"Stop making excuses. Have a plan. Revise it. And make yourself an ice bucket every morning."
Libor Mattuš | Biohacker @ libormattus.com
Ice shower. It can kick-start your business too.
You're saying I got kicked by a goat and I went crazy? Oh no, I just ventured outside the traditional Ignition bubble and brought on a guest with whom I dissected the flip side of KPIs, OKRs, dashboards, LEAN approaches, and all the other things that are on our desk every day. I was trying to figure out how we take care of ourselves so that we can just successfully execute all of those things listed above and planned for. In addition to enjoying family, friends and hobbies. And not to fall on our mouths at all of it.
That is why Libor Mattuš, a partner from the RedButton network, biohacker and lecturer of cold therapy, appeared in front of the microphone. He gave me the idea that a short cold shower can help you kick-start your business. What's more... What's less, all you need is a small bucket of cold water that can fit two hands up to your wrists. For a few seconds every morning. What simpler thing can you imagine? Next we discussed...
🔸 How to leave the idea of "I have no time for myself"?
🔸 What benefits to expect from cold therapy?
🔸 Why does even a few seconds work?
🔸 How does cold therapy compare to sauna?
🔸 Do dietary supplements make sense?
HOW A BUCKET OF WATER CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE (INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT)
Martin Hurych
Hello. I'm Martin Hurych and this is another Ignition. I think that today's Ignition is going to break tradition a bit, but first I have one request. If you don't want to miss any more episodes or any more blog articles or my personal notes on what's going on around me, then run straight to my website, www.martinhurych.com. Sign up for the newsletter, which is already subscribed to by over 1,100 owners and directors of engineering, technology and manufacturing companies. At Ignition, we talk about the performance of companies, the performance of us as owners and directors, but we pretty much forget that in order to deliver that performance over the long term, we also have to take care of themselves. That is what today's shootout and today's topic will be about. I've invited Libor Mattus to join me, hi.
Libor Mattuš
Hi, Martin.
Guest introductions and what he hasn't told anyone about himself?
Martin Hurych
Libor is a biohacker, former Chinese interpreter and Asian martial arts instructor. So you can see that today's guest is completely outside the bubble and I think that makes it all the more interesting for all of us today. You're very active in the media, however, what haven't you said about yourself on any podcast, television or newspaper yet?
Libor Mattuš
That's a tough question right off the bat. It tends to be the more personal stuff that doesn't lend itself to the sharing and the glitz. I have issues with a lot of things that I teach as well, like every lecturer being perfect in diet and everything. But lecturers are also just people, it doesn't feel like it sometimes, it's one of the topics I've been thinking about a lot lately. Sometimes it's almost idolising a character, whether it's a Dutch hardier or it's doctors or it's someone who teaches something in companies. But we're only human.
Martin Hurych
Aren't you expected to be a little bit of a god when you get in front of your oddballs?
Libor Mattuš
The atmosphere is sometimes that way, but I think it's a lot about the personality of the lecturer to be able to work with it, whether someone has objections or has overconfidence. It's about each of us being critical of what we see and hear.
What connects all of Liborova's activities?
Martin Hurych
You have a relatively unique set of what you have been or are dedicated to. What do these things have in common?
Libor Mattuš
The desire to improve and not to forget the important things. One thing is performance, the other is health, and sometimes they can go in opposite directions, but I'm interested in maintaining both. That's actually something that then became my mission, which I'm now spreading.
Martin Hurych
Is it important to keep improving and what pushes you forward?
Libor Mattuš
Trauma. For example, they only pick people who have childhood trauma for the FBI because you can be sure that these people will never have enough. I think a lot of lecturers have that. Of course, I have a lot of friends among the lecturers because I've been doing this since I was 15 years old, when I was already teaching people martial arts and stuff like that. So a lot of lecturers, even very good and very well known ones, have something similar. I always say that we live in a 3D world of physical bodies, where these things are the determining factor, because if you have everything you ever wanted, nothing is going to propel you forward, which is a problem for development.
How to leave the idea of "I have no time for myself"?
Martin Hurych
The situation I am facing, and the reason why you are here, is that I see around me, in the last years of decline of segments and companies, on the one hand, a great ambition to do something about it, not to give up and somehow transform the company. But the first thing these people are crossing off the calendar is hours with themselves. Almost none of us take care of ourselves in any long-term way, and when we do, it's very spur of the moment. I guess I'm not asking you to give an enlightening speech about why this should be done, but what has worked for you practically to erase this godly delusion of not having time for myself from your calendar and to start something gradually that will stick with me for a long time?
Libor Mattuš
You have very nicely called it a divine delusion, because it is. We are responsible for our own ideas and we are the authors of our own ideas, and this is talked about a lot in the leadership literature today. For example, Jocko Willink is internationally known for his concept of extreme ownership, ownership. My advice to you is, sit down in the morning and in the evening, get a paper and pencil and write down who you are, who you want to be, what you do and what your priorities are that lead to who you want to be, what identity you want to maintain. The moment you find that being yourself doesn't fit in there, there's probably no point in doing it. But we know that in most cases, thinking about where I'm going and I'm going to keep correcting that direction throughout the day is the very foundation of being able to navigate. When I'm out and about, I'll click the GPS and follow it, but we don't have such a simple guide in life to stay on our path. A crisis will bring a lot of emotions and tough decisions through your day, your body and your psyche are under a lot more pressure and it costs energy and it costs a lot of energy. So you need all the more in the morning and in the evening to have these anchoring rituals that will keep showing you that path like that GPS, who you are, who you want to be, where you're going and how you're going to get there.
Martin Hurych
We've started right off the bat. But I realize that a lot of people don't know who they are or what they want.
Libor Mattuš
It's a big challenge, it's not a question with a simple answer. For us, even a name is a brand and it depends on how attached we are to that false identity because it's not really you.If you moved to a temple somewhere in India, they wouldn't be able to pronounce the name, you'd have to go by a completely different name, and you might be someone completely different. You won't tell anybody you're a person who has a social position here anymore, you'd be somebody completely different.
Why is it important to know who I am?
Martin Hurych
So can it be turned around at all? Can realizing that I need to do something with myself for the sake of my children, my family, and for the sake of achieving something in the company and through taking care of myself get to what you have set as the cornerstone of who I am and where I am going?
Libor Mattuš
It all comes from the first person, who I am and what I want. I'll give an extreme example, if someone doesn't want a family for example, then it's probably not really worth it to do those things for a family or to be pushed into it. I think that's kind of the case with my dad. He, in the words of his last wife, because my dad is in another world now, he didn't really want the kids and he kind of let himself be pushed into it by the women he was primarily interested in. So you need to be honest with yourself, which is hard, it's very hard to distinguish which thoughts society has put in your head and expectations for people to take you, from your own thoughts. This isn't some ezo bullshit, just think about what you want. A friend of mine said, in all fairness, that he wanted to be very rich and was willing to do a lot to get there. Some people don't care, which is fine, then there's no point in building a business because my dad had a business and I want to match it.
Who is a biohacker?
Martin Hurych
Before we get into what you really do, I introduced you as a biohacker. For a bubble that may not live by this, who is a biohacker?
Libor Mattuš
I translate it as a rational lifestyle. Why rational? It is actually rational, I would say rational, where we try to ask the very basic questions and also how I live, what I want from my body, what I would like, how I would like to feel. Because the body and the psyche are intertwined, and that rational lifestyle that we achieve through biohacking is to ensure that I feel and function the way I want to feel, so that I can be who I want to be.
Martin Hurych
I have to say that's an interesting definition. As I watch people around me, the younger they get, the more they push the hacking and try to be everywhere as fast and as best as possible. You gravitate more towards wellbeing, right?
Libor Mattuš
The question is whether it can be called wellbeing. If you are sweating in the sauna and it is uncomfortable, or your hands are in an ice bucket and it is already a bit uncomfortable, or you are running uphill, you are breathless, you have a pain in your side, then the question is whether it is completely wellbeing. But for me, the very basis of what I do and what I think every person who knows where they're going should be doing is regulated, moderated discomfort of a physical nature.
Martin Hurych
What will it bring us?
Libor Mattuš
Health, vitality, energy, mental health, mental resilience, which is the foundation of mental health, and generally some straight character that will help us set an example in our families and in our companies. Then we won't have that caged bullshit like a primary school teacher, we won't just talk about it, we'll actually live it.
Martin Hurych
The faces of those who say that wellbeing is their chocolate and pork belly totally jump out at me.
Libor Mattuš
Why not, if I have a real dark chocolate or a proper fatty meat, because I eat a lot of meat and fat is one of my favourite macronutrients, then for me for sure. But you have to know what you're doing, where you're going and of course get regular blood tests to see if maybe you're overdoing it.
What is behind the success of cold therapy?
Martin Hurych
We have a book on cold therapy, you're a certified cold therapy instructor. What do you think? is behind the success of the last few years of cold therapy?
Libor Mattuš
The fact that we needed it already. Exposing yourself to the cold is something that would have been around forever, however, in the last couple of years there has been such a boom because it's a fine fitness activity. Some people run, some people lift weights, and some people work out. At a time when we are increasingly stressed, many of us subconsciously feel it does us good. Within Covid this was one of the very few fitness activities we could do in any reasonable way, of course the famous Dutch hardener Wim Hof played a big part in this. Moving away from what's going on now and what's being said about him, he was behind the popularity here in the west of some cold exposure. I have a wide range of criticisms of his approach, I know him personally as I was the first person in the Czech Republic to go through the Wim Hof method of instructor training. But I did not want to become their official instructor, having seen what was already happening in that academy back then in 2018. So I embarked on some independent journey, from which this book was written in 2022 at the request of Albatros Media, summarizing my already long experience at that time. It's about how to do it in a step-by-step methodical way so that everyone can enjoy it, not just the rock-hardy people you see in the pages of those daily newspapers.
How many people can endure cold therapy?
Martin Hurych
So before we get into what I should do, how many of the buckets that people have installed in their front and back gardens as part of Covid have been left empty in your experience? How many people got excited and how many people actually stuck with you for cold therapy?
Libor Mattuš
Statistics say that if people don't know how to do it, don't have a methodology and a system and don't know where they're going and why they're going there, it takes on average 2, 3 months for that person to quit. There's been various hypes of 30 days of ice showers, but you'll suffer through anything for 30 days, it's about deciding to bite a little bit, but those long-term results are rarely there. For example, there's a very nice statistic from Forbes Health that 92% of people don't stick with their New Year's habit for a full year. When someone starts getting hardy on New Year's Day, only 8% of people make it at least that one year. There are some people who toughen up for many years, but that's not exactly the rule. Most of the people who started, quit or got sick again after a while, which I think is more psychosomatic in origin, because the cold has nothing to do with getting sick if you do it right.
These are stats you would find for running and other activities too, except the cold is very intense and so you need to know what you are doing. Few people ruin themselves by running in one workout, but with the cold it's much easier, because it speeds up the metabolism by a factor of three, even five in the extremes. That must be a very big cold, but a two- or threefold increase in metabolism is not exactly an exception when you are immersed in ice water. That takes an awful lot of energy, because an accelerated metabolism means you need to deliver that energy more, and that's something that's not free. So if you're still going to the sauna in the evening afterwards, sleeping a little less, having a lot of demanding work meetings, that energy is not there. So it's extremely important to know where I'm going.
What benefits can I expect from cold therapy?
Martin Hurych
What I like about it is that it's not very time consuming, plus you only need a cold shower to get started, so it's also very accessible because you don't have to buy anything. What kind of benefits should I expect if I bite the bullet and start to toughen up?
Libor Mattuš
You shouldn't be biting in the first place, because it should feel good. People associate coldness with discomfort, which is fine, because it is and should be discomforting, that's what positive stress is for. If it was stressful it wouldn't make you stronger, however you need to choose the type of cold therapy that is comfortable for you. That's why I've been advising people to use the ice bucket method since 2016. When I start the practice, I need to get used to it gradually by putting only my limbs in cold water. This can be hands above the wrists, feet up to the ankles, or if you don't have time, feel free to just the hands. I combine this with some specific, but extremely simple breathing practice and visualization to again stay with the process and actually support it to get the blood flowing to those hands. Heat is blood, so if you want your hands to feel warm, you need to get blood into them, which is already kind of psycho-hygiene. Because I have to concentrate, even for a few seconds or tens of seconds on one thing that's not out there on the computer, it's in you. That's something you can feel on yourself, gradually develop that awareness of some of your own body and the physiological processes that are there. Just putting your hands in a bucket of reasonably cold water is a great start, which is how I start. There's no rush, the oldest female hardener in the country has been hardening herself for 50 years, so you're in no rush.
How to ideally start hardening?
Martin Hurych
Now you said two things, a bucket of ice and a bucket of reasonably cold water. So what's the realistic start? Is a bucket of water enough?
Libor Mattuš
A bucket of water is enough and the water should be as cold as possible, but it should be pleasant. If someone takes their hands out of the water after 5 seconds and it's stinging, that's not it, because you want water that you can stay in for at least half a minute, so it's not too shocking, but there's a challenge. If the water's 23 degrees, it's probably not quite the workout you need. But it could be anything below 18 degrees, because it turns out that 18 degrees is the point where something is already happening to your body. Progressively we need to cool that water down, but that's what the days, weeks and even months of time are for, that's what training is for. It's training just like running or anything else and we need to make that water progressively colder slowly.
Martin Hurych
I didn't even know that when I went to Balt as a teenager that I was already hardened. So I'll start with a bucket, start with colder and colder water, what next? You mentioned breathing. How should I breathe to get the most out of it?
Libor Mattuš
Today, the Wim Hof method, or rather its breathing, is popular, which teaches people to take 30 big breaths, passive exhales, and then hold the breath in the exhale. This is something that takes the three rounds that he recommends, which takes something like 20 minutes, sometimes 30, depending on how long you hold your breath and so on. This technique is said to warm you up. I'll tell you, that's not true, or if it is, it's only partially true, because this technique gets a lot of carbon dioxide out of you, you exhale it, and that constricts your blood vessels. So you're more cold because less blood is getting everywhere in your body.
I do it a little differently, especially in a much more time-efficient way, because my clientele doesn't have time. Managers, salespeople, business leaders don't have time. You need to know what are the most functional tools in that category. Now that I'm standing at the bucket, the most minimalist thing you can do is take a deep breath, ideally into the lower abdomen, into the diaphragm area, and don't shift your chest and hold your breath. That breath hold opens up the blood vessels, even the inhale is activating and helps the body to get better blood flow.
I hold my breath, I put my hands in the bucket with the held breath, then I wait a few seconds, 2, 3, 5, 10, whatever, then I exhale through my mouth to accentuate the effect of the technique for the body. Then you feel how those hands are wrapped in this big red layer that symbolizes that you have heat there. If you were to look with an infrared camera, it's not just an idea, but of course the hands are radiating some heat. That's how you're in that bucket while you're still comfortable. I always say wannabe jokingly in training, get it out early, so the moment before you get cold. Because to us, it's not about getting trauma, it's about getting a pleasant experience. That's one of the most important things because you only have to do enough to make you want to do it next time. If you overdo it, you greatly increase the risk of wanting to stop the process, so it has to be enjoyable, especially in the beginning.
Martin Hurych
So we are talking about realistic units, at most higher units of minutes.
Libor Mattuš
For me the ideal calibration is 20 seconds to 2 minutes. But it can be even less, because if the water is too warm again, there is no point in caching for 5 minutes. I'd cool the water more, so that it's maybe half a minute to a minute of pleasant but noticeable exposure to the cold.
Why does even a few seconds work?
Martin Hurych
There's no excuse. What's it realistically gonna do to my health? Because it sounds too short to have any benefits.
Libor Mattuš
I always say, even at all conferences where there are managers, that the biggest difference is between zero and one. Doing nothing at all and doing a little is the biggest difference in your self- development and you will never take a bigger step than going from zero to one. Even if you then go from a hundred to 1,550, it will never be as significant as zero and one. Because you're there to launch that rocket, it's like Elon Musk is taking people to the moon and to Mars and you need tremendous power to launch yourself. There's also a lot of talk behaviorally about why it's so hard to break habits or build new habits.
It's going to give you more energy. Occasionally you'll get some advice from some instructors of various cold systems to put your hands in the water, but they usually don't know what causes all that. When we look at it from the practicalities of how the body is built, we're talking about blood flow first. You get a little bit of that slightly cooler blood into the rest of that circulation and it responds to that. That's why I'm a big fan of partial cold therapy, especially when you're starting out. I just recently did an event for a larger company, I do relatively a lot of these events, and there were 100 people who took turns in groups of 30 in ice pools for about 2 hours. I was showing them how they could do it comfortably, with just a body part. It's a little plastic pool, I had about 8 or 9 of them, and when you stand up in it, the water is up to your thighs. If you bend over, you can put your arms up to your elbows or up to your shoulders, but it's really just your limbs. As the blood flows, it flows to the rest of the body and that's where it gives those signals, it's cold somewhere, adapt. So you can harden yourself even in the parts of the body that are not immersed in that cold water, it's a lot because of that circulation. The body is an extremely complicated machine in which there is something called the endothelial lining of the blood vessels. You've got a very complex system inside the blood vessels that produces its own substances, like nitric oxide. That's something that's so extremely sophisticated, there's a lot of processes sitting at every step, so that alone is an extremely important thing. Obviously, with the bucket, it's not going to be as significant as if you had, say, the limbs all in there as in the case of the pool.
Another very interesting thing is the nerves, because you have more nerve endings in the palm of your hand than in the rest of your arm combined. The innervation there is hundreds and hundreds of percent higher than in most other parts of the body and it's those nerves that tell you what's going to happen. The touch, the feel reacts to temperature changes as well, if I touch a hot pan I'm going to flinch myself, which is what those nerves do. Those nerves then send signals that it's cold somewhere and we have to start adapting a little bit.
The third thing is that your hands will be the most cold. When I go to Sněžka in the winter in shorts or when you dive into cold water, the coldest thing is probably on your hands or feet, in short on your fingers. That means that if you get them numb, you'll be numb all over. So it's not just some boring beginner's workout, but it's what I do about quite a lot of performance-oriented cold training. I put my hands and feet in quite a bit of cold water every morning, but I base it on those hands and feet, especially in the summer when it's harder to do anything else.
Martin Hurych
What is relatively cold water?
Libor Mattuš
2 to 3.5 degrees.
Who is cold therapy not for?
Martin Hurych
Who's it not for? Is there anyone who needs to watch out?
Libor Mattuš
It's not for people who make excuses. Of course, if someone has had two strokes, has a nerve disease, etc., that's not a client you or I would normally work with. So a normally rational healthy person can do it without any problems. But I have experience, which is such a grey line that needs the cooperation of disciplines, because the doctor does not always understand cold therapy and does not read the studies, which are both in English and behind what is happening in the body. I've had people on courses with many different discriminating factors and it's up to them. The person goes into it at their own risk and it turns out that the risks are not there so much because if the person does it with an open mind, then basically nothing can happen. It makes a huge difference if you get doused with ice water if you don't want to or if you go in willingly. Hands in an ice bucket isn't going to kill you, and it's probably not going to kill anyone who can walk into that bathroom and bring that ice in themselves. So it's about not doing any crazy things, not jumping into ice water like they do in the various Wim Hof experiments. A young healthy man can survive anything, but if we're talking about who medically shouldn't do it, common sense says that anyone who doesn't have some serious heart or nervous system problem can do it. If done wisely, those ice buckets can do just about anyone good.
How to proceed in the next stages?
Martin Hurych
What is the next phase? The bucket is cool, I want to be among the more advanced.
Libor Mattuš
This is the disadvantage of a cold shower, for example, that it is often not cold enough. My friend's shower in Olomouc, for example, is much colder than my shower in Prague 4. If your shower is cold enough, I recommend starting with your limbs. If you want to be very conservative, from your knees to your fingers, from your elbows to your fingers, you can take from your hips, so the whole limb, but make it comfortable so you do a little less than you could. That's the trick of effective training, because what separates effective people from ineffective people is again the methodology of knowing what to do, not acting impulsively, rashly, but knowing where the process is going to lead in the long run. The moment I do less than I could, 20, 30% less, I have a guarantee that I can sustain the process in the long run, because I'm not overdoing it and that it's gonna work at the same time. So I'm stimulated enough for the body to have those results and benefits. When you take a super cold shower on your limbs, you can see a lot of energy, mood, zest for life. That's what just about anybody who's involved in this will tell you, that cold water in the morning is a game changer. It's the most compelling thing you can do in the world of biohacking, in my opinion. Almost nothing will give you such a quick feedback and such a quick boost in energy, mood and those parameters.
Martin Hurych
How long should I be in that shower for it to make sense? We're shifting from 20 seconds to 2 minutes in the bucket, and I can sort of hear the time shifting in there as well.
Libor Mattuš
It's that zero and one again. Even if it's 10 seconds, it's significantly better than not doing it at all. If you keep it up for too long, I would look for ways to make the water colder again because it will work better on that physiological level. The way I used to do it was that as part of some performance training I would take a very cold shower for a lot of minutes, like 5, 7, my longest shower was 16 minutes. But it may be how much you need to wash yourself or somehow come in contact with that water. Most people will have that as some sort of supplement, so it's not about standing there for 10 minutes and trying to cool down as much as possible. You're probably going to have it as part of some sort of morning ritual and whether it's 20 seconds or 3 minutes is really up to you, there's not that much difference between the two for your wellbeing. There was even a study done, commented on by the Harvard Business Review, that 30 seconds and 90 seconds of cold showers in the morning had more or less identical results on reported absenteeism at work. It was something like 29%, so when business leaders ask me how that translates into numbers, I say absolutely clearly that there is 29% less sickness in people. For 100 people, that can save you a million, maybe 2 million. That's something that's worth buying, because you can ensure your immunity with this training. This is the kind of thing that works across that spectrum absolutely reliably.
How to breathe properly?
Martin Hurych
Is there a technique within cold shower breathing that I should watch out for, or should I just survive it?
Libor Mattuš
There is some safety in breathing, but the easiest thing to do is to breathe in and hold your breath as you breathe out. The moment you go from the heat to the cold shower, it's a good idea to do it with the breath held in a big inhale. Sometimes it's easier to kneel or sit down to do it,
because it can make your head spin the first time you do it. So I recommend you try it dry first, don't do any tricks with breathing in the shower on wet ground, and sit still for a while afterwards. I don't run away immediately after the shower, but I invest 5, 10, 15 seconds to be calm, to feel the coolness on the surface of my body and to make sure my breathing is gentle, slow and cool. Then I just wipe myself off and head off to brush my teeth or whatever else you have on your to-do list.
Is cold therapy suitable in the evening?
Martin Hurych
You're kind of talking about mornings, so I expect that just like you shouldn't play sports too late in the evening, a cold shower in the evening is pointless because it will just wake me up for bed and I won't sleep. Right?
Libor Mattuš
There are different subjective experiences with it. A cold shower warms you up because the body is working harder to warm up, which is not what we want in the evening. You want to cool down in the evening because, for example, the sleep hormone melatonin lowers your core body temperature. In practice, I'm sure an ice bucket is a clever way to cool just those extremities, but you can do it with, say, peas from the freezer to take the heat out of your body. It's through the limbs and then the face that most of the heat goes out, so that's why I focus most on the limbs in cold therapy in training because that's the thermal gateway, that's the most vulnerable part of the body. For example, if you're swimming with your head at least partially underwater, your face can get much colder than your chest, shoulders, stomach or thighs. So those are the parts of the body that get the hardest, and it's in the evening that you can benefit from taking the heat out of them because it cools the core.
One of the things I also use that is very effective is a contrast shower just on the extremities, cold, warm, cold, warm, cold. Even traditional healers said that this helps to release energy channels and even today in the west a lot of holistic doctors are showing that this can have a very interesting effect. For me it helps a lot when I really want to get a good night's sleep or I come from somewhere and I'm tired, it's been challenging. I fall asleep quickly and get quality sleep and even outside of some metrics I can feel it on me in the morning.
How does cold therapy compare to sauna?
Martin Hurych
Is there any comparison of the effects of this very time efficient hardening versus sauna? A lot of people like the sauna, but then they tell me that going to a sauna somewhere is realistic for 2 or 3
hours and it's a flash sauna. Is there any way to compare? I can also think of cryo, which is not much here in the Czech Republic. Can I compare what I get with these three potential routes?
Libor Mattuš
Again, it depends on what you expect. If you want to kick yourself, homemade cold therapy is the obvious choice. A sauna is also extremely beneficial health-wise, however, I would recommend once or twice a week at most for people and especially men of working age. The male sex organs, especially the testicles, are off the belly as they need a lower temperature to function well. If you warm them up too often in your working years, it doesn't do them any good at all, whether you have kids or not. In fact, those organs aren't there just to have kids, but since it's one of the most important male endocrine glands that doesn't like heat. Even heated seats need to be turned off immediately because it doesn't do us any good on the most important thing and that's hormones because they affect who you are, how you act and how you feel.
However, it turns out that especially at the so-called older age, when I am 55, 60, everything doesn't work quite the same as when I was 15 or 20, so in terms of cardiovascular prevention, sauna is number 1. If you go to the sauna maybe 4 times a week, you only need to be in there for 20 minutes at a time, it's uncomfortable, but it should only take one round. I used to think that 3, 4 rounds were needed, but when I looked very carefully and it was pointed out to me even by the participants of some of my lectures, it doesn't say 3 rounds in the original. Unless they've fudged it for us, one 20-minute round, 20 minutes of sweating in there at 80 to 100 or 75 to 95 degrees would probably be enough. That should be enough for a 40% reduction in mortality from cardiovascular disease, which is a huge number, in medicine if it was 10%, 8%, that would be a bomb and 40% is the absolute extreme.
If we consider how much cardiovascular diseases cost in Europe and in the Czech Republic, in the European Union it is some 282 billion euros a year, which is 6.7 trillion crowns for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In the Czech Republic, it is some CZK 125.5 billion, which is data from 2022, so it is quite recent. If you put half a billion of that 125 billion kronor into prevention and into starting a campaign, go to the sauna at the age of 45 plus, it can prevent those unpleasant things. Going to the sauna today is not cheap fun and this could help considerably.
Martin Hurych
That seems to be something like 3% to 5% of the annual budget.
Libor Mattuš
That's right, even within the EU, it's some 2% of GDP that goes to the treatment of cardiovascular diseases alone. It's something like 11% for general health care and social care, so if you include pensions, 11% of that whole health package is going to cardiovascular disease. It is the most common cause of death, it is not the only cause, but it is the most common, it is some 30% to 45%. If we were a rational society, we would pile a big budget on saunas for people over 45, who would get it for free, and they could still get a discount on their health insurance if they went 3, 4 times a week.
My philosophy is that companies are the economic backbone of the state and the system because they pay taxes, they pay VAT and we don't care enough about these people. There's a busy manager, everybody wants something from him, including his kids, his family, he has to pay, he has to produce results, he has to produce and nobody cares how he feels. How is this guy supposed to make sure he has the energy to do that? I have an ice bucket, I go to the sauna once a week, I go for a bike ride at the weekend and I have some basics. Then maybe I add in some breathing exercise during the day, which can take tens of seconds, and I've got what's really going to hold it together for my spine.
Do dietary supplements make sense?
Martin Hurych
Why don't we do that? I don't think we can solve that here because we're pressed for time. I have one more question before we finish. It's been maybe a couple of years, I heard you at Peter Ludwig's, you both like to eat and I see a bunch of people around me taking a bunch of supplements as well. Does that make sense and if so, what does a biohacker eat?
Libor Mattuš
It depends on what you want, because I personally want to have as much energy as possible because I'm running a business. I've never been employed, it's my way of being a freelance lecturer, interpreter and that energy for me is the ability to do what I want to do. Even if I get that energy up by a percentage, it's worth it because as a lot of coaches of top athletes say, it seems like when you say percentage and sometimes you say percentile, it's not enough, but a percentile is the difference between gold and 6th place in professional sports. Those small percentages make the difference and for ordinary people it can be tens of percentages on top of that.
I personally have a relatively more complex supplementation protocol. People think it's fun, but if you're supposed to take say 5 supplements 2x a day, it needs a lot of dense time management to make it happen. I'm very much a fan of substances that have the most interesting effect from my point of view and of course the price/performance ratio. If you're going to take one supplement that's going to cost you 3k a month, the question is whether that's the best price/performance ratio. I'm a big fan of basics like magnesium, which you can overdose on, but that would cost more effort. If you take 200 to 800 mg of magnesium a day that's 2, 3, 4 pills. Half of that can be taken at night before bed, which is what I do, however it doesn't really matter when you take it. I have a ritual for it, I have it laid out on my desk, so I take it at night and replenish my system. I'm a very big fan of omega-3s, I'm a big fan of things called adaptogenic herbs as well. Omega-3 is something that you have in you that you need, it's a building block of the body. Adaptogenic herbs are something that can give us a boost, so I like herbs like Ashwagandha, Rhodiola, which are very good, but also like the very little known and extremely powerful Siberian Ginseng, Eleutherococcus senticosus. This is an herb that has about 78 ginseng strains, when the so-called true ginseng has about 23. I use these adaptogens very often with company executives, with businessmen, with managers, because these are herbs that were used in ancient times by people who were physically and mentally stressed. These herbs have very interesting potential, alongside the ice bucket and other forms of moderated discomfort, to help us be stronger and more resilient, as we need to be and as people have always needed to be.
Martin Hurych
So this is for beginners, but what does a pro take?
Libor Mattuš
Interestingly, blood measurements show that for vitamin D3, which up to 80% of people are deficient in at some point during the year, you need to take at least three, four, sometimes five times the recommended daily dose. So it's a good idea, especially now in the winter, to take vitamin D3. The fact that you take D3 from the sun even in the summer is more or less a superstition, because you would have to walk naked in the sun for half an hour every day, which probably doesn't happen to most of us, so it's always good to supplement D3, and even more so in the winter.
Personally, I started to dose something that we don't have much of here, which is ketone drinks, which you can replace the craving for sweets just by giving yourself energy, which is completely outside the classical system. There are other supplements that add some substance, and I can name a number of those. I'm a big fan of, for example, L-Carnitine or Acetyl L-Carnitine or Alpha Lipoic Acid, which activates a lot of the antioxidant systems in the body. But those ketogenic drinks in particular help to reduce blood sugar fluctuations and also give energy, which is not about sugars right now, but it's about those ketones that are talked about a lot. But ketosis is definitely not for everyone.
I always take protein shakes when I go out and show my clients that they should consume at least 1.5 grams of protein per kg of their weight per day. So if you weigh 100kg, that's 150g of protein minimum, ideally 200g. The shake is definitely a very smart and ingenious way for me to replenish protein when you're not running. But it should ideally be that when I can eat I eat for energy, supplements are of course supplementation, but carnitine is not a direct source of energy. It's something that optimizes that body, maybe helps you improve fat utilization. So you can have that brisket that I would have with you, because I'm a big fan of meat and my body responds very well to meat and very well to fat. It changed my life that I started eating significantly more fat and significantly less carbs, I was suddenly Libor 2.0. I'm not saying this is the way for everyone, but it could help a lot of people. I started eating animal fat, vegetable fat, primarily more animal fat because most of what I put in my mouth is animal plus vegetables and the more vegetables the better, but you don't get much protein and fat from vegetables. So I'm a big fan of eggs and different meats, but everyone's different. Some people don't eat meat at all, they eat mostly vegetables, which is also good, but you need to know that you're consuming enough protein and not consuming anything that will upset your hormonal balance. That might be rice cooked in plastic or some vegetable oils, which I would throw out.
Martin Hurych
That's cool. I can see how putting this on the daily to-do list is gonna take some time.
Libor Mattuš
It needs a system and that's what it's all about. We have time, we can make one change every 2 months, you can make 6 big changes in a year, which is relatively small, anyone who goes anywhere can do that, and in 5 years we can make 30 of those changes. Taking breathing breaks 2 or 3 times a day is easy, everyone can do it, but we need to know how to do it and make it last. That's part of my mission, to show how it can be put together and then to go ahead and do it with some accountability. It may take years, but it's worth it. Mrs. Bozhenka at the time had been hardening herself for 50 years, there are people who have been on that path for decades, so if it took you 2, 3, 5 years, you're still in a very win-win situation. You mustn't push yourself too hard and just like with the ice bucket, you need to do it slowly and gradually, those changes take their natural time.
Summary
Martin Hurych
If in the context of your media outputs here there were to be only 3 to 5 sentences of it, some summary, some summarization, what would it be?
Libor Mattuš
The first one is a kind of maybe offensive sentence, but stop making excuses. I recommend Jocko Willink for study, extremely interesting, you won't like everything, I don't like everything from him either, but stop making excuses, take that ownership for what you do. This is an American general, a man who was in one of the toughest fights America has fought in Iraq, so he knows his stuff about leadership.
The second thing is, have a plan, because without that plan you're not going to get anywhere. A company also doesn't run on feelings, so have a plan because you are actually your small business, your company, your body, your mental state.
Remind yourself of the plan and revisit it, every night, some people do it once a week, but do it, tell yourself who I am, who I want to be, where I am going, what the path to get there is, what tools I am currently using to get there. Last but not least, make yourself an ice bucket every morning, or whenever it works out, because you will have a significantly better day and all the nice things you want to do will be done better, with more joy and with more energy.
Martin Hurych
Thank you very much, Libor.
Libor Mattuš
Me too, Martin, thanks for inviting me.
Martin Hurych
If you already have a bucket around you and you're squinting on the ice, then Libor and I did our job well today. It was obvious that this was a performance really relatively far outside my bubble. Be sure to let me know if you like parts like this and if we have a trip outside the company and the simple life of KPIs and constant performance to do more often. If you like anything I do, run to my website, www.martinhurych.com, and sign up for my newsletter where I already have over 1,100 owners and CEOs of engineering, technology and manufacturing companies. If you still subscribe or like this podcast, you'll make me even happier, plus you'll help me navigate the social networking algorithms, and I'll be able to invite even more great guests like Libor here today. All I can do is add that I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you as always and I wish you success, thank you.