Brian Johnson  00:00

I was on a quick decline. And when I spent a lot of time basically healing myself from all of this, like years of damage that was accumulating from the building as a treat, right, it was mold, and it was chemicals in the building industry. And I knew, I'm like, where am I going with my career? You know, where am I going to take this? And finally, you know, just a lot of getting into the whole spiritual realm, a lot of meditation, a lot of spiritual growth, self development, type work, that's when I thought, what can I bring to the world? Well, we're talking about all these amazing, you know, technologies and modalities. I'm like, why aren't we building the homes? You know, like this and, and really, so that I would say four or five years ago was when this whole model started to manifest and started to treat itself to were three years ago is when I'm like, okay, look, I'm going to open up a new company, it's going to be building healthy homes, it's looking at it holistically.

Bridget Moroney  01:15

Welcome to the performance arcs podcast, the ultimate destination for anyone who wants to perform better in the gym, and live a better life outside it. Whether you're just starting your journey, or you're a seasoned pro. This show covers a wide range of topics to help you reach your potential and live your best life. Each week on this podcast. I'll be bringing you expert interviews, personal stories, and actionable advice to inspire, educate and empower you to reach your goals. So hit follow, grab your headphones and get ready to take your health and performance to the next level. Hey, everyone, welcome to today's episode of the performance arts podcast. I'm your host, Bridget Moroney. And today we are embarking on a transformative two part series that sets to reshape the way you think about your home, your health and how they impact your athletic performance. Today, we're diving headfirst into part one of this journey with my guest, Brian Johnson. Brian is not your ordinary builder. He is a building biologist accredited by the building Biology Institute with over 20 years of experience in construction, but what truly sets him apart is his unshakable passion for health, athletic performance and holistic wellness. He's an elite athlete ranking in the top 1% As an all world athlete in Ironman and exterra events. But there's more to Brian's story. mold illness is something that he's personally confronted. And in this part one episode, we'll explore his experiences with mold exposure and its profound impact on health as athletes and fitness enthusiast the link between the air we breathe in our performance couldn't be more critical. Our homes are our sanctuaries but they can also be sources of hidden health hazards. Brian's Expertise in construction and building biology has given him unique insights into how our living environments can influence our overall well being Brian is on a mission to provide access and know how for the proven cutting edge technologies and systems for building holistic living structures. In 2020. He designed and built the world's first optimized living home in Tucson, Arizona, this home stands as a testament to Brian's commitment to Optimal Living and serves as an educational beacon for other builders seeking sustainable solutions for their clients. And this one of a kind home you'll find the latest innovations in circadian lighting, EMF protection, 5g shielding, water purification, air quality and mold resistant materials. Every aspect of the home is meticulously sourced with the highest quality, safest and cleanest materials available. Join us today as we uncover the hidden dangers of molded our homes, how it can affect our health and share our personal experiences that many of you might relate to. We'll learn how Brian's journey as an athlete and building expert intersect bring us closer to understanding the importance of holistic living structures for our health. Whether you're an avid athlete striving for peak performance, or simply someone who values their well being this episode is for you. Well, let's um, I know we've been Chad, let's I do want to do like, I guess we'll kind of formally conduct the interview are just kind of

Brian Johnson  04:13

Yeah, absolutely. In like, just, you know, just have a wealth of knowledge in this. Yeah, we can. We can keep it simple. We can go where you want to go. I will just definitely just kind of let you like if you're okay, I'll just kind of let you leave where you want it to take it. I'll bring in the information of what you what you'd like.

Bridget Moroney  04:33

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my whole my whole thing is just like, you know, like you said, you have a wealth of information and obviously a lot of passion, you know, for it as well. And in my opinion, that's kind of like that's where all the magic is. So I definitely have a couple of questions, but we can just, you know, we can also just let it see where the conversation takes us. But um, yeah, yeah, um, well, I guess like, you know, So we've been chatting and you've already, like, shared so much, you know, very interesting, you know, just a lot of insight there. But I guess let's kind of take a step back and, and start from the beginning, which is, you know, so how did you come up with the concept of your optimized living home? And I guess, you know, for people that maybe aren't familiar with what that would mean, you know, how does that differ from a typical home? And then, you know, if you want to share anything else from your, from your background, as well, and how you kind of came across this inspiration that led you down this road? Like you said, 360 degree perspective here. So

Brian Johnson  05:40

Oh, yeah, you know, thank you. And, you know, I'll kind of just sum it up from, from the early stages of my experience in the building, building background 2002, I've always been in the construction industry, but in 2002, that's when I got my general contractor's license in California. And right right out of the gate, I knew that I wanted to build something very unique, it's just always been, it's always been in in part of my personalities to do something different, right. And I'm like, I had mentorship in the building industry. And so I got right into concrete, building concrete homes, in 2003, through 2008. And it's fascinating. It was, it's ahead of its time, it's a European technology that they're using a lot in Northern Europe, and Canada, is sort of making its way down here through the US. And then of course, we have the housing bubble back in 2008. And it completely radically changed a lot of things in the economy and cost of materials and steel and concrete. And then of course, lumber had had dropped way down. So it just, and they're super energy efficient homes, but I don't know if there were one was really a 2008 Wasn't really riding that wave of the whole energy efficiency type of thing, you know, as far as from a elevated cost factor. You know, and then kind of proceeding I fell back in, I went back into doing a lot more concrete, specialized concrete construction, stayed very proactive in the remodeling industry worked in Palm Springs, California for about 20 years. And in just 20 years, I took on a lot of public work type contracts that were in this is when the US Green Building Council comes out with these projects that what they refer to as the LEED l Ed, LEED projects, and, you know, architects, that would be part of this LEED program, it can be like a platinum, you know, gold, silver bronze, based upon, you know, how green, they were, you know, the materials that they were using, and how green, they would get points, and they would get, you know, credited for, you know, these projects Well, during these projects is when I really learned the other side of the reality of it. And it does this put it this way, the it was more opportunistic. And that's where I personally learned, this is my perspective, I'm not speaking for anyone else. But that's where I learned a lot of green what greenwashing truly means? And was it truly a green agenda? I don't think so. We were using a lot of products that were that were actually recommended that were actually toxic. And I had, at the time, I was, you know, mid 30s didn't care, you know, I was an athlete, and I was into health, but I was a tough guy, right construction worker, you kind of fall into that whole mindset. It's just a whole different element, you know, in that field. And I have exposed myself to lots of chemicals working on these these dream projects. And in so that's a piece of it, to where I started kind of understanding God has that really kind of what happens, you know, in this industry, okay, well, I'm not sold on this idea. And then but I was also doing a lot of public type residential projects in Palm Springs. And through that 20 years, I have never seen so many moldy homes in Palm Springs, California that is and everyone thinks because it's on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Everyone thinks, hey, this is a super dry climate,

Bridget Moroney  09:58

bro here I was just Thinking that Yeah.

Brian Johnson  10:02

You know, in the biggest one of the biggest misconceptions is mold grows everywhere around the world, there's no place that's exempt from it. Yeah, even death valley probably has mold grown around there somewhere if you lift up a rock. But, uh, but which Death Valley is not too far from Palm Springs, but um, but anyways, so I had a lot of experience working with mold remediation companies and what they would do, we would always encounter these projects where we would have to pull off. And as a general contractor, you know, then you'd have to bring in the proper remediation, and they would go through all these protocols. At that time again, I was in the construction industry wasn't really super mindful for myself and my exposure of these chemical exposures and the mold exposures. And it wasn't till later, I would say about, I was always unhealthy. And I was always big into triathlons and Iron Man's and things like that. But I myself, you know, I would say at the age of 40, I would say right about 40, because I was training a lot, I was doing a lot of eventing, well, then that's when I started developing my issues of brain fog, you know, where you literally couldn't, you couldn't even add a one plus one, it was crazy, like, I'm like, All right, what's going on here, my losing my mind, you know, and that's where I got into the whole biohacking scene. Which ultimately led me to opening up to understanding, you know, integrative, you know, natural Pathak, homeopathic and functional medicine. And once I got into that, that's in front from 40. That's just really kind of what opened up my eyes to go in the wild here. I thought, just because I trained and I swam, and I rode my bike and I exercise, of course, it was over exercise, right, it was on the opposite side and eating a lot of carbohydrates that I was pre diabetic, I had the brain fog, I had all kinds of issues going on at this point in time. And so once I got into biohacking, that's when I started, you know, going deep down to the rabbit holes of like ozone therapies and red light therapies and circadian rhythm and understanding light and you know, all these great modalities that that we have access to, and then working with functional medicine doctors and doing all kinds of testing just to kind of find what was going on. And I was on a quick decline. And when I spent a lot of time basically healing myself from all of this, like years of damage that was accumulating from the building as a treat, right, it was mold, and it was chemicals in the building industry. And I knew I'm like, where am I going with my career? You know, where am I going to take this? And finally, you know, just a lot of getting into the whole spiritual realm, a lot of meditation, a lot of spiritual growth, self development, type work, that's when I thought what can I bring to the world? Well, we're talking about all these amazing, you know, technologies and modalities. I'm like, why aren't we building the homes? You know, like this, and, and really, so that I would say, four or five years ago was when this whole model started to manifest and started to treat itself to were three years ago is when I'm like, okay, look, I'm going to open up a new company, it's going to be building healthy homes. It's looking at it holistically. You know, hence, synergy 360. So it's like using all these building materials that work synergistically together to create a holistic, which is the 360 degrees. Of course, it's even much bigger than that, but that's how I was looking at it from a building perspective. And it's like, okay, like, the materials, like we need to understand it's almost kind of like, you know, when we're doing coaching and nutrition, you learn to read your labels, you learn to read, understand what you're putting in your body, we start to learn about, you know, probiotics versus antibiotics and in treating this, this microbiome within the body, right? And how do you balance the gut flora? And it's the same way with these homes. And so, when I started doing all this research, and, you know, there's, there's statistics out there, you know, like 90% of the homes built are what they refer to as like a sick building syndrome SBS just because of now, the industry is beginning to change, but historically, it's like using a lot of high VOCs, formaldehyde, best phenols a lot of these toxic a lot of these chemicals because everything's mass produced. It's just the The way that we build homes. And then the way that they build the homes is they're so air tight. They don't breathe in things to like an earl it was sometime in the 70s is when they came up with this energy way of building, you know, for energy costs and efficiencies. But that was when actually everything started becoming worse, because now it's like, Here, we're using all these toxic chemicals. And now we're trading the homes where they're so sealed, so tight. Now, you know, this is when it starts to change everything, because now if there's water leaking coming inside the home, of course, you know, that's going to any mold is gonna grow in any kind of a wet source. But because of the humidity, the condensation, because the equilibrium of the house is now completely altered. Now, that's when we start running into this, what we're leading today with this kind of this pandemic of mold toxicity, and a lot of people are starting to lean to find, hey, it's mold exposures, right, all these different types of toxic mold exposures. And if we look historically back, you know, like Europe was probably, you know, it's a good model on how homes, you know, were built, you know, hundreds, you know, to 1000s of years, you know, hundreds of years ago, of these homes that were built and how they were used, they were using these natural, these natural products, right, they there wasn't any chemicals in us in them. And so historically, homes were, they're still up to this day. They don't, you know, like the the mold growth is minimal. There's no EMS in these environments, they're so smart, smart home technologies or anything like that. And these are safe living homes. And in in Europe, they've really progressed on the methods and styles using different passive technologies to where they're orientating. And they're using the homes to actually collect the natural elements of nature of wind, and sun, and all these different types of things, too. So there's Europe's a great model. Plus two, they did a lot of research post World War Two. That was when the turn of the century when we're starting to use, like, justice and lead, and everything still mass produced. Well, they noticed and this is there's a lot of research out there on this that a lot of people post world war two living in homes from beginning to end, we're becoming sick, and, you know, tumors and cancer, and all these types of things. Well, they linked it together that it's like it's all these toxic building materials. Because post pre World War Two, they didn't have that it was this huge influx, until they started studying and they put together I think it was, it was back in the 50s, when they actually started to create what's what's here in the US known as the building Biology Institute. And building Biology Institute actually started in the US in 1986. Because the address the identified, they understood what the what was how we're building today, versus, you know, a lot of the understanding of how things were built historically, and the predictions of where we're heading, today of, look, if we don't start changing the building industry, you know, people are going to continue, you know, people are going to get sick from the environment of being in these homes, right. I stumbled upon through the whole process of putting synergy 360 together, you know, I've been putting together my my own list of, you know, non toxic building materials, find ways to build his dream, you know, kind of circling back to the whole US Green Building Council. I love the model of what they had created. But they were missing the mark, in my opinion. And I wanted to be the one to bring this to the building industry of how homes that are built. And that's really the big feat, that's the big task. And that's when you kind of become the woowoo the tree hugger or the outlier of hey, what I'm going to try to do to make it practical, right to how do we talk? How do we speak? And how do we talk to architects and general contractors to build this way to make it practical to not make it like hey, we're, we're kind of like this radical, you know, people rethinking everything, you know, and so, so what I was like, You know what, that's fine, I'm gonna use that model. And that model is truly bringing in reading the labels understanding, you know, hey, what products we're using, are they what chemicals are in are they truly non toxic, you know, because truly, non toxic means green. That's, that's building. You know, learning how to use the natural resources, learning where to build if you're building a home where or to build these homes and in these areas with like, clean air, away from the cities, you know, more rural areas than less dense populated area. And I know everyone doesn't have those, those opportunities to do that. But again, it's just kind of recognizing and putting this whole thing together. So I know a lot of information there kind of historically, but it kinda like I really wanted like, just bring it together of, hey, this, this is nothing new. When I started putting synergy, 360 together, I stumped. I don't even know how I didn't know about the building biology, but it was like when I found out about them, they were already kind of doing it, you know? And I thought, wow, this is fantastic, you know, because me Is this, like home builder experience, cutting edge, building concrete, being a biohacker, being into functional medicine, understanding, and being very grounded, to be able to back up everything and all the information that I'm bringing forward to you, your audience, for me and my audience, we get to bring a lot of these tools forward, of course. So this is kind of the foundation, you know, and then everything just splits into the home building from there, you know, talking about, you know, what, what, what's an EMF? And in? What are the exposures? And where are the exposures? You know, indoor air quality, you know, how do we maintain this equilibrium within the home of bringing in fresh air and filtering the air and not relying on each back systems always as a life support system, you know, the importance of creating to not only this non toxic, non voc environment, not full of formaldehyde and outgassing and chemicals, you know, and building green and addressing the EMS, but it's understanding indoor air quality. And a very, this is a really key piece here, it's on ongoing maintenance and cleaning within the home, because we can build all the mold free homes that we want. But if they're not maintained, and if they're not cleaned, mold grows on any kind of a food source, such as a carbohydrate, could be food, it can be cardboard, could be paper on drywall, you know, as soon as it gets exposed to some moisture in a perfect, humid climate, all of a sudden, that's when we start to get this mold growth. And that's where we're seeing this big epidemic of mold growing like all these areas, so it's having an understanding of these different types of things. So I've kind of laid the history where I am doing what I'm doing, but then we can just kind of segue, whatever, you know, wherever you'd like to take this. You know, I'm happy to answer any questions or even go a little bit further into any topic.

Bridget Moroney  22:53

Yeah, thank you for that overview ads. There's, there's definitely a lot to unpack there. Um, I guess, you know, the things that that kind of stood out to me. And, and you and I have talked about, I mean, like, so like when people think about their homes, and you know, like, you know, like, maybe not everyone is familiar with like a holistic home or like an optimized healthy home. But I think a lot of people can understand like, like a hypo allergenic home, because you were talking about, like cleaning and everything else like that. And I've certainly encountered homes where, you know, they were, I guess, again optimized for that. I'm just thinking of like one house that a family member had bought that was previously owned by someone that basically had like a very sick and asthmatic child and basically everything and it was in Florida. And you know, again, Florida is like rampid Well, everywhere is rampant with mold, but I mean, the precautions and everything they took, you know, for that house, you know, to keep that child healthy, but again, we're not just talking about like, sick people or people with asthma like like, like you like you said you yourself, you know you were a young like you did Iron Man's Right? You did Ironman triathlons and everything. You were an ultra runner. Yeah, up

Brian Johnson  24:15

until up until three years ago, and the only reason I stopped is because I'm so busy building right.

Bridget Moroney  24:20

Yeah. Yeah, well, that's a good problem to have, I guess. But, but but just kind of going back and I had this experience too, in my 30s You know, coming like, at one point in my life, I was, you know, very again, probably admittedly overtraining, so that that buildup of inflammation in the body but just like very healthy, robust, you know, young adult there and then that, that mold exposure. Yeah, it just it just crushed me there. And so yeah, so kind of making that point that like this is these are issues that can impact anyone and just because you are young Just because you're active doesn't mean that you're immune. I mean, I guess that's kind of the the emphasis, you know, for your mission, you know, maybe if I'm, if I'm understanding correctly, is that like, I just lost my train of thought?

Brian Johnson  25:16

No, that was, that was perfect, because now you're kind of bringing it back together of like, what, what is the holistic home? You know, what, what, what, what for? Because I didn't really answer the question other than, you know, kind of leading into the background to bring in, of what does it mean to create this place for us to heal to recover? Right,

Bridget Moroney  25:36

right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess let's talk a little bit more about that. Like, what exactly we've talked about mold exposure, like, again, like indoor air quality, you know, people I think are keenly aware of outdoor, you know, pollution, their smoke fog, but you know, there's a lot that comes indoor. I know, you've mentioned to me, we discussed like water, you know, you've mentioned EMF, so yeah, I don't know, that's a lot more, I guess whichever one we want to start with,

Brian Johnson  26:03

well, you know, let's build off of like, like, what you were. So there was that one part, again, I didn't want to go down too far down the Segway. But it's, you know, like, whether you're an athlete, or whether you have a compromised immune system. You know, we're at certain capacities, we're pushing our bodies too far, you know, as an athlete, okay. Without the environmental exposures, we're healthy, but we're breaking our body down through just overtraining, over exercise inflammation, potentially eating foods that even, you know, promotes even more inflammation and less recovery time. And then, you know, so we're beating our bodies up, versus, you know, having some type of auto immunity. You know, it's kind of a similar thing, as far as the sense to where, you know, the person is trying to constantly recover, but you're right there under this chronic inflammation from all these environmental exposures, right, of what you're talking about, whether it's externally at work, whether it's externally, you know, being exposed in an environment that's just not serving you. And then of course, within the home, right? And that the mission was what what is the synergy 360, what is holistic home? Well, that, ultimately, is the goal of what can I do moving forward bringing in all these concepts, you know, that these basic simple concepts I've talked about, as far as and then non toxic, understanding indoor air quality, understanding mold, EMFs, and all these types of building materials. But ultimately, it's to build a safe home, a sanctuary, a place that you can heal a place that you can reduce your inflammation. Because if we're if, say, we're working with functional medicine, or say, we're working with a doctor, when we're on these programs, and we're taking, you know, supplementation, or certain types of things, to help reduce inflammation or clean up the diet, you know, but if you're sleeping, you know, next to an outlet, with your phone plugged in on your phones, you know, on 5g signal all night long, it's a little hard to recover the body. Right? Um, you know, that's where we can kind of just segue into the whole aspects of, you know, how do we create, you know, okay, so. So for a lot of our audience, you know, we don't have these luxuries to build a new home, or, you know, in our kind of touch base into remodeling, because anything, like in a building can be remodeled, it just gets down to a price point of how far we're going to remodel this home to rebuild it, basically, so to speak. But also, I want to speak to the audience of everybody that has an existing home, as well. And there's all the way from the simple changes that we can do all the way to, you know, remodeling to building a home and I, you know, just kind of starting from kind of the lower line fruit, you know, the things that we can do easily, and just kind of understanding how do Brian, how do I create, you know, what can I do to create a safe living environment. You know, I'm going to kind of start off just with more of the indoor air quality, it's understanding air purification, making sure that we're using true HEPA filters within the home. I'm kind of let me take a step back. It's first off we want to identify if anyone's concerned of like mold in a home. I've worked with a lot environmental hygienist. I've worked with the top in the in the industry. I refer a lot to the end or environmental professional consensus series X, a lot of these panels on, you know, people that write protocols and awareness and safety and understanding of how to identify a mold to make sure like if they're working with like mold inspection and mold remediation are the being the lead the right direction, because everybody has everybody. Most people have their own agenda or their way that they're going to inspect and remediate. And there's a lot of gold standards, I think it's a big takeaway for everybody to understand if anyone's open to this, understand what the principles are. And there's documentation out there to assure that we know what are we looking for, and how to remediate it. And just from the simplicity of like, what I've put together, it's one of my top ways of testing for mold in an environment is using the Urmi test. That's the that's the environmental relative, moldy index. Urmi. And, but it's working with somebody that really understands, because there's kind of a misconception out there that Urmi gives you a score, we're not so much looking for the scores, we're looking to identify these 43 different types of mold strains, and these are the mold strains that have the direct biological effect, you know, on on our own biology that are toxic, right, and all the mycotoxin and things like that. So that's, I'm a real big advocate me personally, for Urmi. So if anybody was questionable, you know, we can link show notes. And, you know, we can link things well, how do I do it, you know, and we'll, we'll put all that stuff together. But you know, and then there's, there's other sophisticated testing, and this isn't, this isn't, this is stuff that a client could DIY, you don't have to hire a mold inspector to or be licensed to test your own home, you know, doing an Urmi. These are, these are quick takeaways. Because me as an, like, if I come in to do a home assessment, which by the way I do home assessments across the country, I have a very comprehensive, because again, I come in as a builder, because I'm looking at the whole entire environment. And then we're breaking it down into segments through these assessments. So I don't, I don't call myself a mold inspector. I call myself a whole healthy home, you know, consultant in doing these assessments. And as we progress through the Urmi, and we identify certain things if we need to, that's when I work with a client to actually help test to make sure hey, are they on the right path? You know, is are they following these these, these IEP consensus guidelines? Are they taking the right action, so I kind of helped facilitate a lot of that. And as it progresses, I'm going to just jump right into cleaning the home. So I kind of talked about identifying certain molds. But now let's just kind of fast forward and say we have a house that's been remediated or it's clean, or how do we know we're on a bleep good clean cleaning protocol, believe it or not, again, the mold spores, there's, there's millions, they're everywhere. They're coming into the home from our pets, they're coming in off our shoes, they're coming in, when the doors are open. It's 24/7. And everything's coming to this home. And unless we're cleaning our surfaces, these mold spores do collapse. And so if we don't, if we're not cleaning our environment, that Well, eventually they start to grow. And then it starts to turn into, you know, the fungus, and then it grows into this, these molds, right. And so there's different types of testing that you could do to ensure that you're actually keeping your home safe, so in clean and so for a lot of, if there's anyone listening to this, there are actual simple tests that can be done and they're inexpensive, that can be DIY, or I can even walk people through the process to ensure Do I have a good cleaning program within the home. And it's as simple as this and I'm going to make it simple just for the sake of time, but it's using true HEPA vacuum systems in the home. You know, whether it's a portable device you you just got to find something that's a true HEPA rated filter. And you would want to use HEPA so we would always be dry vacuuming using HEPA from the floors. A little side note is it's always easy to clean a hard surface. So whether it's tile whether it's stone Whether it's concrete, you know, wood flooring, engineered wood flooring, hopefully non toxic, engineered wood flooring and all these are non toxic, but it's easy to clean a hard surface with a HEPA vacuum system. And then we just simply use, it could be additional, you know, just a nontoxic DISA tour, you're putting in a spray bottle, and you're just putting enough into a tour, it has a little bit of a suds on it. And then you clean the surface and you wipe it up with microfiber types of cloth. And you're actually pulling, you're actually now pulling any residual mold off. So I actually implement very simple protocols to clean these houses with testing that you can go through to ensure Yeah, I'm kind of you know, what, I'm kind of skeptical. Do I have a good cleaning program? I'm very sensitive to mold. How do I know that there's not mold growing? Again, I'm kind of past the Urmi side, and kind of going more into, like, more of a routine a year from now, like, am I truly leaving in an area that's, you know, because I notice I'm very asthmatic, or, you know, have these allergens or, you know, I get this inflammation? Well, I can set these protocols and teach these protocols for people that they can use in their home, just to ensure like, hey, my home is a safe place, you know, for me, for me to truly heal.

Bridget Moroney  36:19

Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, super important information. I mean, again, like you and I both kind of mentioned our own individual experiences, and I guess, subsequent healing journeys, you know, from mold exposure. And, you know, in my case, well, I think in your case to it was from work environments, thankfully not home environments there. But and, you know, I guess my question is, because, you know, again, the whole mission of the holistic Holmes is to have a place where is a sanctuary, and we can heal and recover? So, um, let's say, and I don't know, you know, if you can give any other insight there, but let's say, you know, God forbid, someone finds quite a bit of mold in their home, they, you know, go through the whole remediation of it, and then they have these cleaning protocols, but they do exhibit some of those symptoms from toxic mold exposure. Are there any do you have any other thoughts or ideas on like, what they could do, I guess, with on the on the home side, I guess, to continue to heal from that. Because I know like, again, you and I, like you mentioned biohacking. And I've also gone down the bio hacker, rabbit hole there, you know, which has, you know, again, it's it's been a healing journey. It's been many years, but there's a lot of things on the nutritional side and overall health side there. But yeah, I don't know. Any other thoughts or insights for that?

Brian Johnson  37:45

You know? Yeah, I, for me, again, this is just my, my personal opinion, my perspective is working with function functional medicine is so is so key essential in this whole game of everything, because a good functional medicine doctor, and especially working with, you know, people with like mold issues, right, is Great Plains has their this is pretty common test, it's called their mycotoxin test, by Great Plains, and a functional medicine doctor can help, you know, these are simple tests, and they can be a little bit costly. But these are tests that can help identify, you know, these these specific mold strains. And, you know, these exposures, you know, then, then I think it's really important. And then here's the cool thing, this is, you know, for anybody that's kind of going along this path, and just as an information, you can take an Urmi test that identify, so it's kind of like, it's almost kind of mycotoxin test, you know, for the home, you know, for the home. Because that's kind of what an Ernie, it's a PCR DNA test. And that's what it's doing. It's collecting all these different strains. And when you're doing a mycotoxin test within the body, we can actually correlate this information, just to know, hey, is it truly actually, you know, you've had this remediation work and stuff done tonight? Yeah, of course, we have these hypersensitivities, you know, for mold exposures and whatnot. Is this mold coming from the home area, right, or is it coming from a food source area? Is it coming from another environmental area because of where we might live? Maybe there's just a lot of discontinuous mold spores in this area. You know, so those two tests, I always recommend a kind of correlating to go a little bit further in depth. You know, because we can have this we can have this cleaning protocol into place. I really, ultimately I think that's kind of like the biggest takeaway, and I know I'm just kind of given making a sound simple. It is, but we just have to be again, if we're, if we're sensitive to these types of things. As if we're using these other pathways tests that are testing for these proteins, which are, if there's an elevated protein, more than likely, it could be a good chance that it's a mold source. That's for us that are super hypersensitive to the molds and have any concerns for like an ongoing, it's like, literally, it's like doing deep spring cleaning, here we are, we're in spring, it's a perfect time of the year, where did the whole spring cleaning thing come from anyway, right? Like, isn't it, it's so important that we keep a clean environment, especially if we have a lot of sensitivities to, you know, chemicals, in molds and things like that. So, I think my, my big kind of my contribution in the takeaways is to adding, hey, you know, do Ermias, do these mycotoxin tests, you know, come up with a good cleaning protocol within the house, you know, again, more from the indoor air quality perspective, again, running good HEPA systems, filter systems with an H back system, if we have an h vac system in the home. You know, I know, like a lot of these portable, you know, they make some really nice systems, I'm not gonna say any names out there. But you know, some of them are using, and I've been doing a lot of research on like UV technology, with the UVB and all these different types of high hydroxyl type units that are it's, you know, it's basically taking the bacteria and allergens and pathogens and mold spores out of the air. But sometimes those can actually create a little bit more troubles too. So some people actually are super sensitive to this. So I would definitely tune into these these portable systems. And really, it's kind of back to the basics to understanding whether you have an h HVAC system, and you can upgrade to a true HEPA filter system for that, of course, making sure the duct works are clean, that's not forget, you know, I didn't really kind of touch base into that, you know, but assuming we've done some remediation, or some deep cleaning in the home, or the sensitive tivities, making sure the ductwork the registers are the intakes coming into the H fax the coils, the coils on the H fax system, these are big things. And when we hire, you know, and I don't want to knock any H back companies, but they're not looking at it the way that we look at it, like, we're going to be very meticulous because we want to make sure is the plenum areas where the air is coming in, is it clean, is the coils do they have mold, because the coils get exposed to condensation, and water does get exposed them to close. And guess what, that's where mold grows. You know, once you have that, you've now have compromised the entire ductwork system of an HVAC system within the home. So you can clean all you want, but then you're just going to be pumping all this. So really it kind of starts kind of been kind of all over the place with you. But it ultimately starts with an Ernie, then it's cleaning age vac systems. And then we're setting a clean mold protocol, because we've already identified we've remediated we've addressed, you know, now we're like, Hey, this is what we need to do to keep this environment clean.

Bridget Moroney  43:11

So that's kind of like your, your triage, I guess there so to speak. Yeah.

Brian Johnson  43:15

From, from it from an IQ indoor air quality perspective, for sure. You know, because we're looking at the IQ, as again, it's the microbiome, right? And so I just kind of gave a recommendation of using a probiotic, within the home to clean the Home Naturally, we don't want to be that's another thing too. It's following that IEP. And we'll link that for your clients follow it follow these protocols like these myths of and I know, God's sakes, I do actually hear people still cleaning with bleach, which blows my mind. But why anybody would be cleaning with bleach, you know, to kill mold, that it's a big one. No, I think a lot of people know that. But I don't want to assume that. But then there's a lot of these. There's a lot of these these mold, cleaners inhibitors that have different types of not biocides, but they'll have anti microbial anti fungal types of additives like using essential oils, such as like tea tree oil, in different essential oils. Those actually actually create issues within home. So it's almost like giving your home an antibiotic than it would be a probiotic. Because it's eradicating and it's changing the whole eco environment. And there's some people are actually sensitive to certain types of of these oils and then plus they do attract. They actually do believe it or not attract and potentially promote growth of things that we don't want. So it's really simple as far as I can. I can't make it any more Simple than just using a simple clean dish detergent as a cleaner and microfibers for cleaning your whole entire house.

Bridget Moroney  45:08

So interesting, you bring up the tea tree oil, because when I was, you know, initially going through my, my whole, I guess bowl mole borne illness, we'll call it there like I was also there were there were so many things to just have to figure out, as I'm sure you're, you've probably had your own experience working with doctors, but um, at the time, I again had like all sorts of like, skin reactions to just everything because my body was in total chaos. But at that time, I was using a face cleaner that had tea tree oil in it, and it was just like, it was just like, it inflamed my skin to no end there. And initially, I was like, oh, that's that's part of the, you know, I was I was like, oh, that's that's the culprit there. But that was just one piece of the culprit. Again, there was a lot of other things to have to figure out what was causing all this dysfunction. But yeah, that's, I don't know, I don't want to say I'm happy to hear that, that tea tree oil is a common thing. But I guess what I'm trying to say, as I'm glad that it wasn't just me or that I was like making something up in my mind,

Brian Johnson  46:17

I think I think the takeaway for that, that you added to is just understanding that there's a place, you know, and teacher will does some amazing things, and we'll just kind of just use that it's just a quick example, there's a place, there's a time and there's a place to to use these things. You know, like so, you know, for you, maybe it was more, maybe it was actually creating a detox and it was pulling toxins out of the body, right, then there was this, this by product of, you know, skin inflammation or whatever. But you know, from the cleaning sense, you know, there's companies out there that are using it to fog, you know, all these ductwork and their H vac systems and things like that. And there's a lot of studies out there that find that actually creates more of a, an adverse effect than it does to actually help clean and offer the safest remediation solution out there. So, yeah, there's just, there's just a lot of information out there. And it's just, I think, having the guidance of somebody to help to understand, you know, and again, this is all documented, this is all put together by top professionals and health advisors in the industry. So the information I'm sharing with this group, this isn't anything that I made up, you know, this is stuff that comes from the top professionals in the industry.

Bridget Moroney  47:41

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