Transcription
This is Valerie Arsone, and she reversed her age by 20 years. At 55, she's in peak health and has unbelievable energy. And she lives by one motto: "I don't think, I just do."
For the next 24 hours, I'm going to be doing her daily routine to uncover how she became healthier than 99% of people on the planet. But here's the crazy part: she has seven key habits that helped her reverse her age, and I have no idea what's coming.
"Hi."
"Good morning."
"Nice to meet you."
"So, first thing, you stretch in the morning, right?"
"Yeah."
After doing some quick morning stretches, I was eager to see the first tool Valerie uses to help reverse her age.
"All right, let's do this inversion."
"Okay, so every day I go into my little sling here. So, what I do is we go like this, and then I just hang."
"Oh."
"And it feels so good. And I like the fact that my eyes are closed, and I have this strange feeling. And then I open, and everything is upside down, and I realize I have the power to change my perspective by going back up, you know. You want to try?"
"Heck yeah, I want to try."
"All right. I really hope I don't fall on my face. Okay."
"Yes."
"I go upside down."
"And then you cross your feet around. You need to feel stable. And you're tall, so you might touch the ground. We need to adjust it for you."
"I am not used to this. This feels like my head's going to explode."
"You grab the thing."
"Wow."
"That's so intense for, like, first thing in the morning."
"I know. Yeah."
"Yeah."
"That felt great."
"Feels good, huh?"
"Yeah."
"And then before I go down, I'm all about fitness snacking, you know, like a little bit here and there."
"Fitness snacking?"
"Snacking. Snacking."
"Like a snack?"
"Well, it's like instead of doing two hours at the gym, you do 1 minute here, 5 minutes there. You know?"
"Is that your whole way that you do fitness?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I get bored otherwise, but I kind of go like this. I inhale, and I stay like this for like 10, 15, 30 seconds, you know, and then I stop. I don't want to force too much. I just walk up."
"I actually don't know if I can do this."
"You're a strong woman. I have faith in you."
"Yes. Look at that."
"She's a liar. She can do it. Okay. Stay. Stay. Stay for 2 minutes. 2 minutes."
"One, two, three."
"It's intense for the morning."
"It is intense, but it feels good. Like..."
"It feels you're awake, and I never go downstairs until I've done all of that. Okay, tea time."
"I feel so like invigorated."
"That's why I do it in the morning. And people say, 'Oh, you have so much energy.' Well, yeah, because that's what I do."
"You do have so much energy. It's crazy."
Valerie starts every morning with adaptogenic tea, which helps her cells to better resist stress. Like a true biohacker, she was excited to show me her filtered hydrogenated water. But what happened next, I did not see coming.
"And then, because I'm going through a mycotoxin removal protocol, I start the day with zeolite, bentonite clay, and charcoal."
"And what do you do that for?"
"To help bind with the toxins I have in my body. And warning, this is not tasty."
"I am ready. I am ready for this."
"That's it. You ready?"
"Cheers."
"Ch."
"Yeah."
"The way I do it, 'cause I do it three times a day, is I'm visualizing the the clay binding with my toxins."
"Yeah."
"It feels weird on my tongue though."
"Yeah. It's kind of like..."
"Yeah. And your tongue is white and covered."
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Okay. This is good. Could be worse. I have crazier things waiting for you today."
"Cool. And then the next thing is I do my red light therapy."
Valerie said it was time to show some skin. So, she got changed, and I was eager to try her first key habit.
"Okay. Yeah, let's do it."
"Let's do it."
"So, the first 10 minutes I'm facing the panel, and I do eye exercises. That's why I don't wear glasses yet. So, I do exercises where I'm moving my eyeballs. I don't know if you can see, but like this."
"Okay. You're moving your eyes like side to side."
"Yeah. And then up and down. It helps with the strength of your muscles, which means because we stare straight all day long, we are losing capacity to have a better range of vision, but also it pushes us to have to need glasses."
I was shocked at how little I could move my eyes when they were closed, probably because I stare at a screen all day. This was a scary, yet helpful sign for me to keep practicing these eye movements daily. But what Valerie showed up next really surprised me.
"So then you turn around like this, and if you could pass me this..."
"I use something called a HeartMath sensor. The idea is to work on my cardiac coherence by controlling my breathing."
"And what is cardiac coherence?"
"So, it's how your heart is aligned with your brain activity."
"And is this scientific? Like, why does..."
"It is completely scientific. You have tons of studies on cardiac coherence."
I thought this might be a woo-woo thing at first, but it turns out there are a ton of studies on cardiac coherence which show it helps you stress less and handle emotions better.
"So you inhale, and my coherence is very bad. It's zero. It's supposed to be above three. So we're going to work on increasing it. Okay. Okay. So now I'm going to inhale. Now, exhale."
"You see my coherence going up, but it's not enough. So now I'm going to close my eyes, and it takes time to calm down the whole system."
"Okay. I lost it at one point, and you look, it went down."
"'Cause I disconnected from the happy thought for a minute. So it shows how powerful your thoughts are."
"Interesting. You..."
"Want to try?"
"Yes, I want to try."
"And put it on your ear. This here. Yep. So, start session. You find the sensor one."
"So, how do I get the number higher?"
"Yes. So, you have techniques. Inhale, you project. When you exhale, you also project. And you literally think, 'I'm projecting love and compassion to that person.' Inhale. Project. You have reached three, and project 3.7. You see it's working for you."
With Valerie's advice, I began to calm down. I thought about the people I love, and that made me feel good, and my score went up.
"You're back at it. 4.7, 5.8. Whatever you're doing, keep on doing it. 6.3. Go back to where you were before. That really worked strongly for you. You found it again."
"Good. Look at that. You end on 53."
"That's awesome."
"So, look, it's very interesting 'cause at first, you start, you have no clue. You try, it doesn't work. You try, it doesn't work. You try, it doesn't work. And then somehow you projected the right thing to the right person, that you went super high to 6.6."
"Wild. When I hit the peaks, the first time I was thinking about my dad, and like him looking..."
"Same for me. How..."
"Yeah."
"Yeah. That made me want to cry. It was so like beautiful."
"Think about that. That shows how your thoughts..."
"Shaped everything health-wise. So..."
"Good job."
"Wow. Amazing. So what's next?"
"Next, taking the teddy bear out, getting some natural daylight on my routine, and then the day."
"All right."
"Let's do it."
"Let's go."
After a quick walk, I was curious to know Valerie's main workout.
Hang on, though. If you've been feeling stressed or low energy, then you might want this. This is my infrared sauna blanket by Bond Charge. And honestly, it's become one of my favorite ways to recover after a long, stressful day. Saunas have always been key for me, but after moving, I didn't have one nearby. And in our 800-foot home, a full-size sauna wasn't realistic. That's why I was so excited to find this sauna blanket. It's compact, effective, and way more affordable. It works by using infrared heat that goes deep into your body, warms you up, gets your blood flowing, and helps you sweat out toxins. In the evenings, I like to turn it on, jump in, and let the heat do its thing for about 30 minutes. I'll read, meditate, call family, and usually habit stack with my Boncharge red light face mask. I call sauna time my magic time because it's one of the most effective ways for me to de-stress and recover. Plus, it helps me sleep so well at night. When I'm done, I do a quick wipe, fold it, and it's out of the way. The first few months without a sauna were rough, but now that I'm back on it, I feel calmer, recover faster, and have so much more energy. It's honestly one of my favorite longevity tools, and I'm constantly recommending it to friends and family. I like Bon Charge because they make great products. And the sauna blanket is also vegan leather, low EMF, and comes with a 30-day trial, 12-month warranty, and is HSA/FSA eligible for up to 40% pre-tax savings. If you want to check it out, click the link in the description and use my code HUMAN15 for 15% off. Now, back to the story.
"All right. What's next?"
"Next is mountaineering training, 'cause in four weeks, actually, I'm taking 10 clients to the top of Kilimanjaro. And so this is the one you use in Antarctica. By the way, I used it in Antarctica for pulling my sled when I was skiing to the South Pole. So now I'm going to put this on. So it helps my brain be stronger mentally when I'm at high altitude. I have less oxygen. Okay, let's do it."
"Let's do it."
"So, what got you into mountain climbing?"
"Well, a few years ago, like 8 and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with uh Multiple Sclerosis, and I went somewhere far away in the world, and the meditation guru asked us a question: 'If you were to die now, what would your biggest regret be?' Everyone said the same thing, and the only one who said something different was me. And I said, 'The mountains. I've always wanted to climb the highest mountains in the world.' And so, long story short, I come back from this. I have no symptoms left. I signed up for my first mountain in Russia called Elbrus, 5,642 meters, and that was the start of it. There are two schools of thought. One is that my first diagnostic was wrong, I never had it to start with, and all the symptoms were something else. And others think I healed myself. To be honest, I don't really care. I care that I'm super healthy."
"Wow."
"So, when you try it, you'll see. The slower you go, the harder it is. You want to try?"
"Heck yeah, I want to try."
"So, it's really like a jacket."
"Feel like I'm going to go skydiving."
"Yeah, exactly. You want to try this on?"
"Heck yeah."
"Oh, yeah."
"Look, I am your father."
"So, here it's an easy one. And you can go faster if you really want to work. Yeah. The idea is to do an hour of it. An hour?"
"Yeah. With no music. So you find the energy from within, you know."
"How do you feel?"
"Good."
"Good."
"Can I try something?"
"Okay."
"Oh my god."
"Now you should feel out of air a lot. So don't panic, 'cause just the push of a button, you can breathe."
"Wow. That felt so like scary."
"I know. Yeah."
"But look, you're back at it."
"Oh my god. Okay."
"You want to keep it like this for a moment?"
"Yeah. This is... this is intense."
"So that's intense training."
"Yeah."
"Yeah. I'm like afraid to move too much."
"It's okay. Your body will go in flight or fight, and at one point you will win."
"Yeah. My brain is freaking out."
"Inhale through the nose. You are tempted to use your mouth, I'm sure."
"So inhale through the nose. And like, look..."
"You see the difference?"
"My brain keeps telling me I'm going to die."
"I know. Yeah. You're not going to die. Not on my watch."
"It's okay."
"How do you feel?"
"That was good. The mask part was like, wo."
"It's amazing, huh?"
"But Valerie hasn't always been healthy. She had juvenile arthritis, epilepsy, and is 50% deaf. So, she spent much of her life in pain. By 1998, overweight and desperate for change, she tried something simple: vitamin C. And to her surprise, her inflammation got way better. That breakthrough sparked her deep research. She moved more, ate less..."
"And then sometimes you hit a point where you're like, 'Oh my god, it's working.' And it motivates you, and you enter this virtuous circle."
"Like tire pulling, mountain climbing. It just seems like a lot of work. So why do this like extra stressful things?"
"How can you call it stressful? We have a blue sky, beautiful city."
"I'm with you. It's not stressful. It's easy to find excuses. It's less easy to find solutions, but I'm always looking for solutions."
By this point, we'd fasted all morning. So, like a true French woman, Valerie took me to a local store to shop for ingredients for lunch. She goes grocery shopping every day and cooks all of her meals fresh. I couldn't wait to see what we'd eat.
"What type of diet or way of eating do you eat?"
"Mediterranean, high protein, intermittent fasting kind of thing. So, it would be about a pound a day worth of animal protein, vegetables, a lot like what we're making here, fruits, but no dessert, no cakes, nothing really."
"And how did you settle on a Mediterranean diet?"
"Because I'm from there. I'm from Corsica. It's Mediterranean, so it kind of sounds normal and logical to eat this way."
"Do you make your food every day?"
"Yeah, every single day. So what I don't get is how you have time for this because you run a bunch of businesses. You are all over social media."
"Time is relative. I don't watch TV ever. How much time do people spend in front of TV? That's the time for cooking. It's a question of choice. When people say, 'I don't have time because I blah blah,' I'm like, 'No, it's you can't find the time.'"
[Music]
"Wow. Bon appetite."
"So, I always start with the fat first since I've been fasting for so long. See? And then you can go to the meat. I like mine very salty. So, I'm going to add some salt. But you like it?"
"I guess. I'm so hungry. This tastes so good."
"That's because you're hungry."
"Mash time. Zucchini, banana, cumin."
"She's going to lie. She's going to leave. She's going to leave."
"Mmm."
"Still alive."
"It kind of just tastes like sweet banana mush."
"Just so you know, kids love it."
"Yeah. No, I love it."
All this food is good. Immediately makes me think about supplements. Valerie takes up to 75 supplements a day, spreading them out between morning, evening, and night. But I wanted to know what supplements she takes and how she chose them.
"Why do you take so many supplements?"
"Voila. No, I'm kidding. The way I like to put it is if you eat well, you will have a normal life. If you want an optimal life, you need supplements. There is no way out of supplements if you really want to have a super optimized life."
"So, if someone is just starting out with supplements, they're like, 'Yeah, I want to be optimal.'"
"Yeah. Don't stack up. That's what I always tell people. Don't stack stupid things. You have to first go slowly because you can't out-supplement poor sleep. You can't out-supplement poor nutrition or lack of fitness. Yeah. You get your fundamentals, then you do. But you can't start with 40 supplements because what works for me might not work for you."
"So how do you know what works?"
"Some of them work for everyone, like, you know, your L-theanine. But then you have to fine-tune it. So you have to do your homework."
Valerie picks her supplements with the help of Claude AI. She uploads her blood work and other tests, and it builds a plan for her. But remember, AI isn't perfect. Always double-check and do your own research.
"So, what I'm hearing is there are some basic supplements that are great for everyone, like omega-3s, selenium, and besides that, just adjusting based on your markers."
"Yeah."
After Valerie took her afternoon supplements, she saved a special one just for me to try.
"This is an injectable peptide. And as cool as it sounds, I didn't know if I could do it."
"And how do you take this?"
"Need a needle."
"Why not just like ingest this?"
"Because your stomach enzymes would destroy everything."
"And you do this every day?"
"Three times a day."
"Three times a day?"
"You will not feel anything. I swear. It's a tiny baby needle. You go like this."
"That's it."
"And then you press the thing."
"Wow."
"What does uh... Yeah. I don't want to try, but I'm going to try."
"Okay, fine."
"If I do it three times a day, believe me, it's feasible."
"This is chill. I'm chilling. What did I say? Anything?"
"No."
"Okay."
"Breathe in, and then exhale. Go."
"Yeah."
"Okay."
"Don't hesitate. Go. Go. Go."
"Okay. Okay."
"No. I'm chill."
"You're chill. Yeah. Yeah. Go. Not like this. It's painful because you hesitated. You're like this. Go."
"Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Chill. Chill. Chill. 3, 2, 1."
"Did you feel anything?"
"No."
"You see? Go slow. But did you feel the pinch?"
"No, because you went straight."
"Don't... don't tap with this one."
"She did it. I did that."
I wanted to know more about Valerie's journey, and what better place to do that than at one of her favorite places in the city.
"So, you've been biohacking since 1998, which in my mind makes you an OG biohacker, one of the originals that has been doing this for literally decades. But how has your routine changed from your 30s to now as a 55-year-old woman?"
"So, it's changed radically. Obviously, I went from one gram of vitamin C a day to like hyperbaric chamber, infrared sauna. I mean, you name it, I do it. It's... it cannot compare. It's just I started before everyone else, pretty much. And it's interesting because today, when you talk biohacking, everyone will quote you or say three names, only men."
"Yeah. So on that point, a lot of focus in the biohacking space is on men."
"Yes. But as a woman, how is your routine different?"
"As far as my routine is concerned, I I put a lot of weight on uh biohacking my hormonal levels by using bioidentical hormones. Bioidentical makes a big difference. And if I had something to say to my older self, it would be, 'Oh my god, why didn't you start when you were 30?'"
"Well, I didn't know about it."
"Mhm."
"One thing that's come up a lot is transparency on looks as you age. So, what are your thoughts on Botox, fillers, plastic surgery to keep a youthful look?"
"So, I have never done any plastic surgery. I'm not judging people who do. It's just I'm scared it's going to transform my face, you know. I haven't done fillers either. I've done Botox, and I don't hide it, you know. I've done Botox since I was 20, 25, so a long time ago. I'm transparent on it. I just don't understand why so many people lie about it. Like, 'Oh, I haven't done anything.' So, you have to... I mean, I own it. If I do it, I say it."
"Where, where do you get it? Like, just so people know."
"So, forehead here, tip of the nose. You know why? 'Cause when you age, your nose tip goes down. It's called the witch nose. So, if you do like one pump here, woof, your nose goes up. Interesting. And upper lips. So that you remove... I never smoked, but you remove the little lines from here."
But knowing everything Valerie has been through, I had to know how did she build such a resilient mind.
"Okay, so I'm going to be honest with you. I don't even think in those terms because I don't think at all. I just go. I don't tell myself, 'I'm going to be a strong girl. I'm going to be resilient.' I don't think. I just do."
"If there is a friend of yours that was having a hard time with their health, what would you recommend they do?"
"If you're being told it cannot be cured, don't believe it. That's my first thing. And then go and research. I was told my esquemas, my brain esquemas, nothing can fix it. I was like, 'Watch me. I'm going to fix it.'"
After a beautiful picnic dinner, it was time for Valerie's evening routine. I was so excited for what was next.
Valerie starts her evening with 1 hour of HBOT, short for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. An HBOT is a chamber that delivers high-pressure pure oxygen, which basically supercharges your blood and helps reduce inflammation, speeds healing, and boosts recovery. Having an HBOT at home is incredibly rare, so I was beyond excited to try it.
"Let's do it."
"Let's do it. Okay, so you can just lean down. I'm going to turn it on."
"Here we go."
"Now, it's going to inflate."
"How are you feeling?"
"I feel pressurizing."
"All right, this is fun."
"What are three habits that you think everyone should do?"
"Go out of your house first thing when you wake up and get some natural daylight on your face with no sunscreen, no cream, nothing. Uh, to me, that's super important. Second, take your time to work on your cardio coherence every day. It's 5 minutes. Anyone can do it. And third, go to bed early. The deep sleep happens before 2:00 a.m. You know, biohacking is about discipline. It's not about supplements. It's not about anything else. It's discipline."
"So how do you balance discipline between living your life?"
"That's my life. You see, I decided that my life is this. I don't think. I think a lot of the things we do has been imposed on us by society as a norm, and I reject this norm of laziness, of emptiness."
"Feels good. We're now deflating."
"Did you like it?"
"That was crazy. Yeah. So this is super cool. But I also noticed this guy."
"Yeah."
"What is this?"
"So that's my Sunlighten infrared sauna."
"How often do you do this?"
"Every day."
"For how long?"
"At night. What? A half hour. And then I take a cold shower for like 2 minutes minimum."
"All righty. So HBOT, sauna, cold shower. What happens next?"
"Then I wear these glasses. Blue light blocking to increase my melatonin production by 58%. You want to try?"
"Okay. Are these real? Like, do these actually work for you?"
"Of course they do. What do you think I'm wearing?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Yeah."
"And what were all those things that we saw when you woke up? What do you... What's your whole thing that you put on?"
"So, I put a uh a chest pad, an anti-wrinkle silicon chest pad. So, then I put earplugs to block all the sounds from the city or even from the woods, wherever I am. I never sleep with the dog in the bed. That's really bad for sleep 'cause they move all the time. They sneeze. They have nightmares. Then I wear a mouth tape, but not that completely covers my mouth 'cause that makes me panic a bit. So I just put in the middle. It does two things. First, it promotes nasal breathing, which is better for oxygenation. But second, it reduces cortisol. And then I put a big, big, big huge silk mask with a little bit of space so that my lashes don't touch."
But I wanted to know, of all the things we did today, if there was only one key habit she could do, what would it be?
"Just one."
"Just one?"
"Just one would be going out without sunglasses, sunscreen in the natural daylight in the morning. That's important. It impacts your mood and your circadian rhythm, which means you sleep better. So, you have a a domino effect of a lot of good things from that."
Valerie is redefining what it means to thrive. She reminded me that even when things get tough, never give up. Despite many health scares, she focused on what she could control and incredibly is now one of the healthiest people on the planet. So do your research, experiment, and find what works for you. And together, let's stay human.
"And now we're sleeping together online."
"And let's go."
[Music]