181. Dr. Jonathan Leary: Why Cold Plunge & Sauna Social Clubs Are The Future of Wellness Communities

Human connection is one of the most important things for our health.

And right now, it's plummeting.

People are having more and more alone time than ever before.

And then, when they do socialize, they're going drinking alcohol, which is a depressant and a dissociative.

Connection and community and purpose do not come through electronic media.

And the more isolated a person is, the more they're accelerating towards the great.

And that's when I knew I needed to have Remedy not just be this beautiful place with hospitality standards, but also what I love about being in an ice bath or a sauna.

We're enhancing our physiology.

So we're bringing out a better version of ourself and it's also allowing us to have a higher chance to have a better connection.

The other thing that I think struck me when I was at your place was you've added this component of functional medicine.

Functional medicine can analyze everything.

And then you really get a full understanding of this puzzle that you have to figure out like all of this biochemistry, how do all of these things affect one another?

As you built this and this thing started to take shape, what were some of the things that surprised you that were byproducts of that environment that you didn't see going in for five years i got to listen to patients what are all the things that they were constantly complaining about i'm like how do i just figure out a solution for these things and the number one complaint i had for five years was

Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brecca, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between.

And today, I know I say this all the time, but today is a really special guest.

I got to find like another way to do intros and say it's a special guest, but it truly is because this man is on a mission to change the way that we view healthcare and how we can integrate a lifestyle of wellness and longevity into everyday events that we would think about socializing, like drinking or going out or a nightclub or networking.

And I think he was the pioneer of social wellness.

In fact, I remember a few years ago reading about this place, and I'll disclose it here in a minute, reading about this place and going, what the hell is social wellness?

And now the founder of Remedy Place, Dr.

Jonathan Leary, is with us, man.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

It's an honor.

I really think that

what you've done, I think there's first movers in like every industry that see ahead of these big trends.

And, you know, I have often said that I feel like the pandemic in some ways did society a favor, maybe even did the world a favor.

And it sort of rattled everybody's cage and it woke people up to wellness.

Hey, you know, maybe, maybe our governmental and so, you know, social elites don't have our best interests at heart.

And maybe this journey to being the most optimal version of ourselves, we kind of have to take personal possession of.

And I remember when I first

heard about Remedy Place and I saw your first place in New York, and I looked at it, and it reminded me of like a really cool kind of London speakeasy vibe.

And hopefully that's, I mean that in a very complimentary way.

And I was like, what?

You go in there and cold punch and sauna and groups?

And like, and I would love to hear about, you know, your inspiration for that, maybe what it was in your background that made you take that bold step, because now you seem like a genius, but then you seem like kind of a renegade, I feel like, you know, for sure, for sure.

Yeah.

You know, when I first started, I always wanted to be a doctor.

And when I was doing my undergraduate and studying pre-med, you have to volunteer in the hospital setting in shadow.

And I had to build my resume.

And I just quickly realized, I'm like, is this the environment that I imagined like putting my whole whole career and life forward in?

And also, is this how I really wanted to take care of people?

And by the time that couple years passed, I'm like, I'm just going to create my own type of practice.

And I went into alternative medicine only because you know, chiropractic degree in the state of California, you're a primary care physician and you can treat and diagnose anything.

You just can't puncture the skin or prescribe meds.

And I was like, I don't want to prescribe meds and I don't want to be a surgeon.

So I'm just going to create Remedy Place.

And I moved to LA when I was out of the gate.

You were thinking that.

Wow.

So

when was this?

2022.

Okay.

I moved to LA, started my doctorate.

And then every Sunday I worked on the business plan.

And I knew nothing about business, but I Googled everything.

And throughout that whole entire program, I had 158-page binder.

And I just thought, oh, when I graduated, I went to Wells Fargo.

I'm like, today's the day that I get this business loan.

And I walked in and the woman laughed at me.

And she's like, sir, you have no money and all this student loan debt.

How am I supposed to give you a loan?

And I'm like, what do you mean?

But this business is good.

Yeah, that's why I need a loan.

But it was great because at that time, you know, me talking about a social wellness club at, you know, 2015, people were like, that's the most LA thing in the world.

That won't work anywhere.

Right.

So it was actually, I don't think the world was ready at that time.

But then I went into private practice and I opened up a concierge practice in sports medicine, not because it was fancy, but if I'm being honest, it was the only thing I could afford at that time.

Yeah.

And I landed a couple big patients.

And then after three months, I had a wait list.

And then then for five years, I got to just travel the world with cool people and cool families and save them from surgery.

And that's what I became kind of known for.

And it was a blend from everything from functional medicine to chiropractic to physical therapy to Chinese medicine, but all in one.

And what was interesting was for five years, I got to listen to patients.

What worked?

What didn't work?

What were they willing to do?

What were they not willing to do?

Common lifestyle habits, stressors.

What are all the things that they were constantly complaining about?

I'm like, how do I just figure out a solution for these things?

Yeah.

And the number one complaint I had for five years was, Dr.

Leary, I feel incredible.

My problem's gone.

But all these lifestyle changes that you made me implement are ruining my social life.

And now I can't have fun.

Ah.

So that's when remedy.

Because they're not drinking.

Yeah.

Like, how are you supposed to go on dates?

How are you supposed to go to these events?

How are you supposed to hang out with friends after work?

Yeah, network with peers, all that stuff.

Yeah.

And I was like, why is it that the most things I have documented of the five-year in practice was this one complaint?

And that's when I knew I needed to create, have remedy not just be this beautiful place with hospitality standards, but also a place that they could actually use a substitution for how they socialize.

And, you know, it was a guess.

When we opened the first one in 2019 in LA,

everyone, you know, I'm like, are they going to use it as a date?

Are they going to use it as a meeting spot?

Are they going to come here after work?

And, you know, part of the tour was really just teaching people, just kind of like shedding light on the awareness of how you could use the space.

And people are like, wow, like that's strange.

You know, I think anything that's not ordinary is a little, you know, misunderstood.

But then as people started to do it, that's what we really became known for.

And what I thought was like, this is a maybe, like maybe this works, but even if it doesn't, it can still just be this place where you have self-care and it's amazing, remote hospitality standards, but

it's completely changed.

And I think you're right with the pandemic.

I think that was like the light switch that went on in the world for everyone to know that no one can make you healthy.

Only you can make you healthy.

Exactly.

And then the awareness just shifted.

And now like everyone's talking about social wellness.

Right.

And, you know, like, even like, I hear the word prevention, you know, self-care is all about prevention.

And I'm like, we've gotten so sick that the goal of health is to prevent not getting sick.

But I'm like, health is not the absence of illness.

Yeah.

You know, health, like with my athletes, I had to get them in the healthiest state to not not be sick, but to perform.

Yeah.

You and me aren't performing on a field, but we're performing in life.

Right.

It might be trying to achieve happiness.

It might be better relationships.

It might be creativity or it might be our work performance.

But I think the future is going to have health as a tool to maximize your success.

And we'll see how this transitions as time goes on.

You know, I think you see a lot of the biggest brands in the world.

In fact, I just came from a meeting with the CEO of Equinox.

And, you know, Equinox now has hotel brands.

Yeah.

I'm staying at one here in New York, which I love.

I stayed in their sleep lab.

Love it.

Just the fact that a hotel even is conscious enough to have a sleep lab, right?

An eight sleep mattress, horse hair and,

you know, cotton fi, I mean, coconut fiber and seaweed stuffed mattresses, you know, fully blackout blinds, like really kind of catering to the traveler, other than just a place to get out of the public eye and lay your head, but actually, you know, an environment that you could really benefit from.

It's like

you're only going to be in that bed six or eight hours.

You might as as well get the most out of it and and now i think there's this massive groundswell of of

interest in destination wellness and sometimes we're i mean i know i select hotels by first thing i'm look at is the gym yeah and then the next thing i'm like do they have a cold plunge and if they do i'm like i'd rather go to a four-star hotel with a cold plunge and a good gym yeah than a five-star aligned with like you know five star dining and and i see it in miami too You know, there's these

sort of wellness movements like Coffee and Chill that are really taking off.

And

we've, we've sponsored a bunch of these events and it'll be 2,000 people.

Yeah.

You know, mainly just a really young, sexy, vibrant crowd.

Your calling card is your physique, not your Richard Melee.

It's going to be at a club, right?

No, nobody's, nobody's got a Louis Vuitton bag on because they're in a bikini and

it's not centered around drugs and alcohol, but, but all the other things are there like a cool dj and an awesome vibe and but then cold plunges and coffee and and it's just seems like it's a really safe environment they start at like nine in the morning go to noon yeah and if you walked into this

you would think it was any other south beach rancher right yeah it's amazing beautiful crowd great music sun shining and there's no drugs there's no alcohol and it ends at noon you know and so but you know when when when you started this concept i i think you filled a massive gap in the space, you know, that,

you know, we've always gathered around drinking alcohol, food.

I mean, what's your first thing you think of when you go on a date?

Where are we going to go to dinner?

Get a nice bottle of wine, have some champagne.

And realizing that there's a whole lot more to that kind of social interaction.

How about actually leaving and feeling better than when you arrived?

You know, I mean, that's our promise at our club, you know, because it's like we, it's just such a habit.

And when they're passed down habits, that this is what you do to socialize.

Yeah.

But there's no reason why we need to connect over food or alcohol.

We can connect over anything.

Yeah.

We could be sitting having IVs.

We could be sitting in a sauna.

We could be doing lymphatic compression.

We can do anything.

But you kind of normalize that because, you know, IVs are so, you know, medical.

So you think of sitting in a white room at a clinic with a nurse with the full nursing outfit and nobody talking to you.

You don't think of it as

a socially engaging thing.

100%.

And that's why design, especially of an environment, is so important.

You know, I like to say that we're designed to heal.

The initial intention was to be the exact opposite of a clinic.

Yeah.

The exact opposite of white.

But then I realized that treating patients in their homes, their guard was down.

And the more that their guard was down and they felt comfortable, the faster they were receptive to the care.

So then I was figuring out like, all right, when people do design, they're always thinking about how do you want someone to to feel in a space, but I'm thinking about how do you manipulate their physiology in that space?

There's so many things that you can do to alter whatever sense you're trying to target to start positively enhancing their physiology.

And like you were saying in like the hotel, it's a no-brainer that no matter what, every environment in the future is going to be optimized to hopefully be working with you, not against you.

And I think no matter what the goal of that environment is, if it's a hotel room to maximize your sleep,

that would make so much sense that whether it's a hotel room or your bedroom, that design, that should be the number one focus of that room.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, it's so funny.

My, my mom used to always tell my daughter when she started dating, like, you ought to go meet a nice man in a grocery store.

You ought to hang out in the grocery store.

Wait for a nice man.

Like, and then

she was like, because, you know, and I was like, mom, why are you telling Madison to go hang out in a grocery store?

It sounds a little creepy.

And she's like, well, at least you know that he's shopping for good food.

And, you know, but, but, you know, but I think about these remedy places and I'm like, you know, if I was single in a dating scene, if you're a young man or woman, or even an older man or woman, and you're, you know, and you're trying to find a mate, at least you know that if you're meeting there, you have some like-minded interests and like, you know, in self-care.

For sure.

And, um, and I got to tell you, I've, I, I was seeing these robotic massagers on, on, on Instagram all the time.

It seemed seemed a little creepy, but, uh, and I was like, there's no way that that feels like a human massage and nobody doesn't like a massage.

And I was like, it looks like that thing's going to run right up my spine and it's going to be painful.

And

so I tried it at your place day before yesterday.

And

it was so incredible because I think it was better than any.

massage I've had because something about that thing, it could track where my spine was and my bones.

Not once did it like run over a rough spot and jerk me.

But and then the those little arms, the little, the little hands,

they're heated.

Yeah.

And I, so I finished going through all the program settings, the pressure, and all of that.

And then I laid there.

And then once I got used to it, man, I passed out.

My production manager had to come in and wake me up.

You needed it.

You needed it.

I was out, man.

It was a really pleasant experience.

And I think

designing an environment where people are over that, you know, that social stigma of, hey, I'm in a cold plunge or I'm in a, I'm, I'm sweating in front of you on, on, on, on a date is really cool.

And I think how far you've thought about socializing and community is, you know, shouldn't be overlooked because as I've kind of built a brand in this space and my brand is about messaging to the masses,

I've sort of seen an erosion in

the celebrity influencer, even the social media influencer, because a lot of people are not building a community.

And I think this remedy place that you've built is really about community.

I mean, by the time somebody is selecting to enter that community, they kind of know what they're getting into.

And it already tells you a lot about that person's values.

For sure.

I think, you know, as an alternative medicine doctor, If I said 10 years ago, it's about human connection and community, people would have said that's the most woo-woo thing.

Yeah, exactly.

And I would have to be very careful because I am so science-backed.

And however I delivered anything, no matter if it was saying the same thing, how it said is very important.

But it's great that people are now realizing, you know, whether it's blue zones to like all of this new research is coming out, like human connection is one of the most important things for our health.

So true.

And right now it's plummeting.

You know, people are having more and more alone time than ever before.

And then when they do socialize, they're going drinking alcohol, which is a depressant and a dissociative, right?

So then they're having false connections and they're numb and they're not even sure.

Yeah.

Is this a connection?

Yeah.

But what I love about being in an ice bath or a sauna or getting an IV, we're enhancing our physiology.

So we're bringing out a better version of ourself and it's also allowing us to have a higher chance to have a better connection.

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Yeah, I totally agree with that.

And what, you know, as, as you sort of, because you were the pioneer.

So as you built this and, and, and this thing started to take shape and come to life, like, what were some of the things that surprised you that were outcomes and byproducts of that environment that you didn't see going in?

Yeah, first, you know, seeing if it actually caught on.

Like, are people really caught up?

Did you raise money?

I mean, how did you really get it off off the ground?

You know, they're not inexpensive places.

They're very well done.

Thanks.

Thanks.

You know, really well done.

Over the years in practice, my patients became my mentors and then they became my investors.

So there's a really beautiful story of either like the individual was a patient or it was a family of the individual.

So like all the money that went into it

was also had a story behind it.

And I think that also gave us a cool, stronger platform.

But we really never raised a lot.

You know, we had one raise for our Series A, but we've been pretty quiet about our raises.

But

compared to most in a brick and mortar space,

we've been, you know, we haven't, we haven't raised a lot.

Yeah.

And I think it's just, we're still figuring out the business.

Right.

You know, I think like, this isn't a like five-year plan for me.

Like, this is what I want to do to leave a legacy.

And I'm 35 and I have my whole life ahead of me.

I don't need to open 100 of these rapidly.

My goal right now is like, there's so much to learn.

There's so much to also make sure that, you know, society also is receptive to.

So if I go too far out there, I might lose some people.

And especially the alternative medicine, I'm trying to make a lot of these things mainstream.

And it's, I want to take it at the right pace and then get a stronger and stronger business.

Because like I said, the end goal is so much bigger than just these brick and mortar clubs.

Like there's so many verticals to this business.

But at the end of the day, I just want to build a community that trusts us, that can lean on us, that we can be that reliable source of education.

Yeah.

You know,

I talk about the blue zone research a lot.

And when you look at blue zone research, there was no continuity between diets, right?

So it wasn't like a certain dogmatic diet like keto, paleo, pescatarian, vegan, vegetarian, carnivore that said, okay, well, all the people in the carnivore or all the people on paleo or all the raw food vegans lived the longest.

Yeah.

It was

the, the, they were all whole foods, but what's not exchangeable was this sense of community and purpose,

which I think, you know, goes a long way and it also goes undervalued because connection and community and purpose do not come through electronic media and we knew in the mortality space yeah that if you wanted to cut somebody's life expectancy in half at any age put them in isolation wow and the more isolated a person is um

the

the more they're accelerating towards the grave.

And isolation doesn't mean you're in solitary confinement.

Isolation means that you lack connection and you lack community and you lack purpose.

And so that was a non-exchangeable in all of the blue zones.

Yeah.

So we could learn a lot from the people that are living the longest in the simplicity of this sense of community and human connection.

And sadly, what's happened with electronic media and social media is we're isolated in plain sight.

We're entertained, but we don't have a community.

I mean, I could pick up my phone and just get lost in Instagram or TikTok videos for hours, but I've built no connection, no community.

I just saw three guys get knocked out and

one woman slaying with her dog and whatever it is.

So I was entertained,

but I lost that connection.

And so, you know, I want to bring you back to that question of like,

what have you seen evolving from Remedy Place that maybe you didn't expect that you're like, wow, this

wasn't

how I intended, but this is what I see coming out of this.

Do you see communities, relationships?

Do you see like, was this a surprise to you, maybe that corporations are now holding events there?

Yeah, I would say two things.

I would say, you know,

about a fifth of our business is events now.

Really?

We used to say when we opened, like, we could remedy any event.

So we'd go to any event from Cannes Film Festival to the the Kardashians backyard and like host like these events.

And I was like, okay, it doesn't matter what the occasion, we can add something.

Like, we would bring our ice bath class everywhere.

And

that gained so much momentum.

And that was like our kind of our natural marketing that we got paid for to put on these events.

But then everyone went nuts.

And I think we started getting so many views online of these ice bath classes.

And then we transitioned from all these external events to just using the club.

We're like, the clubs are these beautiful venues.

And all of these companies don't want to just have another open bar or another dinner, they're looking for experiences, an experience that makes people better and they're more memorable.

So, it's cool to have like companies like St.

Laurent to Nike that are coming and renting out the club, and they're doing open self-care, and they're figuring out a way that they want to make their event unique with their, maybe it's their product launch or whatever it may be, but it's fun.

And I think it's interesting for me.

I'm like,

every single industry is trying to figure out what their wellness edge is.

It doesn't matter if it's like fashion until we partnered with Kohler, which are plumbing manufacturers.

Yeah, I saw that announcement the other day.

Yeah, and it's to see like automotive airlines, like, I'm like, how cool is it that we're in an industry that everyone right now is trying to figure out how they can add some type of wellness component to their to their vertical.

And that gets me excited because to be able to partner people like Kohler, right, that have 150 years of experience.

Yeah.

You You know, they've been building this business and they have such a reputable reputation to be able to have that and then be able to speak to their audience and shed awareness around something like ice baths that, you know, you and me both love.

Yeah.

And that have their audience now more aware to like, you know what, maybe I'm going to try that now.

Yeah.

And if we can cross into every single industry and use their platforms to also educate, I feel like it's our responsibility, right?

To be able to give more education to as many audiences as possible and that's why i love these partnerships that aren't where initially maybe i thought like i would you would think that you'd partner with health companies right but now i'm like i only want to partner with companies that aren't in the health industry because i think we can add so much more value right and there's more of a compliment um you know where their expertise and strength we can combine and do something powerful that you know others can't you know i think most people watching this would say man i wish my company would host an event there i mean i think corporate events, you know, are so, you ever, you ever see the movie The Office?

Yeah.

It's one of my favorites.

Yeah.

But, you know, they make a spoof out of all of the traditional corporate boxes.

You know, there's a birthday party.

So somebody goes to the supermarket and gets a, you know, crappy $6 birthday cake.

And they're like, happy birthday to you.

And there's the water cooler in the, you know, in the corporate kitchen with the Kurig.

And, but there's nothing special or communal about that.

You know, my mom, my mom worked for Delta Airlines for 30 years.

And when she graduated, I mean, when she retired, they gave her like a Seiko watch.

It was probably a $200 watch and

a

sweatshirt.

Said, Delta Airlines, thank you for your service.

I'm like, wow, 30 years, a sweatshirt and a Seiko.

That's awesome.

And, you know, and she doesn't have any connection with any of the people that she worked with for all of that time because the environment was so sterile.

So, you know, corporations, I think, are realizing, dude, you can build a lot of community and a lot of camaraderie in, you know, in your staff, your employees, bring a lot of joy to them by doing some of these things that are outside the box.

And building a stronger team.

Yeah.

You know, like, it's crazy to me.

You see, especially in New York City, like everyone's working so hard and they're drinking all night.

I'm thinking, why would I take my team out to drinks?

That's going to to slow them down, it's going to affect their mental health, and they're not going to perform as good the next day.

Where if you think about doing something impactful that's bringing them to have a stronger connection and amplifying their physiology, doing something healthy,

it's like treating a sports team like I would treat my work team.

Yeah.

And every corporation should be thinking about that.

I mean, I've spoken for JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs and all these banks.

I'm like, you guys should be treating your teams like I would treat a pro sports team.

Yeah.

Because you can be happy, vibrant, connected.

And then think about how much better the company would do if everyone was performing better and was happier.

Yeah, I totally agree.

I've heard you talk about like a seven-pillar lifestyle.

What is that about?

Like these, the these pillars of lifestyle?

Yeah.

Is that kind of Remedy trying to

build this?

You know, like I'm trying to figure out our way to educate in a way like remedies a luxury experience.

And I'm like, how do we make things more accessible?

And I think that's where, like, us just providing free education, right?

Any opportunity that there's a time to educate and teach someone, you know, I think

your body is your number one asset and most people don't even know how it works.

Never mind how to take care of it.

Right.

So, like, we just need to teach people what those foundational pillars are.

And I think what's interesting is you don't have to go to Remedy to be healthy.

You know, Remedy is an amazing experience.

It's like you're going to feel better.

It's going to amplify you, but the foundational pillars of health are so much simpler.

And I think we're overlooking, you know, like, how are we teaching people how to eat?

How are we teaching them how to move?

How are we teaching them to really focus on their thoughts?

How are you controlling your thoughts?

And how are we rewiring your brains with like these simple practices and routine?

And then learning about things that might not feel as traditional.

Like, how are we teaching people to have better relationships?

How are we teaching people how to create communities?

How are we teaching them to audit all of their environments?

Because if I believe that every environment can either work with you or against you,

how are we looking at that?

No matter what your budget is or where you, what you have access to, figure out whatever you can do, as long as we're making small little changes and moving it in the right direction.

But I just think it's so important.

Of course, all of the fancy technologies and red light and ice paths and hyperic are all amazing.

But like you said, who's teaching people about human connection?

Yeah.

As people are having, especially the younger generation that grew up with only social media,

who's teaching them those skill sets to rebuild human connections, and that's where I see there's so much opportunity

because that's what we need to really be focusing on.

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Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast.

Yeah.

You know,

it's interesting.

I have a 16-year-old and I have, well, she just turned 17.

I have a 27-year-old.

Yeah.

And even though they're only 10 years apart, they had vastly different experiences going through grade school, middle school, high school, and vastly different experiences than when I had.

I still remember like in eighth grade, if you wanted to ask a girl out, like we used, we would usually like write a note.

Yeah.

And there would be like a little box like yes or no.

And then you would pass it to your friend.

And then he would pass it to the desk in front of him.

and finally make it up to the girl.

And then you're like sweating, your heart's pounding.

And then they would open it up, like check a box.

Or you actually had to have, you know, the wherewithal to walk up to someone and ask them on a date or tell them that you like them.

Yeah.

And

that sort of palpable fear.

And I mean, it's sort of gone now in social media because, you know, like my youngest daughter would be like, yeah, you know, five guys asked me out in the last month.

I said, no, all of them.

And And I'm like, how'd they ask you out?

And then they sent me a text message, you know,

you know, so, so that's this whole connection thing that's, you know, the, the, the absence of that real, and it's, it's kind of beautiful, like meet somebody, start to vibe with them, have a real connection, you know, grow that maybe into a relationship, maybe into a friendship, or maybe into nothing.

But, you know, having a sieve, like, like a remedy place where at least you know that you have like-minded interests.

Maybe why my grandmother told my daughter to go to the grocery store, like stand in the avocado aisle or something.

She's picking up an avocado, at least he's healthy, you know, it's like, yeah, it's so funny.

Judy Brecca, big shout out, mom.

The other thing that I think struck me when I was at your place was

you've added this component of functional medicine.

Yeah.

Right.

Where

not as a requirement, but if you wanted to sort of up your game to the next level, because I think there's there's a increasing level of curiosity in, okay, this made me feel great.

I took a sauna, took a cold plunge.

I feel clear and clean and awake and like, you know, sort of switched on.

I call the cold plunge my drug of choice for a reason because nothing makes me feel better for longer.

I'm so excited that Equinox had a cold plunge this morning.

And

so, but you've, you've graduated to like now these additional services and functional medicine.

What is that platform like?

And do you see that being something that you're going to integrate as you go forward?

Huge.

Yeah.

I mean, half of my practice before Remedy was functional medicine.

And, you know, for me to actually treat someone to the best of my ability,

it would be naive of me to think that I would be able to do it without knowing what's under the hood.

Yes,

and I just think that.

Functional medicine can analyze everything.

All of these blood tests, right?

We can look at every organ, every system, every deficiency, every toxicity level, every every sensitivity.

And then you really get a full understanding of this puzzle that you have to figure out, like, all of this biochemistry, how do all of these things affect one another?

And then what can we do to naturally get that to the right spot?

And I just think it takes out all the guessing.

You know, I used to do it, you know, when people would be like, why do you have to do my blood work?

And my patients, I'd be like, listen, because half of what's going on could be just be biochemical or nutrition, like nutritional.

And especially when I was talking about patients that were recovering or in pain they're like why are we talking about my diet i'm like because your diet is going to play a major role in this recovery process

yeah and i just think for me like i do my full functional medicine screening every six months i'm like my life changes so much almost on a monthly basis whether it's work travel you know work stress whatever i'm building like your body's changing and ever changing And because our lifestyle is not the same, we need to keep looking back.

And I think everyone, my main focus with every patient first is like, you need to understand you,

whether it's the wearable, whether it's the blood work, whatever you have access to, the more data that you can have, the more you can start understanding.

So then we know what's the fastest, most effective way to get you the results that you want.

But what's wild is like, to think that functional medicine is not covered under your insurance.

It's so crazy.

I mean, I think that might change under the new administration.

You know, I think Bobby Kennedy is doing a good job of opening some some of these lanes.

And I think you're going to see those get wider.

Peptides, what I would call lifestyle medicine, not even functional medicine, and lifestyle medicine or just the, you know, back to the basics recommendations of drawing people's attention to the importance of sleep, drawing people's attention to the importance of hydration, drawing their attention to the importance of this basic movement.

You know, I think walking is.

the most underrated exercise in the world.

I say that all the time.

It's one of the most important.

That's why I think, you know, when I moved to New York, one of my favorite, my top three reasons why I love New York more than living in LA is just the walking.

Yeah.

And I think it's harder to have as good of a diet here, but I think because you can walk more, my rule is like, the more you eat, the more you walk.

And if you cheat, walk a little bit more.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a great one.

And I think it's so cool because it's like

if you have to walk, if you walk to every meal, like say I go out to dinner most nights, just because that's my current life right now, I wish I was cooking at home, home, but

I make sure that I walk.

If it's under two miles, I walk there and walk back.

Yeah.

And I just think that's completely changed my digestion in the actually the best my digestion and GI health has ever been.

And I owe that really just to the amount that I walk and the amount of sneaks that I have.

You know, it's funny.

I noticed when I, when I pass women on the street in New York, half of them have like the high heels sticking out of their purse and they've got to say sneakers on.

So,

you know, they've got their work gear and their dress on.

And you can tell, you know, they're walking to work, then they'll get to their office and pop the heels on.

But, you know, it's that mobility is so important.

You know, our lymph system is a static system.

It doesn't have any pressure behind it.

It's not like our arteries and veins that have the heart to move it, you know, move the fluid.

Sure.

The lymph moves by muscular contraction and by motion.

And the more you move, the more you're just naturally detoxifying.

And I think the

just the old school,

I have a saying that aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort

because I believe a huge component of aging is that we aggressively pursue comfort.

We want to regulate our temperature in our car, in our house, in our office.

We want to regulate our lighting.

You know, we can make it the surface of the sun at one o'clock in the morning if we want.

And it's so unnatural and so out of sync with our circadian biology is to have whatever you want, whenever you want, and feel exactly exactly how you want you know at your demand yeah you know i i often say we got to stop telling grandma not to go outside because it's too hot not to go outside because it's too cold just to lay down to relax to eat at the first pang of hunger yeah because you're just collapsing all your natural defense mechanisms well that's where like i think aging is the result of uh adapting to stress and the healthier you are the better you adapt to stress right and i think it's really interesting that being healthy is about figuring out how to be more resilient and adaptive no matter what we're exposed to.

Yeah, and I think that's like kind of what you're saying: it's like those stressors or those moments or those things that we interact with, being able to get more resilient and more adaptive to be able to handle those makes us healthier.

I totally agree.

I mean, a lot of the things that are stressing us in our life,

there's not a lot we can do about it.

I mean, if you're a young mother of three,

that's stressful.

Yeah.

Full stop, you know, if, or a young father of three,

you know, or even of one.

And, you know, your, your career is almost always going to stress you out.

You got a boss that you don't like, you got a coworker you don't get along with, you have a job you're not particularly happy with.

So there, there are a lot of these stressors, family, that we deal with that are, that are going to be there, whether we arm ourselves to deal with them or not.

And it's incredible now the correlation that research is able to draw between physical resilience and mental resilience and our ability to be adaptive to stress and have stress be less impactful on our bodies.

Well, that's why I'm fascinated with stress because I think like you know, people say how bad stress is.

I'm like, a certain level of stress I think is good for you.

Hormatic stresses.

Yeah, exactly.

We go to the gym and we tear our muscle fibers to become stronger.

And we think that's normal.

But I think every single system, us going on a sauna or a cold plunge, our body body is adapting to a stressor in an extreme and I think right now we've been in such a period where people are avoiding all the things that are hard especially and I think that's affecting our mental health more than anything because

you know just like you were saying earlier with the kids like having to ask a girl out yeah like that amount of stress and like anxiety and nerves like That made you stronger.

But if you didn't develop those skill sets.

I still literally remember the feeling, you know, how they say, like, you might not remember what happened, but you remember how it made you feel.

Yeah.

I remember being in eighth grade and like, or, or ninth grade or 10th grade and problems coming up and, you know, you got to ask someone if they want to go with you and like just the like loss of breath, you know.

Well, that heightened emotional state, right, is what imprints that memory.

You know, like, so that's why that feeling of being anxious and being nervous, like, that's what made it so sound in your brain to be that memorable.

Yeah.

And I think if we numb all of those strong feelings, we're going to lose a lot of memories.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.

So, when you're, you know, one thing I find tough for people like me, and it's got to be for people like you too, is I'm so intellectually curious about what's going on out there.

Like, what is the latest and greatest?

I mean, are there new functional labs that we should be pulling?

Are there advances in genetic testing?

Is supplementation being refined?

How do you go through the sieve of what lands lands in a remedy place?

Because

you could get paralysis of analysis of the possibilities.

I mean, PMF, oxygen, red light, you know, cold punching sauna, vibration, acoustics, you know, you could just go down this insane

road and then eventually you don't have a business model anymore, right?

No, for sure.

And I think, listen, we get pitched things every week.

Yeah.

You know, the latest and greatest technology, this new technology.

And for me you know

like i said remedy is so important to me and not just the short term but for my whole life that we don't add a lot of new things to remedy you know everything that's in remedy is there because now i've used it for at least 10 years

and i know that it works and i want anyone that knows like when they come into remedy i want them to know that anything here is here because

They know that it works.

And like something like an AI massage, I haven't been using an AI massage for a decade, but I know the power of a massage.

You know, so the delivery of the modality might change and how people experience it or the design or like how people socialize it will change and evolve.

But for us, we haven't changed much.

And these are things that I was using in my practice before Remedy.

Yeah.

And I just, that's an important thing because if I start doing things to test out in the clubs, we could lose credibility.

And right now, I just want to make sure we're gaining as much trust as possible and making sure that people just know that it's there because it's the best and it's the safest version yeah and because they have the data to prove that it works i think there's something interesting about um the robotic massage because like i remember my my father started in the navy as a pilot yeah he was telling me stories about this years ago obviously but um he told me stories about how like autopilot was just coming into the cockpit of some of these these jets and at first like all the pilots were like there's no way in the hell I'm getting in a cockpit with a computer flying the plane.

And two years later, they wouldn't get into an airplane that didn't have an autopilot, right?

Because of the level of comfort with the technology.

And the truth is, autopilot's safer than a human pilot because of the number of independent variables that it can

assimilate and create an actionable result.

It's like AI.

I think there's something to be said for these kinds of robotic massages because there's, you know, there's...

potential, you know, social stress like, oh, my wife is going to get a massage by this really good looking dude.

Or, you you know, I mean, my, my husband's going to get a massage by this really attractive woman, like, and they're going to be oiled up in his underwear.

So, um, and you're trying to normalize that, but like, the robot is like,

hey, you get up and leave.

He's not asking for your phone number, you know?

Yeah,

it's just you and the AI massager.

Nothing, nothing freaky is going down.

So, kind of, you know, I might require my wife to only get AI massages now that I think about it.

I'm really comfortable with that.

Sage, sorry.

That's so funny.

But, but I think think the acceptance of artificial intelligence technology,

I feel like it's 25 years ahead of where mainstream medicine is right now.

Yeah.

It's not an attack on mainstream medicine, but it takes a long time for the regulatory environment to capture.

And as I've traveled the world and met with literally the top functional medicine physicians, leading experts in anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, wellness, whatever you want to call it, researchers, PhDs, MDs, what's fascinating to me is that a lot of this research is bringing us back to the basics.

For sure.

They're like, by the way, you can't sort of eat your way around not exercising and you can't exercise your way around a poor diet.

And nothing will supplement for lack of sleep.

So there's like some foundational things

and that human beings need if you want to live a long, healthy, thriving life.

And I wish I could patent them.

You and I'd be the wealthiest guys in the world, but you can't because they're widely available.

They're basic.

God gave it to us every day.

Sunlight, grounding, breath work, movement, sleep.

And sometimes I find that it's hard to emphasize the importance of that to people

because it seems so basic.

Yeah.

But the truth is we've gotten so far away from that.

And it's that simple.

Yeah, it's that simple.

Like I saw a video of gym classes in the 50s.

And insane.

I've seen those.

Have you seen those?

Yeah, like that's how everybody's in crazy shape.

Guys are just ripping pull-ups for no reason.

And, you know, it was, it was, it was amazing.

Like, you play find the fat person.

Everybody, you know, they're going up the walls with the little, you know, with like the sticks, you know, doing push-ups.

Everybody's running a mile in under nine minutes.

And now three quarters of our military-aged men and women can't enter the military because of poor health.

I mean, that's 77% of the population that's of the age to enter the military.

Like we are in a crisis.

And I think a lot of this crisis could be solved by getting back to the basics.

So I really

can't see.

anything other for remedy than you guys just continuing to to explode.

Yeah, I think, man.

Yeah, I think it's like you said, it's that simple.

and we've made it so complicated.

Yeah.

And like alternative medicine's been around for a very long time.

And those were the foundations of those.

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Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast.

In a functional panel, because I think a lot of

my audience is very woke to functional medicine, but a lot of them are new to it and they're sort of on this journey and they're on this platform trying to figure things out.

What does it mean to you, like functional medicine?

Or when you say that you pull these functional panels, What are you kind of looking at?

Yeah, so somebody's going to be able to do that.

I think what's important is like people are, a lot of people think that their annual blood work that they do when they're primary care doctors, they're functional medicine.

But that's just diagnostic tests.

The point of those do you have disease?

Do you not have disease?

Exactly.

It's not telling you, hey, is there things that are concerning that could be a disease?

Are there other things that are causing the symptoms that you're experiencing?

A lot of people get blood work and their blood work's fine when they get just their diagnostic blood work.

They're like, I can't figure out why I feel this way.

I have all of these symptoms.

I don't understand why, you know, I'm always bloated.

I have all these GI problems, but then they get their blood work and they're like, everything's fine.

But it's just very surface level.

Functional medicine will look at it at a very detailed level in ways that your normal panels won't.

And I think that is what's really missing where it's like, you know, they'll do a couple vitamins in your normal panel.

but they're missing, there's so many more to be looking at.

Right.

And a lot of the times simple imbalances imbalances or deficiencies are causing the symptom that you're experiencing that no one can figure out.

Dude, you are singing my tune.

I've said for years, we are not as sick or diseased or as pathological as we think we are.

We are nutrient deficient.

When you deprive the human body of raw materials, vitamins, minerals, amino acids,

nutrients, you get the expression of disease.

I mean, a lot of brittle bone disease are mineral deficiencies, osteopenia, osteoporosis.

A lot of the expressions of deficiency, hypertension, hypothyroid, autoimmune, are deficiencies that have gone on for a long period of time where the body can't defend itself and then eventually it breaks.

For sure.

You know, and

you, you, you will eventually blow a motor if you don't put oil in the engine.

And so if you're deficient in oil, the expression is blown motor.

You know, if you're deficient in radiator fluid, the radiator overheats.

And, and it's, it's astounding to me how we accept these things in,

you know, mechanics and in plant physiology, but we don't believe it in human physiology.

And the psychological component, right?

That symptom that turned into a disease and then you're labeled.

People feel handicapped because like, I have this disease.

And I'm like, wait, you know, that we can fix that.

Like, that's not a permanent thing.

Yeah.

And let's look at what's on the phone.

Oh, yeah, but nobody thinks that.

And then, you know, then sometimes people get stuck on these medications for their whole life and they didn't know that there was.

a simple solution.

Right.

Unless it's an emergency, like don't come to me if it's an emergency, but for a first line of intervention,

for anything, functional medicine should be the first thing that we do.

And if you still have to do all the other medical interventions, you should still do it to be co-managed.

Yeah.

Because there's no more guessing anymore.

Yeah.

I totally agree with you.

You know,

Dr.

Leary, I, first of all, this is amazing, and I'm definitely going to have you back on the podcast.

I want to spend a few minutes going into our VIP group because my VIP community has some very specific questions for you.

But for those folks that are watching this that want to find out more about you or more about Remedy,

how do they find you?

Best way is Instagram, you know, at Dr.

Jonathan Leary or at Remedy Place.

We try to keep everything up to date there, whether it's the events, the education, or what is going on that's new in the club.

So

either come and stop by because, you know, and where are you located now and where are you anticipating to be, let's say, in the next six months to 12 months?

Yeah, I'm mostly here.

So I live between LA and New York, but New York, I'm trying to make my main home base.

It's easier.

We have the two clubs here.

We just opened in Boston.

So now it's easier.

Yeah.

And I love it here.

I really, you know, I grew up on the East Coast.

So it feels nice to be back on the East Coast.

And I just feel like fun.

I'm trying to reel him down to Miami right now.

We had a little talk about it.

So off camera, I'm going to put a little more pressure on him.

When we open there, I'll be there all the time.

That'll be great.

We'll fill the East Coast first, you know.

This is amazing.

Dr.

Leary,

I pray every day for pioneers like you, and I'm excited for your success.

And I'm really more excited for the impact that you're making on the world and what you're giving people, which is a way to normalize being optimal in a social situation, give them an alternative to just food and alcohol.

And

I really appreciate that mission.

Thanks, man.

That means a lot.

I wind down every podcast by asking my guests the same question, and there's no right or wrong answer to the question.

And that is, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

Wow.

I think it's to constantly pursue change.

You know, for me, I think personally and professionally, in order to continue to be better than your environment allows you to grow.

Yeah.

And I think without challenge and without new obstacles, without new learnings, we plateau.

And I think to get, you get one time on not all stresses back.

I totally agree with you.

You know, and I just think

everyone has their uniqueness.

And I just think the more that you're able to allow yours to come out by being healthier and by challenging the norms,

you get to like add your value to this world.

That's amazing.

Well, I'll link everything that he referred to in the show notes below.

If you're interested in becoming a VIP, just go over to theultimatehuman.com forward slash VIP.

It's 97 bucks a month.

I provide tremendous value really trying to build and cultivate this community.

Dr.

Leary and I are going to go in there and answer some of your direct questions.

But definitely make sure you check out the podcast.

And until next time, that's just science.