Uncommon Living: A Dialogue in Human Resilience

summary Sean Smiley shares his inspiring journey of how cold water therapy transformed his life, improved his mental health, and became a vital tool for firefighters' well-being.

After an eight-year long custody battle for his autistic son, Adonnai Santos found himself in the hospital with acute mental and physical health issues. He says the ice bath probably saved his life. In this episode of the Uncommon Living podcast shares his transformative journey with Professor Thomas Seager, and how his new venture Transformation Columbus his changing his clients lives like he cha...

Modern American hospitals are modeled after the factory in the service of the military. They are excellent for treatment of infectious disease and gunshot wounds (acute trauma). They are NOT designed for chronic illness. In Episode 54 of the Uncommon Living podcast, Chris Zimmerman shares his innovative approach to transforming healthcare by repurposing rural hospital infrastructure, emphasizing s...

Hollywood Stuntman Bobby Williams describes his experiences with the Stratosphere ATC hypobaric machine he invented to boost health and longevity. In Episode 53 of the Uncommon Living podcast, William's explains to Thomas Seager, PhD how hypobaric (i.e., high altitude simulation) training has improved lung capacity for him and his wife, actress Mariel Hemingway. Their conversations compares hy...

George Wiseman invented a machine to electrolyze water and produce hydrogen rich "Brown's gas" for inhalation via an oxygen cannula. He's maintained the practice years, and credits it for healing scars, warts, boosting his immune system, and keeping him young. In this episode of the Uncommon Living podcast, Wiseman tells Professor Thomas Seager about the benefits of hydrogen inha...

Clinical trials at Adelaide University in Australia have demonstrated the efficacy of cold plunge therapy for relief of endometriosis pain. Results show that those women who cold plunged most often obtained the greatest relief. In this episode of the Uncommon Living podcast, Kelsi Dodd, PhD describes the complex and painful condition of endometriosis, distinguishes it from PCOS/PMOS, and hypothese...

In this episode 50 of the Uncommon Living podcast, Thomas Seager, PhD describes the science of photobiomodulation (PBM), explaining that red light therapy and infrared light therapy are becoming popular for their effects on boosting mitochondrial health. However, he also suggests that the big gains in photobiomodulation may still be yet to come. While red/NIR therapy devices typically target the c...

There's a growing awareness that something is seriously amiss with US health care. According to NIh Director Jay Bhattacharya, PhD/MD, life expectancy in the USA peaked in 2014.Why? Because for 50 years scientists have been looking for the secrets to longevity and health in the DNA, rather than in the mitochondria. In this episode of Uncommon Living, we share a lecture given at the Abilities E...

Gym Guyz Founder Josh York describes his entrepreneurial journey, the importance of resilience, and how discipline and mental toughness over comes anxiety and drives success. York tells Professor Thomas Seager about how he changed his ice bath routine to precool his intense workouts, and what happened to his testosterone as a result. Both men agree that success in entrepreneurship requires that th...

Dean Hall returns to the Uncommon Living podcast to share how his experiences as a cancer patient and survivor have reshaped him as a trauma therapist. This interview with Thomas Seager, PhD describes Hall's disillusionment with traditional talk therapy, and the realization that he must stay more closely connected to Nature to manage the health risks of feeling being connected to his clients....

Somalive Founder Sean Patrick Maher joins Professor Thomas Seager on the Uncommon Living Podcast to describe experiences with vibroacoustic therapy. They explore the technology and architecture of sound and its effects on the human body, from ancient cathedrals to soundscape ecology, and how the digital tactile transducers in the Somealive sound bed create an amazing yet unexplainable sensation.

In this episode of the Uncommon Living podcast, Beth Lambert describes her recent peer-reviewed journal articles focusing on autism. She tells Thomas Seager, PhD about her work educating parents and clinicians about the Total Load approach to understanding the origins of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Sean Finney, co-Founder of Tano Skincare, describes the banana sap-based skincare creams he developed that were inspired by a traumatic leg injury he suffered as a child. In this episode of the Uncommon Living podcast, Finney tells Arizona State University Professor Thomas Seager, CEO of Morozko Forge, how banana sap offers a natural alternative to retinol for promoting skin health by accelerating...

Ahmad Ammouss, MD almost quit medical school when he realized that the pharmaceutical drug therapies could never cure patients of chronic illness, but instead of walking out on medicine, he graduated, completed his residency training, and passed his Boards. Now he practices as a physician with hospital privileges in Massachusetts -- except his patients don't get pills. They get lifestyle recom...

Morozko CEO and Arizona State University engineering Associate Professor Thomas Seager describes how his interest in metabolism began when his six-year-old son was diagnosed with diabetes twenty-five years ago. When he discovered that the nutrition and diet advice he was getting from the licensed clinicians contradicted the scrupulous records he kept on his son's blood glucose levels and insulin d...

When he weighed 350lb, Dr. Tro Kalayjian began questioning everything he'd learned about obesity in medical school. Instead of following the recommendations in his textbooks, he decided to read the scientific literature for himself. He discovered that low carbohydrate diets were an effective treatment for morbid obesity, and he lost more than 150lbs. Then he had to wonder, "What else coul...

In this episode of the Uncommon Living podcast, Thomas P Seager, PhD, interviews Bob Messerschmidt, the founder of COR Health, about the importance of self-monitoring health through innovative technology. Messerschimdt explains the significance of inflammation as a marker for chronic diseases, the limitations of traditional medical practices, and the potential of at-home health monitoring devices...

Seth Hendrickson DC, is a California a chiropractor who found an instatiable appetite for reading when he regained his eyesight after an acid-scarring accident. In his functional integrative medicine practice, he often recommends cold plunge therapy -- especially for his perimenopausal and menopausal women. In this episode of the Uncommon Living podcast, Hendrickson asks several questions of Thoma...

This compilation of short lectures from the ice bath covers topics related to health, mitochondria, ketones, hormones, weight loss, autism, and protocols for cold plunging.

According to the creator of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) psychologist Marsha Linehan, PhD, cold water immersion therapy rebalances the sympathetic and the parasympathetic divisions of the central nervous system and can be used to treat mood and personality disorders. Mindy Pelz DC said that 11 seconds of cold plunge immersion works for treating her PTSD.How can this happen? In this episode...

When faced with an abnormal prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, Thomas Seager, PhD decided to eschew the normal medical advice and opted to practice daily ice baths instead. Four months later he'd reduced his PSA from 5 to 1.8 ng/dL, indicating no elevated risk of prostate cancer. Along the way, he discovered that his total testosterone had shot up to 1180 ng/dL. In this lecture, Seager expl...

Inventor the hydrogen water tablet, Alex Tarnava joins the Uncommon Living podcast to explain the role of hydrogen in the body and the mechanisms by which H2 promotes health, well-being, and longevity. Tarnava tells Thomas Seager, PhD about how three different dosing methods, drinking, bathing, and inhalation, target different areas of the body and have different effects. They also compare views o...

Ozone is a powerful disinfectant in water -- more powerful than chlorine and in many ways safer. However, the EPA and OSHA have set strict exposure limits in air. In this episode of the Uncommon Living podcast, Thomas Seager, PhD talks with SimplyO3 Founder Micah Lowe about the science of ozone therapy, the mechanisms of action, the use of ozone for disinfection in ice baths, and some of the safet...

At the age of 41, Sarah Kleiner was determined to have a second child. She was already on a carnivore diet, but she lost two pregnancies and two rounds of IVF failed to produce viable embryos. What else could she possibly do? Ice baths. Less than four months after starting a program of regular cold water immersion therapy, Sarah successfully conceived. At age 43, she had a natural childbirth and a...

The green light of the shady forest might be why the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) promotes healing. Immersion in the shady forest for just a few hours a week boosted the immune system, fight cancer, reduce inflammation, improve circulation, speed healing, and enhance mood. Meanwhile, in clinical trials at Harvard and University of Arizona, green light therapy has been used to...