front of computers for our work day. And we might as well be sitting next to the router. So there are some types of glasses that you can wear that I've seen that are EMF blocking, there's even some paths with the screen that come down that are EMF blocking. I mean, that might not be a great look. So that's one of the barriers I see as a woman I don't want to look like I'm about to head on to the set of Star Trek. So I am working on some things behind the scenes for the ladies. Because it's not really the best look right now with the clothing for ladies. So don't worry, I'm on it.
You're on so we'll wait for that. So EMF and then the last one was grounding.
air water lighting. electromagnetics the grounding is
part of the electromagnetic So assessing it. Yes. And actually
ground ology.co.uk has some incredible images.
Do I have a yes ash from them? Yeah,
yep, I'm on a pm mathematic quite a quite a bit too at the house here. And it's all About the blood. So if you are thinking about just for a second how EMFs impact the skin, it's actually via the mechanism of impacting your blood. When you're on your phone for five minutes, what happens with your blood, instead of the red blood cells, which are like little donuts, little inner tubes, they are bouncing off one another because of electromagnetic interactions and repulsion. Now when we're on our devices, we become too positively charged, and our red blood cells start to stick together, they form chains called Reuleaux. They go from like a smooth epithelial lining of the red blood cell to jagged, they start to stick together, you get clotting factors for me, so think about this for a second, if your blood sticky is not flowing, you're not going to get good blood flow to your organs. There's research on the ovaries and the uterus on this, you're not going to get good blood flow to your brain, your brain hello is the master control centre of all everything, your hormones, pituitary everything, and then also your skin as the largest organ of the body. Now, if you want good skin, you have to have good blood flow so that the blood is flowing, carrying oxygen and nutrients to the tissues. And then also now detoxing and carrying away metabolic processes, metabolic waste products are and co2. So if you don't have good blood flow, you're not going to have good, good function of your entire system, if you will. So getting outside and grounding is absolutely imperative. We've done this for 1000s of years, we just haven't been doing so over the last couple of decades, we're told to stay indoors and stay in our home. And you know, it's for your health, right, it's not for your health, actually, that's the most ironic thing you need to get outside. And then the detoxing is a huge part of that. So I'm going to drop some statistics here, because I started to clue into things. I was doing zoom calls for skin rejuvenation in 2017. I didn't feel like it was fair for you know, just the clients in my local community to have access to this kind of information for rejuvenation. And so I tend to postulate things before they happen. I'm not always right. Sometimes I am. And I was thinking to myself, Okay, we're seeing some skin stuff, or, you know, seeing some respiratory stuff. We're seeing some brain fog stuff with what could also be going on here. And then I started to think about just just in my nursing training, and in the medical school education system, there's barely any talk on parasites. I remember in my nursing education, that was one page and it only affects, you know, third world countries. That's not true. So I started to chat with 40 year plus parasitology. Just look at the research. 80% of North Americans have parasites so we scan throughout the body, all throughout the body. Okay, yeah. So if you're dealing with autoimmune stuff, limes disease, about 70 to 80%, as per the research I've seen from parasitology, just reporting on this, the limes is actually housed in a parasite, clear the parasite, clear the limes, okay. A lot of us with gut disturbances, when I first started doing gut testing for nutrition, food analysis, it didn't look at parasites, but my gut scores weren't great. And I was like, What's going on here? I'm eating really well, why isn't this moving. And then I did a cleanse. And this particular cleanse was highly alkaline meaning first one or two weeks, you don't feel great. Same thing with like, the first two, three days of a fast. And I was noticing that I was actually eliminating things. I mean, it's largely due to drinking river water on my days off in the wilderness. And eventually it caught up with me. But we pick things up through shake hands, human contact, through breath, and also through food. So 80% of us in North America have parasites, there's many different kinds, as well as yeast, fungi, other toxins, mould parasites, those are key things to detox actually a few times a year. So it's not just about doing a you know, parasite cleanse for like, a week, and then you're done with it. No, it took me from March to December last year to clear these things. And when I started to clear them, some remarkable things happened. When I was detoxing them, I actually had visual flashes in my periphery when I was watching a movie. So I was like, Oh, wow, that's interesting. This is potentially a sign of toxins being released in the central nervous system. Parasites can impact your central nervous system. They're not just contained in the gut. These things are a little, they kind of go everywhere they can, they can actually breathing disorders. Through impacts of the diaphragm and the lungs are cognitive disorders, parasites in the brain. And also skin disorders. I even had a doctor meet with me and She's like, Yeah, I was looking after this person and they had parasites on their arm and I came into contact with them. And then I got like all these things on my skin. And she unfortunately went to another doctor and they, they gave her a referral to a psychiatrist. So the last thing you want to do is go to your doctor and say thank you have worms. So just make it a general practice to detox. 10 do notice, notice what's coming out through your stool. And if you're seeing things keep going until you notice that your stool is clear. And the the main things I noticed after parasite cleansing yeasts, fungi, toxins as well, it's all kind of part of it is a huge change in my cognition. I felt like I had started taking that limitless pill and saying, yes, accommodations on point, my speech compared to previous podcast, I've done like 650 interviews, and my clarity and conversations, my recall hugely improved as well as all the edges with my hair that I had last lost over a couple years from stress, all came back, and my nails came back stronger than ever. I work on my vehicle, don't let this blend here fully, I'm very mechanically inclined have been since a young age. So I like to use my hands. I like to be in nature, you know, crawling or rocks and climbing and hiking and all that stuff. Like these are not breaking, they're so strong. So I started to really see those differences in cognition, brain function. Skin clarity is having way fewer breakouts not as reactive to the sun, as we were talking about earlier, hair coming back, and nails coming in very strong. So these are
exams to notice to detox his key and what about what are your thoughts on collagen for the skin? actually taking like oral collagen?
was an excellent question. So a lot of times, many of you maybe have been on social media and you see advertisements for this beauty supplement or this beauty device. And you click on it and you think okay, yeah, they've got some good testimonials. But what you really need to consider here for a second is how long has that formulation been on the market? Is it third party independent lab testing. So the supplements and products that I like to work with are 15 to 36 years of third party independent lab state. This is the realm of practitioner grade products, not what you're going to be getting from a social media ad, that is probably white label and all that stuff. So when clients are feeling the need and desire to purchase a collagen supplement, they want to take it to reduce fine lines and wrinkles. However, what happens when you consume collagen is it actually gets dispersed throughout your entire body, to joints, to your your soft tissues and all of that it doesn't just magically deposit itself into fine lines and wrinkles. However, there are certain types of collagen that I have taken that I did notice skin results very quickly. And then when I stopped taking it, I noticed skin changes very quickly as well. And what else? Yeah, I just noticed more plumping to the skin a little bit more of like a dewier glassier look. And then when I wasn't on it, I had a little bit more gut disturbance come back, because college is great for the gut, and my skin just didn't look quite as good. Now, collagen can come from many different sources. It can come from fish, it can come from pork skin, it can come from chicken, and it can come from bone. So this is where we can get hyper focused with the type of collagen that we consume based on our gut testing, and which type of collagen and meat is better for us. So there's that as well. If you are considering investing and doing dermal rolling, and doing lasers and other skin rejuvenation options, my position is you need to have the cofactors available in your body to make collagen. The whole aim of the game is to create a little bit of a gentle injury to get the fibroblasts to make more elastin and collagen. If you don't have those cofactors on board, you might not actually be getting the best results you possibly could. So I am absolutely a fan of taking collagen. However the product itself really does matter. And having realistic expectations also matters and also the type of collagen that could be best suited for your epigenetics and physiology
you actually test to see which type of collagen as opposed to okay,
that definitely can. Personally I noticed the difference between beef and marine collagen. So it's very much personal specific and what your epigenetics wants. Just give your body what it wants.
So much easier. Yeah, we can ask this I guess what about For you go one thing, because you mentioned at the beginning, I just wanted to see what your thoughts were, what about some of the more chemically based things that people do, for example? So I guess where I'm going with this is one of the things we talked about the eye area ageing first, then obviously we see like skin dropping facial turning. I guess my question is, what can we do to support that naturally? And what about things like that, obviously, PRP and things are more natural therapies, because you're using your own stuff. What about fillers? Botox, I see so many people doing this? What are your thoughts?
Oh, I haven't any thoughts on this conversation? Oh, toxic. Yes, many, many, many thoughts. Very interesting. Coming from myself, who's had a wonderful career. While I still do, I do a lot of teaching now for other doctors and nurses and research as well. And what I've noticed was those that were already doing the heavy lifting at home with their skincare, durable rolling Healthy Living practices, they would respond better, to these types of rejuvenation options, whether it's laser, injectable, collagen, stimulating all that stuff, surgery recovery from that as well. And then I would notice this other subset of clients of mine that had autoimmune conditions, they were dealing with pain all the time, they would come in and they looked visibly stressed. And I could see visible signs of inflammation and ageing. So one of my recent papers, which was actually published in the UK Journal of sciatic nursing, is my more functional skin rejuvenation algorithm approach. And you can find my research these, there's a few papers that require a subscription, because they're medical journals. And then the Journal of aesthetic nursing is open source. So you can find these papers at Rachael varga.ca/research. So my position is to really establish reduction of inflammation, then do skincare, then maybe micro needling, then maybe lasers, and then just see if the other options like injectables or surgery are necessary, right. And if anyone I'm actually sharing in my papers now, and I feel very strongly about I'm very connected to other practitioners in the functional space that have worked with people who have been injured from these things, or had an uptick of other things that they were dealing with before when they had rejuvenation. So then it's this concept of the toxic bucket theory. If your toxic bucket is full, you do one thing, you eat the wrong food or whatever you don't look after yourself as well, you get a rejuvenation treatment, some type of stressor on the body can a car crash, for example, or just more stress that can tip over and then you're going to have a manifestation, unfortunately, of things that could be signs of inflammation, or autoimmune stuff, kind of rearing its ugly head, like skin conditions like eczema or psoriasis, when your toxic bucket is full, so what I'm putting in my research now, based on discussions with functional people, or practitioners that have seen people have issues is to always ensure that who's getting these types of options are healthy, and their toxic bucket is as empty as possible. So they haven't had a good sleep they haven't eaten, they're just not feeling good, you need to delay things. Now, to add to that there are various different products on the market, especially in the injectable space. The one that everyone knows about is Botox that's been around since the 90s. But there are other forms of this, and what these products involve. And this is in my published papers, so I can speak to this. There's a core neurotoxin, I'm actually doing a presentation on this for a number of doctors next week. There's a core neurotoxin, that actually is was reducing the message from the nerve to the muscle. That's why you get a relaxation of line say, forehead referring the eyebrows, relaxing of the muscles around the eyes to lift nonsurgically and reduce signs of crow's feet. And then I have a jawline paper as well for applications for reducing jowls and getting a little bit of a tuck underneath the chin. Now when we look at the different products that are on the market, they have the core neurotoxin, that is what's creating the action, right? The effect and that weighs about 175 kilos. It's like a jelly bean with some product, one product. It's just a jelly bean. And with other products, it's the Jelly Bean sitting in a tennis ball. The tennis ball is representative of what's called complex in proteins. They're added they have no really understood effect and they just kind of dissociate. Okay? Now what we've seen actually in long term research with those complex in proteins in most neuromodulator products, is they can actually At some time in certain people impair the Jelly Bean, the core neurotoxin from actually working. And then people aren't getting the same response that they once had. There's even research that's come out. Now you can find this stuff on PubMed, that even after certain exposures to viruses or other pathogens, or having taken a specific type of product, they're not getting as long of results. And I predicted this would happen, I predicted that we would see pharmacokinetic interactions and we are and so this I just will always like to wait and see right wait and see for this research to come in. So there are cleaner options on the market. Absolutely. They can feel a little bit different. However, if anything is not feeling good for you. Don't do it. Nobody's making you doing anything, do anything. If internally, you're thinking, okay, facial injectables, fillers, surgery is not for me. Great. Actually, I think that's a really good approach to focus on your healthy living your skincare dermal rolling, you can do at home peels now great super clean amino acid base peels that I love. There's like I said, I'm 90% homecare now previous to what I was before. And then when I started to look after myself, I wasn't having to get as many things done in that same timeline. I'm like, wait a second, I should be due for another treatment. And I don't need it. And then the other thing with fillers that I found was really interesting is some fillers have different ingredients, different nutrients and other things that are said to be a benefit added into the product. There is not just Holly Roenick acid there is sugar molecules included is called BDD II. And it's basically helping to bind the change of hyaluronic acid together. So it's not just hyaluronic acid, there's other things in it too. And I'll I mean, I'll just very honestly say the last time I had any fillers, which was quite some time ago, now, my HR V tanked. It takes I was a I was sitting at like 120. And it literally tanked about 20 or 30. So what that told me was just because I had something applied to my face, it did have a systemic defect. So it does add to that toxic bucket. So just because you're seeing things on social media, you know, immediately before and after, like to your trough fillers, you see this immediate benefit, you don't see what can happen with fillers placed in specific areas like around the eyes, a month later, nine months later, nine years later, which is why I wrote my first paper on eye rejuvenation, because there are options that don't carry this potential for migration. fluid accumulation, because ironic acid grabs water, it holds up to 1000 times its weight in water. That's why it's used in this way. So there's so much to know, with rejuvenation, what you can do, where which products, timing alternatives, and I love to meet my clients, where they are, what their skin goals are, what their values are, and help create a plan with that. And if you are wanting to do things, there are some cleaner options. And actually in Europe, Europe and Canada have access to some of my favourite fillers. That for some reason in the States, they only had notice. Okay, yeah. And, and there's some reasons for that as well. However, even with that product, my HRV tanked, which I thought, Okay, this is interesting with
the ones in Europe. Yes, it was the name of the one in Europe and Canada.
I won't get into brand specifics with that. I won't get Yeah, I won't get brand specific with that one. But it was just really interesting to see that there was a cardiovascular impact is
really interesting. I that was definitely not something I had expected. Me but yeah, because that was scary. Because some people are I mean, you see, particularly in the celebrity market, right? They're having this really quite regularly,
what they can be done, and they can be done very tastefully. I gotta say, though, in the UK, in the UK, and on the west coast of USA here. You really have to be careful who you go to. Just a quick tip that we can end on here is always looking at who's potentially caring for you. Do you feel like they're actually caring for you? Or are they just trying to make money off? You get you in and out? Okay, on to the next one. Are they knowledgeable? Are they able to answer your questions? Do you feel like you can trust them? A lot of these options that are available, they can work very well for lots of people for a very long period of time. However, if something isn't quite feeling right for you, it's really really important to listen, because the body always knows
the body does always know what a great note to finish on and I love the fact that you everything you talk about here is so well supported by the scientific literature and that you give it the test of time. I just think that's so so important. Visual where can people find more about you? Obviously on Instagram, I know you're active on there, you have a podcast, I think you have a special code people can use if they want to consult with you and actually get their skincare routine really, really super dialled in, please share.
Absolutely. And I look forward to giving you a consultation. Yeah, we're looking forward to that out we'll spend about 75 minutes reviewing your current skin goals, maybe some changes you've experienced over the last 510 years. The skin on the body, the neck, the chest, the face, the hands, the hair, all those things I go through with you, and then help
people do that. And maybe we can do like a little party on my results. Yes,
definitely. And then I help create a plan just for you customise based on your lifestyle, your goals and all of that, and then tell you where to go right with maybe what to do here what to do there. And of course, it's educational information only. And yeah, so hang out with me at Rachel Varga official on all social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, I have the Rachael Varga podcast. I recommend listening on the podcast platform because I do many solo episodes there. And that I host my interviews live on YouTube which subscribe you're welcome to join, ask questions live. I love being an open book. I don't edit my stuff. What You See Is What You Get as important for us to be a little bit more raw these days. And you know, yeah, so Rachel varga.ca is where you can book your one on one session with me and also shopped some of my favourite skincare products I work with 15 different lines. So basically I've distilled down in one easy place products that are created the parabens, phthalates, sulphates, artificial dyes fragrances, things that I see my cleaning clients keep coming back for a lot of products that have worked with 2011 so you can shop easy knowing that it's all been pre vetted. There's even toothpaste deodorants, personal care products, hair care, Hair, Skin nails, supplements derma roller saw their Rachael varga.ca and use promo code Angela Foster, for 15% off of a one on one call with me. And also on my E store. And I do have I mentioned those five bio hacks. There's also a couple other skin tips too, that everyone can start doing now. And you can download that for free at Rachel varga.ca You'll see the little pop up to get access to that. Or you can go to Rachael varga.ca/slow ageing, and that's a free guide. You'll love it.
Amazing. Thank you so much. We will link to all of that in the show notes. It's been so amazing to have you on. Thank you so much, Rachel,
my pleasure. I look forward to meeting some of you soon.
Thank you for listening to today's show and for your interest in health optimization for high performance. If you're new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that you can get a free health score and report complete with personalised recommendations on how to optimise your sleep, nutrition, fitness and resilience in the top link in the show notes below. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Links to everything we talked about are also in the show notes and if you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe for more
