Podcast Episode: Gary Miller, Olympic Alpine Ski Coach and HumanCharger (cognitive bright light headset) US Owner

Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:00)

Gary Miller, welcome to the podcast. It is such a privilege to have you on the show.

Gary Miller (00:07)

Thank you very much, Melanie. It's a pleasure to be on your show.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:12)

I would like to ask two things to get started. For those who don't know who you are, would you like to share something about your background in skiing or sports? Share your background with that and what you're doing with technology now.

Gary Miller (00:32)

Yeah, I come from the ski racing world, which is a little strange maybe, but I grew up as a ski racer, and then I coached our national team twice. And I'm an Olympic team coach. And then I did some filmmaking. I was filming skiers jumping off cliffs and doing this kind of crazy stuff and making commercials. And then I got into designing and manufacturing sports bags and luggage for almost everybody in the ski industry. And I've started some of my own companies. And then when our kids were growing up and leaving the nest, my wife and I decided, let's go live in Europe. So we moved to Garmisch, Germany. And that's where we found our latest little tech gadget called the Human Charger.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:30)

The human charger. This is going to really help people. Mean, honestly, I could have asked you so many questions all day about sport, and we'll interweave all that, but this charger is going to really help people because let's start with the problem before we look at the solution. So it sounds like seasonal depression is a real thing. And in some countries, people are talking about it a lot, but in other places, it might be not really understood so much. So, between that and a jet, like what have you seen about how sleep and light and time zones, all of those things can affect our health?

Gary Miller (02:16)

Yeah, one is a little bit, know, seasonal depression has been around for a while. I mean, we see it more in the northern part of America and obviously in northern Europe, where it's dark a lot during the winter. You'll see people get seasonal affective disorder or SAD, and you know, their circadian rhythm is just off, and they don't feel good. They can't sleep well.

They have anxiety. And I think the, I guess the best description, because I don't fit that mould. I'm unusual. I'm a ready, set, go kind of guy. Get up and go, and I'm fine. But my wife is completely opposite, okay? And we were in Lech, Austria. She was working at a ski shop. She was working down in the basement. She was working long hours.

We met this former colleague of mine that had the human charger. And he explained the technology, and he said, You know, we developed it in Finland and it's really changed people's lives, and we want to sell it to Americans, but nobody's ever taken it there. It's been hiding in Europe for 10 years, believe it or not. And I didn't know much about SAD, but my wife did. And she said, I'm willing to try it because, you know,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:35)

I think.

Gary Miller (03:42)

I have, you know, I've got menopause. I've got hot flashes. I've got anxiety. I have sleep issues, da da da da. So she took it and tried it. And within a week, she said it was like night and day for her. All of a sudden, it's the first time she's been able to wake up at six thirty in the morning, bright-eyed, ready to go. She uses it in the afternoon instead of an espresso to just give a little boost.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:58)

Really?

Gary Miller (04:10)

And she knew about SAD, so she understood this. Then we agreed to take some samples, do some research, and do some testing. And we went over and saw a couple of friends of ours at a hotel that were doctors from the US. And we said, Would something like this be of interest to you? And the doctor and his wife, both of them were doctors. And they said, yes, of course, we'd love to try it. I mean, we're wellness doctors in America.

We gave them each a sample. They flew back to America. And within a week, he writes me an email and he says, My God. He said, We flew back to the US, okay, from Munich to Denver. We had no jet lag. We feel much better. We feel healthier. We feel more alive. And we can't believe it. And we're gonna offer it to our patients. And that was really our first customer.

And then we thought, maybe we're onto something here, you know? And we did this a few times, and all of a sudden, we started getting into the research and found that one of the most pervasive illnesses that anybody can have today, and nobody really knows about it, is circadian rhythm disruption.

And I don't know if you know much about circadian rhythm disruption.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:32)

Circadian rhythm.

A bit, not a lot, but for those who don't know, what should we know about it?

Gary Miller (05:42)

Well, it's, it's.

Circadian rhythm disruption is your internal body clock. It's your biological clock. If you go back 30, 40 years, before we had tablets, computers, mobile phones and all the blue screen devices, we woke up in the morning by the sun. And when the sun set, we went to sleep when it got dark. Because light through our eyes naturally it fired up our hormones in the morning, the cortisol and the serotonin, it got us moving. In the night, melatonin takes over when the darkness comes and you go to sleep. Well now with all the blue screen devices that we're subjected to all day long, it's affected our circadian rhythm. And it's been very pervasive, but nobody really talks about it. It's kind of that chronic.

CRD that nobody wants to talk about, but it is linked. It is linked to obesity, diabetes, metabolic diseases, psychiatric disorders, autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. And I mean, this has been kind of a niche chronobiology for a long time, but now it's really a public health concern. And, you know, incredibly, a hundred per cent of the human population is affected by CRD. They just don't know it. And some of them it's been hiding for a long time. Even doctors today don't realise it. And it can make your life pretty miserable, actually.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:30)

Do you think that's one of the reasons why some people struggle so much in an office for a long day?

Gary Miller (07:38)

Yes, exactly. You don't get enough light. You know, they did they did some studies, and I guess on the sports side of it, where I was really interested, is that I come from a sport where obviously it's winter, it's dark, darker, it's cloudy. I mean, we do have sunny days, but, know, when you have cloudy, cloudy days, you don't get the amount of sunlight your body needs to keep the energy going. So.

You know, for me, I was really interested in it. And they had done some studies in Helsinki, Finland, when they developed this with professional hockey players because they're in an arena. And arenas don't get much light. And they found that with the studies that they did, the hockey players, their reaction time, they call it the psychomotor speed of an athlete, their reaction time was sped up when they used the human charger because they got that extra boost of light. And I'm thinking, this is perfect for my ski racers. These guys need this because they're subjected to the same thing. And I think that's where the light for me really came on, so to speak, is that it does have an impact. There were scientists that studied, I mean, they studied this for quite a while, and they determined that transcranial bright light

OK, which is through your ear canal because it's your your eardrum is translucent. The bone structure around your ear is very thin. It's a faster way to get light to your hypothalamus, which has all these hormones. Normally, you would stare at an SAD lamp. OK, that's been the technology for 40 years. People have been staring at a lamp for an hour because it takes that long for the light.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (09:16)

Wow.

Gary Miller (09:30)

to go through your optic nerve and into the hypothalamus. This is a completely different technology. And of course, obviously, you can't travel with a sad lamp because they're big and cumbersome. These things are so small, you know, they're compact, they're portable, you throw it in your pocket or your purse or your briefcase and away you go. And instead of staring at a lamp for an hour, this thing delivers the same amount of light, 10,000 lux, full spectrum, UV free, bright light to your photosensitive areas of the brain.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:09)

through the ears.

Gary Miller (10:10)

through the years.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:13)

This is telling me so much, and I'll give you some examples that people can really relate to, so we can get into the experience of the listener. Recently, I got very blocked up after some things like that, and my ears were blocked; they were popping for days, kind of like when you're on a flight and it's really blocked. I'm wondering if our ears are not how they should be. Are you saying that we might would that not get the light and what we need for our brains to be okay.

Gary Miller (10:48)

I'm not sure. That's the first time I've had that question.

I think the path, the transcranial path, is so much shorter, even if there was, if you have any fluids or anything, it's basically what's blocking your ears is fluid. It's gonna pass through the fluid anyway. I mean, I had a little bit of a sinus cough maybe a few weeks ago, and I had some, you know, the ears were popping in the same sort of thing, and I still used it during that time, and it does its thing, and I never worried about it. We don't see any strange effects from it. The light is safe to use for sure. It's just more efficient.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:43)

That's great. So even if someone is having those sorts of issues, then they can still use the light as well. So, a few questions here. Travel. People are travelling more. And of course, we were taught for a couple of years during the pandemic to stay indoors. And we should really have a cultural shift where

I think for a couple of years we've been out in the world a bit more, and people are travelling, but also we don't always get outside as much when we're travelling. So, between that and, of course, the longer trips that would take hours, and then you're in a different time zone. I'm wondering, could you tell me more about how this light could really help people when they are travelling and perhaps for that sort of reason, they might be inside during the day and then only have spare time once the light is a bit more dark, then how's that going to change things?

Gary Miller (12:46)

Yeah, well, I think I think in general, you know, you talk about people that are indoors a lot and and you never.

You're starting to see a little bit of a shift with companies that build office buildings and put in light that is maybe more tailored to circadian rhythm, but it's very, very few. So most office buildings aren't lit very well. It's fluorescent lighting, and you don't get that boost. And of course, the natural thing to do is run down to the coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon and fire up a, you know, mocha latte or something to give yourself a little boost. Whereas it's maybe not the most healthy thing to do. You know, this thing in 12 minutes, you just pop it on and it's it's a little bit of a weird sensation because it's not like drinking an energy drink or having a coffee or something. where it get all of a sudden you're buzzed a little bit. There's no buzz. It's like all of a sudden, it's like 30 to 45 minutes later, you're just

Wow, where'd that come from? I'm not punchy anymore. I'm not lagging, I'm wide awake. You can be driving in a car late at night, and you get a little punchy. You put this thing on, and half an hour later, you're like, wow, I'm awake again.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:13)

So this could help for people who are driving and need to make sure they are more alert.

Gary Miller (14:18)

Absolutely. It's fantastic. It works great for that. And then, you talk about travel. Even though this thing was sort of designed for SAD, right? We've discovered this jet lag thing that just is almost a miracle because I mean, you know, travelling as an athlete and a coach for so many years.

My God. I mean, the jet lag is a killer. You know, you usually for two or three days, I mean, you're feeling pretty rough. If you're crossing five, six time zones ⁓ and you know, our bodies over time, maybe over a thousand years, our bodies might evolve to adapt to jet travel because

The jets will get you to a destination faster than your body can adapt to it. So that's why you feel like crap, literally, for a couple of days. So what happens is, is when you use the human charger, all we do is use it multiple times. So you determine the time at your destination, okay, like seven or eight o'clock in the morning, you might be almost to your destination. start, you use it once, for 12 minutes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:21)

Yes.

Gary Miller (15:40)

And then every two hours for four or five times that day, and the following day, and all it's doing is resetting the circadian rhythm every two hours, and it keeps advancing it. It doesn't allow you to fly all the way to Europe, and then you're, my God, I gotta go take a nap or something, you know? You can stay awake the entire day, sleep through the night, and you do it the next day, you will not have jet lag.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:07)

Amazing. I need to ask, though. I hope that you're still recommending that people get their rest and their sleep, but it sounds like this will help as we adjust our patterns.

Gary Miller (16:19)

Yes, it does. It does help with sleep.

If you travel to Europe, for example, and I'm using the America to Europe because it's what we're accustomed to. But what it does is you might stay up a little bit longer that first day you arrive, but you don't feel sluggish. And then you get a good night's sleep. Because normally, if you didn't use this type of light, you're going to be punchy all day. You're not going to feel great. You don't have any of that energy boost, which this gives you. And then you're going to sleep till about three in the morning. And then you're going to wake up and you're going to go, oh my God, I need another three hours of sleep and I'm not going to get it. For whatever reason, this thing works. It works really well to allow you to get a really good night's sleep. You wake up the next day, you're in a more normal time, and then you do it again for every two hours for the day. And pretty soon you're just on the normal schedule again.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (17:34)

wanted to ask more about your wife's experience with this because you mentioned that she had some health experiences that were also influencing her moods. And I'm really curious about that because there's a lot of talk now about menopause and pre-menopause. And also, I think that women really need more resources. I mean, everybody does, but they need resources to make sure that their moods don't stop them from achieving what they want to achieve. And especially, we've heard recently that in medical research, women were excluded for so many years in a lot of the research. So this is why I'm really curious about your wife's experience, because I think these sorts of stories definitely need more attention.

Gary Miller (18:29)

I couldn't agree more. mean, listen, and obviously, I'm speaking as a husband to a wife who has gone through this, you know. She's had menopause and then had to have some surgery to take a few parts. so, you know, you got to...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:51)

So do you?

Gary Miller (18:55)

A couple of the female parts have to come out because they're no longer in use anymore, and those were screwing things up, and it's kind of a normal thing, from what I understand, with a lot of women. So then you're on some hormones and other medications to sort of get your system balanced again. And she struggled with this for quite a bit. And like I said, when she was working in Lech, Austria, you know, in a basement which was not lit very well for, you know, eight hours a day. And then, you know, for her to be able to, you know, get up early in the morning feeling great, go to work, power through all day, have a good night's sleep, it's just been a game-changer for her. I mean, it's, and she uses it. You know, I may use it once a day.

Sometimes twice, if I'm a little draggy in the afternoon, I might throw it on. She'll use it maybe three, four times a day, and just, it keeps her even keeled, keeps her moods up, keeps her happy, more energised. Yeah, she loves it. I mean, it's really been a game-changer.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:03)

Yes, and the hormonal issues, I think that's so significant because we need whatever we can get to level out our energy. And it's, it's so interesting. I mean, the foggy head, you don't understand it until it happens. And it's something that you can barely even describe. But I don't know if everybody is talking about how, after a particular organs are removed, there are all these hormonal shifts. And that's, that's huge. So if she wants to go on the podcast sometime and talk more about that, then I would welcome that so much because I just know that we need so many, we need to try anything. We live in a world where women want to keep achieving. And I think the other, of course, shift in the last hundred years has been that we are aiming for a career, people of any gender, we're aiming for careers and trying new experiences at a much older age. I mean, it was really normal to say 40 or 50 be just dismissed as middle-aged and thinking about retirement, and not much else. And now in this era, we're having what some people call a third, second and third act and…

But then we have to think about how we're going to look after ourselves. So that's a question as well. I mean, I'm wondering if people are maybe having different energy issues as they are getting older, but they still want to live life. You see, I mean, I haven't heard from older people, like even I say older and I shouldn't, but 60s, 70s, anything like that. Even the 50s, perhaps. Have you seen how there are energy shifts and but they still feel like themselves and they still want to live life. Have you seen how the light affects that?

Gary Miller (22:16)

Yeah, in fact, remember the two doctors, the couple from Denver, they're in their 70s, you know, and they're skiing in Austria, and they're still actively practising medicine. And, you know, for them at that age, it was like, this is fantastic. You know, it's it's it's given us a new lease on life. And I think, you know, it doesn't matter.

I'm 12 years older than my wife. I mean, for me, I use it in a little bit of a different manner, but for her, it works. And obviously, she would be the expert on what it's done for her. But there's the old saying here in America that, happy wife, happy life, right?

Gary Miller (23:12)

It's really important, and it's important for me that she feels better, you know, and it's really done. It's done wonders for her. It's fantastic. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:25)

Yes, absolutely. I think we can all only talk about our own personal experiences, but I believe so much in lived experience because you can be a medical expert on some conditions, some life changes, but then once you actually see it and experience it in everyday life, then that's really different. But these doctors were in their seventies, and that is something that people can learn from, because whether a listener might be around that age or a lot younger, I think we need to consider what we're going to do. And I can ask you about that. We need to think about what our lives are going to be decades from now, not to plan it out so much that we rule out other options. But I don't think that people should assume that by 60 or 70, they'll just be in an old folks’ home and maybe playing cards.

I think there are so many opportunities, and we're celebrities. It's great to see some celebrities who are silver-haired and still living life. But I'm wondering what wisdom do you have for people who want to really have a few different areas in their lives? Because, of course, you went from sport to doing great things with tech. What can you suggest?

Gary Miller (24:49)

You know, that's a that's a great question because, you know, I'm lucky I had a grandfather that had polio when he was 12 years old. OK. And this was back in the early 1900s. And they didn't have they didn't have things. They didn't put polio vaccines or anything like that. I mean, he spent nine months of his life as a 12 year old kid in a sanatorium in Cleveland, Ohio, getting put on a rack.

to stretch his legs to make, you know, so that they would grow straight away. They didn't know anything back then, and it was painful. And this guy, of course, he walked his whole life with a limp. He was a successful businessman. He became a well-respected artist, a well-known artist. And he was way ahead of his time. He rode his stationary bike every day, and he would ride it for an hour. He, my God, I'll bet he went around the world like three or four times. It was ridiculous. mean, and he moved, he did hard labour, he built his own house, he ate the right foods, he took cold showers, all this sort of stuff that was never the thing back then. And they told him in that hospital, he'd be in a wheelchair at 50 and he'd be dead at 55. Well, the guy didn't go into a wheelchair until he was 98, and he died at 100. So you're so spot on because people have a life that can go that distance, but they have to do certain things. They've got to look at things like a human charger and natural things.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:25)

Wow!

Gary Miller (26:44)

They've got to use light technology. They have to eat properly, stay away from fast food, and most importantly, they have to move. They have to move every single day. Get some sort of exercise, even if it's a long walk. It's so important. They can work, get jobs, do things, because you shouldn't retire. Retirement, as my grandfather would say, is the kiss of death.

It is absolutely a kiss of death. He painted and he painted until he was 98, and he had macular degeneration, so he couldn't see out of one eye. And he said, ⁓ you know, I've painted enough. Now I'm going to write. I'll dictate to my caregiver, and I'll write my books now. That's what you know, that's that was his attitude. So it's like, you know, he's been such an inspiration to me.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (27:35)

Yes.

Gary Miller (27:44)

Because I'm writing a couple of books right now and I love to write, and so, you know, I have a lot of stuff I want to get done before I say toodles, you know, to the world. But the other thing, the other point I want to make is this is going to come from people like you. You guys in the wellness space are what we need to rely on because you're not going to get it from the medical community. Sadly, very few. Mean, you've got a few doctors like the Curavillas that I mentioned before that are terrific, but they're they're more into the wellness space anyway. But it's people like you that have, you know, this wellness podcast and in the in the business of wellness, of teaching people things that that are that are natural, that are healthy, that can help them live a longer life.

Because the medical community is, you know, it's big pharma, it's medications, it's take this pill, it's lose this weight with an injection. It's all this stuff that you don't need for the most part, right? And some people do really need some of this stuff, but for the most part, you don't. But you're not seeing it coming out of that realm. It's coming out of people like you that are doing this. And that's only going to grow because people do want to live a

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:12)

We do want to live a long life, and also some people will live a long life, but wish it could be more comfortable. And that's crucial. Surely, having this light and also looking after our energy means that we can look after ourselves. If you don't have the energy in the moment, then you might not be able to prepare a meal or go for a walk because you feel sluggish, or you might not have a conversation in community or do the work you want to do because your mind and your energy might not be up to it. So it's going to affect the quality of life. That is very much the trend, with things like the Blue Zones, and we've heard about various ways to live naturally. And the amazing thing about this is, honestly, a couple of years ago, I thought there was something extremely hippie about simply looking after ourselves, but it doesn't have to be that. I think that the mainstream, it's great to see that the mainstream is accepting wellness because what I saw, what I saw personally is that, well, for example, my grandmother had cancer and she died in 2021, but

It was just a whole lot of medical treatments, you radiation, all of those things. And she was, there were moments when she was just in so much pain, and I don't remember anyone saying to her, okay, what else can you do beyond being hooked up to a drip? I don't remember hearing about that much more than the drips into the pills. And what you were doing is finding more ways for people to regain their energy because seriously, it's partly we should live to a long time, but what would happen if anyone who's listening to this could live to a hundred, but feel really, really unwell for years or decades within that? Is that really how we want to live? So it's really inspirational. And I'm wondering, said that movement is really important.

We've heard so much about the light, and it's worth really taking this opportunity to let people know, since you have worked with athletes so much, what can we do? Frankly, whether we end up a professional athlete or whether we're just inspired by them to take the next step beyond going for a walk, what should we all know based on that experience?

Gary Miller (31:52)

You know, that's an interesting question because the first book I'm working on is about pain. OK. And for me, it was watching a Netflix documentary on Big Pharma, now, Purdue Pharma that came out with OxyContin. And it's like, I couldn't understand in my own brain why people would take this kind of medication and sit on the couch, watch TV or just zone out and then become addicted to it. And some end up dying. I just couldn't fathom this because I come from, you know, the ski racing world. Maybe a lot of people don't know about it, but it's not it's not that different from. You know, football, rugby, basketball, some of these contact sports, because I mean, you know, we're subject we're doing our sport out in very cold, harsh conditions.

Now everything on the ski World Cup circuit is ice. So, you know, you're skiing at high speeds on ice. My body's been beat up over the years, you know, and multiple surgeries. Nobody gets out of that sport without having some kind of surgery and repair job, whether it's knees, hips, ankles or whatever. And so maybe we're a little bit more used to the pain factor, but the one thing that can take pain away is movement.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:32)

Wow!

Gary Miller (33:33)

It's, I can't describe it any other way. If I wake up in the morning and I've had one disc taken out of my back, the other one below, it's not such a great either, you know? So I have to nurse that one a little bit. But if I get up and it's sore, if I get out of the house right away and I go for a walk or a hike up in the mountains and do a circuit, I'm back within an hour and that pain's gone.

It's gone. Plus, I've gotten my light outside if it's a sunny day. And it's, I'm telling you, people don't, they don't understand that. We've been so accustomed to, you know, reaching for the bottle of ibuprofen or Tylenol or whatever we're going to take. And you just don't need to do that.

Get out!

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:28)

We were sold those things because it keeps us sitting at a desk for longer.

Gary Miller (34:33)

Yeah. Get up for 15 minutes and go out and walk around the building. It's, it's, it's as simple as just going out and breathing some fresh air, and you know, hearing some birds, and all you need is 15 minutes. Don't go out and stand there and smoke a couple of cigarettes or go pop a pill, and chug down some an energy drink or a coffee, it's just go up, just walk, walk.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:09)

Just walk. It's that simple.

Gary Miller (35:10)

Just walk.

It's that simple. And of course,

Having spent so much time in Europe being an American, I couldn't wait to get here because the people here, everybody is out walking, hiking and biking, and it's just crazy. The further you move into Scandinavia with the Vikings, and the more research I did for my book by diving into the Vikings, it works. It works like magic.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:47)

takes away the pain.

Gary Miller (35:48)

takes away the pain.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:51)

And I'm wondering if it heals as well. So you talked about injuries. Now this is the opportunity I never thought I'd have because back in 2017, you might know what this is. I got a tibial plateau fracture. So I read that's 1 % of fractures. I just slipped in the bathroom. I don't have an impressive skiing story, but

Gary Miller (36:06)

Yeah, sure.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:16)

I convinced myself for a long time that I couldn't even do a yoga practice. I felt scared to cross the road. And I think that although one or two people told me you're normal again, I didn't feel normal. And so many people out there might get an injury, and you can really teach everybody if people have an injury or even just feel a bit stuck after hours of travel, whatever it might be or feeling a bit stuck after sitting at a desk for too long, then I'm wondering, will the walk, what can people tell themselves to get the confidence back and trust that movement is going to help even if they might have the doubts?

Gary Miller (37:03)

I think people that go through surgeries, ⁓ the first thing they'll notice is that they'll put them on a rehab program. I mean, they should anyway. In Europe, it's really big. They get them right away. Whether you have a hip replacement, a knee replacement, or just surgery for an ACL or whatever, or even a tibial plateau. mean, they're painful things, but...

You need to move it. You need to keep it going. And the biggest mistake that people make when they have a surgery and they do this is that they're taught a few things. And this is kind of notorious in America because they don't follow through very well on rehab. It's different over here. They get you into rehab right away, and they get three, four weeks of rehab to get that joint moving again. So, I guess the easiest story is I've had four surgeries on one knee because my meniscus has been split and fractured and whatever. So they take out bits and pieces. And the first time I had surgery, I was told to get on a bike and ride that bike religiously to rehab it. I blew it off. Didn't do it. So four years later, I was back having surgery again because there was so much scar tissue that had built up. They had to take that out. So I learned my lesson. So the next time I had surgery, I was on that bike the next day. It wasn't feeling great. Obviously, it was painful, but you ride through it and you get through it. And you can generally, and I'm not advocating a doctor's advice because I'm not a doctor, but...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:36)

Well.

Gary Miller (38:58)

Generally, movement is key because it keeps things from stiffening up. If you're going to sit at a chair all day, you know, I rotate between sitting at a table in the house or I go to a stand up. I have a stand-up table, and I rotate back and forth so that you get some constant movement. Movement is so key. It's so key. If a doctor says, Your leg isn't weight-bearing for a while.

You gotta listen to the doctor. But you do have to do rehab. Surgeries are easy. You don't feel generally any pain. You're put out with the anesthesia. It's rehab that's the bugger. And that's where you gotta grit your teeth a bit.

They got, you know, put on your big boy and big girl panties and grind it out because it's not fun. Rehab can be difficult. But the more you do and the sooner you do it, the better off, the quicker you'll recover. And you'll really start to understand pain, you know?

You will. And although rehab is difficult, I'm guessing that one thing that might help is, like you said earlier, getting out and moving around outdoors. There's something about seeing the sky and hopefully seeing the trees if there are any around, just seeing the world a bit, to not be isolated and not just be inside. And then move around and enjoy it. Have you found, especially in sports and beyond, that people get more movement when it's fun?

For sure. You know, I mean, listen, Australia has beaches galore, right? Just go out, walk in the sand. It's so good for you, you know, because the sand, the sand is in a solid platform. So it works all those little tiny muscles inside the big muscles, which actually is very beneficial as well. Just a nice walk on the beach for 20 minutes. That's all you need, you know, and constantly moving.

It's, you know, unfortunately, our society is such now that it's so digital that, ⁓ you know, it's too easy to sit down and watch 300 channels on the tube or, you know, or just stare at the phone. Leave the phone at home, or as I do, I listen to music. I just throw the phone in my pocket and I, but I don't.

If I'm going to go out and do something like that, I don't answer emails, I don't answer texts, don't, you just, you gotta, at some point you gotta make the call. You gotta say, I don't need that right now.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:57)

Yes, what worked for me is I recently started remembering the days before social media, when, so 2008 times like that, when we had a phone but we weren't obsessed with it, I would just go for a walk near a beach, near an island, and I was just in awe of what was around me.

And I can confess these days I will go to the beach and have my device out, and it's not the same. And you would, I was going for a walk recently, and I saw a woman going through the jog or the walk with the phone in front of her like this, the whole time. And that's not even really visually connecting with the surroundings with much focus at all. No.

So many people do that because we're told we should. And it's okay to maybe share a chunk of life with an audience for a moment, but it sounds like what's going to help us mentally and physically is to just switch off for some time from the devices.

Gary Miller (43:08)

You have to. It's for your own sanity. It's, yeah, I don't know. I have a harder time. I try to stay away from social media as much as possible because to me I love nature more. For me, it's hiking. We've got a trail up near the house that we can use; it's a beautiful mountain stream that comes down.

And it's so peaceful, or in the wintertime, to go out and ski for me, skiing a run just where I'm out in nature, and the wind is blowing in my face, is just. It's fantastic. Yeah, no. We need to go back to the way it was. I was lucky I'm old enough to be lucky to my sisters, and we call it being raised by wolves because.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:07)

Good!

Gary Miller (44:08)

Because it was, you know, we had three channels on the TV that had nothing on it, right? And so it was like, we'd get up in the morning and power down breakfast and out the door we'd go, and we just invented stuff. We learned to figure stuff out on our own. We played in the woods, and we played on the water, and we did all these goofy things, and the last thing you hear was the dinner bell ringing, and then you ran home to have dinner, and then you went back outside at night and did the same thing.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:38)

And that gives you space and time for creativity, whether it's ideas for tech, whether it's something else. It lets you come up with something on your own instead of just being bad information. We can actually put something out into the world. As we wind up, I wish we had so much more time, but I wanted to know what are three universal lessons that you want all of the listeners to remember?

Gary Miller (45:10)

Well, I'd say I would say the first one is ditch the ditch the digital devices as much as you can. mean, listen, the computers, the phones, they're magical, right? I mean, it's it's it's done. It's done everybody a world of good in so many ways, but it's also been very bad for our health and wellness. So, you know.

Get rid of the digital stuff as much as possible. Use it for what it's intended for. I mean, we can do podcasts like this, a half a world apart, which is fantastic. ⁓ And the emails and all this sort of stuff is great, but leave it at that and take part of your life and really go out and enjoy it. Movement, movement is so critical. Don't sit around.

Don't get in front of the TV every single night. Get out and move, get some fresh air. In the morning for me, it's the best time. And that's when I can be creative is when I'm out exercising in nature. That's where I get my best ideas. And then I just log them and I try to remember them, not write them down on a phone. And I think the other one is light therapy, it's really only in its infancy right now. People are just now discovering that a little bit of extra light from a device like the human charger is so critical to give you that boost that we've lost. And we've lost it because the blue screens aren't being conducive to our overall health and wellness.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:02)

Amazing, great wisdom. Gary, thank you so much for talking today.

Gary Miller (47:07)

Thank you, Melanie. I appreciate it.