Joy, Music, & Dancing As Longevity Tools

Joy is not a luxury, it is biology. That’s the thread we pull with Tina Woods, a globally recognized longevity expert and social entrepreneur who started DJing at 60 and turned a dance floor into a living laboratory. 

On today's episode we talk about why healing has many doorways, and why music, dancing, community, & joy might be one of the most underrated ways to support longevity, resilience, and a longer health span.

Here's some of what we're covering today:

• Tina’s path from genetics and medical education to longevity science, tech, and policy
• Why health span matters more than “living forever” and the question of what makes a life worth living
• The personal shift that led Tina to become a DJ at age 60
• The case for measuring joy as a health metric alongside steps and sleep 
• Loneliness, social disconnection, and the exposome as drivers of modern disease risk
• Sound, BPM, brain states, and wearable EEG tools used during dancing and raves
• Plus simple ways to bring more dancing and connection into everyday life

If you’ve ever felt that “electric” shift in your body when the right song hits, this conversation puts language and emerging science around that experience.

I hope you enjoy today's episode and please remember to subscribe to the Ground and Root Podcast, share this with a friend who needs more joy, and leave a review so more people can find us.

More about today's guest & how to connect with her:

Tina Woods is a globally recognized longevity expert and social entrepreneur working at the intersection of science, technology and policy.

She is Founder and CEO of Collider Health and Business for Health, Executive Director of the International Institute of Longevity (IIOL), and as a Steering Committee member of the Human Exposome Project a leading voice in the emerging field of the human exposome — understanding how environment, lifestyle and connection shape long-term health and resilience.

She brings together academia, business and government to drive system change from ‘sickcare’ to prevention — while also living her message as founder of Longevity Rave, leader of the JoyScore Experiment and DJ Tina Technotic.

Tina sits on various advisory groups, including the XPRIZE Global Visioneering Brain Trust and Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air.

Tina’s book, Live Longer with AI: How artificial intelligence is helping us extend our healthspan and live better too was published  in October 2020.

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Transcript

Doorways To Healing

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Ground and Root Podcast. I'm your host and holistic cancer dietitian, Deion Detraz. So this month we are exploring the concept that there are various doorways to healing, that not everyone's healing path needs to look exactly the same for it to work. And I think for me, what's most important is that you find the doorway that calls to you. In my experience, once you enter through any doorway, it'll bleed over into many different areas and aspects of your health and your healing. So in today's episode, we're going to dive deeper into one such doorway that my guess is you may not, it might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about a healing journey. And yet, as you'll learn today, it has some really powerful benefits. So I have a special guest today to help us talk this through. Her name is Tina Woods. We're going to talk more about music and dancing and community and how all of these things can help us enhance longevity and help us heal. Tina is a globally recognized longevity expert. She's also a social entrepreneur working at the intersection of science and technology and policy. She is also the founder of Longevity Rave and became a DJ at the age of 60, which is how I caught wind of her on Instagram. So I'm so excited that our paths connected that way. Without further ado, Tina, welcome to the Ground and Root podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited about being here and the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Good. Me too. Me too. Thank you for taking the time too. I know. We were just talking about how busy you are. So I really appreciate you being here. But I love what I do.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

So it's good busyness. It's not terrible business.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Perfect. Perfect. Okay.

Tina Woods And Her Longevity Path

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Well, let's just go ahead and start with you telling us a little bit about more about you and your background, the longevity work that you've spent years working on before you even thought to become a DJ. Give us the background.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

DJ was not part of my plan, I have to say. That's one of life's wonderful little little things that happen to you on your journey. These unexpected things come through serendipity and all sorts of other things, people that you meet on your journey. So, but yeah, so so I guess going back, I I mean, I've always been very interested in health, wellness, science. I thought I for a very long time, I thought I'd become a doctor. I was, I thought I'd be an obstetrician for many years. Went through pre-med, I studied genetics, I was at Cornell, and I thought, oh yeah, I'm going to be the doctor coming out of here, go to med school. And then I decided not to actually pursue medicine for all sorts of reasons. I guess I realized my own sort of character and personality. I kind of felt this sort of pre-programmed path that would take me till my mid-30s before I become a sort of specialist doctor. I just thought it just, I realized it probably wasn't for me. And so in my early 20s, I thought, well, what in the world am I going to do? I've got this wonderful degree and I loved science. And I ended up falling into a very interesting career for about 30 years, actually. And it started off becoming a medical film script writer for very comprehensive training programs for doctors. And in those days, it was still, you didn't have computer animation. And I got involved with teams of animators on specially hand-drawn animation to illustrate complex sort of biological pathways, pharmacological mechanisms of new drugs and all that sort of stuff, how they interact in the body. And I so it was a very nice way of marrying up, I guess, my sort of creative sort of bent with my sort of interest in science and getting involved in this sort of training and education of doctors. And it was all kind of sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. So I kind of ended up in that sort of in that sort of path. And that was great for the years that it lasted because it kept me very close to what was going on, the sharp end of science, and obviously new drugs, new therapies, new treatments. But I guess over time I just sort of realized that there was something in me that was saying, you know what, it's great having all these things that you need when you're sick, when you need help and treatments and all the rest of it. But what about just keeping healthy and well? That's a really important part of the puzzle. And so I decided in my sort of early 50s to actually do something quite different. And this is when I ran my own agency for a while, and I did a stint at a big, large, a very large company in the corporate world. When we had the financial crash in 2008, and I realized, oh my goodness, I've got to keep the money coming through. My little agency was suffering, as a lot of agencies did. And so, you know, so so so when sort of coming out of that, when my sons, I have three sons are now in their 20s, and you're sort of very focused on keeping the show on the road, the income coming through and house and wife and all that kind of stuff. I sort of thought, I'm gonna do something a bit different in my early 50s. I thought the kids are gonna be okay. They're, you know, I've I've put in my I I've done what I could to kind of set them on their way, and I think they're gonna be good, they're gonna be fine. And so I set I set out on this path, and I didn't really know what it was going to be, but I thought, you know what, I'm really interested in this whole field of science and technology kind of really kind of wrapping up. And of course, in those days, you didn't even hear about AI then, but but of course, we knew that digital technologies empowering people with more information on their health was actually gonna really start to change how we see health and healthcare and all the rest of it. So one thing led to another, and I set up this company called Collider Health at the age of 52, and I was just starting to hit the menopause. And of course, in many ways, it was a crazy time to set up a company because your hormones all over the place, your kids are leaving home, they're going off to university, you sort of think, oh gosh, what's the next sort of 30, 40, 50 years going to look like? And how am I gonna create this path for myself? In many ways, it was great. And of course, thankfully, I had my husband who was very much sort of supportive of everything that I do and then the risk-taking involved and all the rest of it. So before I knew it, I just sort of became very involved in a few very interesting projects. And that's through really kind of working through my networks and my friendships and sort of business colleagues and all the rest of it. But I had two or three really interesting projects that kind of set me up very well for what I'm doing now, one of which was getting involved in a very interesting project, looking at the impact of AI and digital technologies on the NHS or public healthcare system. And that kind of catapulted me in the whole sort of world of AI. At the time, most of the AI companies were all in sort of fintech and they were only just starting to look at health. And so that was a really interesting project that kind of immersed me in this whole world of the startup world and AI, what the impact on health. And then in parallel with that, I started working with, again, another very interesting project, working with UK research and innovation, sort of the big research arm of the UK. And get they had they received a lot of money from the government as part of the industrial strategy to fuel big transformative projects, working with the startup world, but also the big corporates for transformative projects that would keep us healthy and well for longer. So it was the healthy aging grand challenge program. So some money coming in from government, they wanted match funding from the corporate world to then see this and catalyze this marketplace of healthy products and services to keep us healthy and well. And so I kind of got immersed in that, and that was my foray into really understanding and engaging with the whole corporate world world outside of pharma and biotech and kind of asking this question well, what are you doing with this sort of this? Well, in those days, it was very much kind of like the challenge of this aging demographic. Oh, it's this challenge. We're all getting older, more decrepit, we're all bed blocking hospitals, we're all falling over and having hip fractures and bed blocking beds, and it was always tinged with this sort of negative kind of language. And so I kind of spent my whole time kind of looking at the reverse opportunity. We've got the plus 50s, the baby boomers. I'm sort of on the cusp of, I think, baby boomer generation X, born in 1964. And we had we have very different aspirations than our previous generation, our parents. We want something, and of course, our lives are changing, but we're having more time in retirement, a word I hate, sort of coming out of the workforce. And what are we going to do with all this time? So I sort of started really engaging with that whole kind of, I guess, narrative about kind of seeing the more positive side of this. And again, one thing led to another, and I realized that policymaking was an area that I really need to kind of get more to grips with. And I ended up, and this is, I guess, part of my path. I sort of dive into these areas into the unknown, not really thinking, Am I really foolish to do so? But I kind of dive in there. Before I knew it, I was setting up and running this cross-party parliamentary group on longevity, working with the with the parliamentarians and policymakers on looking at this sort of system change map on how are we actually going to fulfill this government manifesto commitment, which we had at the time. And that was actually one of the objectives for the Grand Challenge program I had mentioned earlier, to increase our healthy life expectancy while minimizing health and well-being inequality. So the whole health equity piece was already baked into the government manifesto commitment. So I became very involved with that, which was fascinating and did some really interesting work and developed this sort of system change approach to actually increasing our healthy life expectancy. And that sort of then led to a whole bunch of other things, working with the National Innovation Center for Aging on the City of Longevity program. I became very immersed in the world of AI and tech. And at that time, I'd already published a book because I was approached by a tech publisher to write a book on the impact of AI on healthcare. And I said, no, I don't want to write about AI and healthcare when we're sick. I want to write about how do we use all these technologies to keep us healthy and well. So they agreed to do that. So I'd already published this book, and it's just six years ago now. So it's kind of ahead of its time, actually, in many ways. And so those were all really formative kind of projects and really kind of set me up well to do kind of what I'm doing now, which is getting much more engaged with the whole world of harnessing longevity science and technology and getting it into the mainstream debate. Because that's always the hard bit, because we've had lots of sort of, you know, people have heard about the radical life extension. Yeah, well, the billionaires, why wouldn't they want to live forever? They've got it good and all that kind of stuff. Whereas now, of course, we are taking, it's becoming a much more different kind of industry now where it's much more focused on health span. It still is it still has the issue of making sure that it gets to people in a way that's equitable and accessible and fair so that everyone can benefit from the benefits of all the science and technology. And of course, that's very much at the heart of what I stand for with all my mission-driven sort of initiatives. And I'm kind of sort of getting very involved professionally in this whole world of healthy longevity, health span, whatever you want to call it. And of course, the language, of course, is still an issue because what does longevity mean? And there's a whole other thing, we could talk for hours about that. But for me, it's about really sort of increasing the years, living good health, where you are able to really live the life that you really want to live. And this kind of taps into our motivation, our aspirations for our lives, our sense of meaning, our purpose, our fulfillment, the joy that we want from our lives. These are all really important motivators to keep us going and wanting to live. And when I sort of speak to a lot of these sort of people who talk about living forever and are sort of, and I said, Well, actually, the most important question you really have to ask first before you ask that question is, Well, what is a life worth living? So I've kind of been really focused on that and making sure that we ask that question and using science and technology to look at that. And so that was my professional path. But of course, I had this sort of, and we all have our personal stories to everything in our lives, to our professional work as well. And indeed, I did have a personal story in all of this. I set up becoming a sort of a social entrepreneur,

From Pharma Education To Health Span

SPEAKER_00 10:48

sort of proper social entrepreneur from the age of 52, kind of doing some really interesting work. And then, of course, I had my own personal story, and that came at a moment when coming out of COVID lockdown, I went dancing with a few friends of mine, and I just had this sort of lightning bulb, like lightning bolts moment, this epiphany of when I went dancing all night. And this is at a time when everyone was going out in the streets again, kind of going out to the restaurants, the bars, because we were all let out of our homes, you know, post-COVID. And there was just this sort of feeling of electricity and joy in the air. Just it was something in the air, and everyone was just so happy. And then I went dancing. And then it just sort of occurred to me that I suddenly just became electrified. I don't know how else to describe it. The music and the dancing and just the joy, it all just sort of it just kind of connected me, mind, body, and soul, in that sort of few hours that I had. And it was kind of like we talk about synchrony, and I said it was almost like my personal synchrony moment where everything just kind of came together. And I just realized that that music and dancing was going to be a really important part of my life, which of course it has been ever since. And now, six years later, it's a really important part of my life. And what I've spent really in those six years is A, I started going dancing a lot and went back to my Zuma class, I started going clubbing a lot. And then, of course, my husband was wondering what the hell has happened to his wife. So she's kind of going through this, she's just become this person, she's just become alive again, you know. And um, and then he started coming dancing with me. And and then one thing led to another. And it was only because I was faced with foot surgery just before I turned 16, because I my feet were in a terrible state. It was, I mean, we've heard of Bunnyans, but these are far worse than that. My feet were literally my firm, my second toes were disjointed, and my feet were getting really painful with all this dancing. And of course, I loved climbing mountains. And so I knew I had to go through this foot surgery. So I kind of bit the bullet. I thought, okay, let me find a good surgeon. And after a few months, I shopped around. I finally got a really good surgeon. He did all the Olympic athletes, pro tennis players, and football stars. I thought, okay, he's not gonna screw up my feet. But then, of course, I started worrying about the recovery because I was dancing a lot and going doing mountains, and I was always the exercise was really important. And so that was actually what started worrying me more than anything, this period of recuperation, because I just thought, how am I going to get through this? And and then what I decided, and this is an another lesson, I guess, there's always a positive that you can get out of a negative if you look for it. And so for me, I looked for a way to keep me occupied, something new that I could do that would keep me distracted. And that was learning how to mix music. And at the time, my one of my dancing partners, Yukari, who's now my co-founder of Longevity Rave, we were dancing a lot together. We found each other on the dance floor, actually, this shared energy. And I'm very interested in the shared energy that you get with people in real life situations and these experiences. And we decided we would have a go at DJing together. And indeed, we did. We did longevity rave three months after I turned 60. So I'd learned how to DJ at the age of 60, did our first longevity rave, and then ever since then it's kind of taken off. And of course, it's now led to all the things that I'm doing now to really understand this whole business of how do we actually really empirically measure that feeling of just that synchrony, that feeling of just knowing you are just in that, you are just feeling great, mind, body, and soul. I mean, human connection is joy, is how we're sort of talking about it, but it's that kind of just knowing that you are just in that sort of place where you just feel alive and you just feel you are you that in your so you just feel great, just knowing who you are and what you're doing and what you're and everything around you, the people you love. And so that's what we're kind of exploring with the Joy Score experiment, which is this big thing that we're doing now. I will take a breath because I know I've been talking quite a while about the journey, but but you know, it's been it has been a journey, absolutely, both professionally, personally, and of course, with all the people in my life. They've all been really important parts of that journey. And without them, I wouldn't have had it.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Tina, I love the story so much. And I mean, obviously, we I brought you here to really talk about the music and the dancing and the community and the joy, and a lot of the work that we do too is around this idea of elevating our energy and finding things that keep us in flow and keep us feeling alive and connected. And the work that you're doing is just embodying all of that. But on a side note, I feel like we this this whole conversation could have just been like empowerment after 50. Like, what do you mean, retirement? Look at all of this stuff that happened to you in the last little over a decade. I mean, it's just it's inspiring. It's like there's still so much ahead of us.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

I I just sort of, I sort of think I have never had, I've never felt so happy with my life as I do now. And and of course, everyone says yes, live in the moment. And yes, that is true. And I think that's the the beauty of getting older is that you are able to kind of see life like that, where you just sort of, you just are so grateful and appreciative of just those things in your life that are just there that you often can take for granted when you're younger. And and it's those precious moments that are really important. And it's almost like that, it's a million of these precious moments that make up your life. And so, and again, it's about the way that you react to life's events that is also really important because you can choose how you react to life's events. And I think there's a lot of talk about your your the personality types, whether you're an optimistic person, see the glass half full, half empty. There's now more and more scientific proof. I mean, even the placebo effect speaks to that actually. If you believe that you are going to have something or something will happen to you, or it will it probably will, because you you respond differently, your whole response is different. So, so I think it's kind of it's and I think now we're getting to the science of actually enabling us to understand that more. And I think the other thing too is just how important this whole business of just being really connected with others around you who you love and and who who who love you. And that's an incredibly rich kind of tabestry of emotion and fuel, rocket fuel, that is is just really important to to cherish and nurture. And uh and that is it's so it's all these sort of things that you know, and that's the the thing that does happen when you have the experiences and they can be negative experiences. And when you hit your 50s, you are in a in a debt in an indeed with a disease prognosis. So you are faced with your mortality. And but that's that's something that you can do and you can have peace with. And I think it's just about looking back at what is it that has given your life meaning and purpose and cherishing what you've had, what you've had and what you can still have in the time that you have left. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

I love actually I wrote it down because I just love what you said earlier too about what is a life worth living. And I think that is something as we get older becomes more forefront. Or even if you're younger and you're facing a diagnosis like cancer, it's like all of a sudden that question is front and center because the truth is none of us know how much time we have. And and what is the life we want to create with whatever time we have here, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I kind of I must admit, I and I hate it when it's oh, live for the moment, every day is your last day. It's not quite like that. But what I find more than anything, it's sort of like I'm just really grateful for what for what I do have. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, like that. So I so I do find myself just being really grateful when things are going well, just be really grateful for that. And that gives you the energy to hopefully deal with things which aren't so great. Sure. And and so yeah, it's been a very interesting process.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Tell us a little bit more about the Joy Score experiment. What is what is that? And what are you looking at? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

So yeah, so that that came about, and that again is an interesting one because, and again, I've been very steeped in this whole world of longevity science and technology, and a lot of it has been and very focused on what I call the biomedical view of health and aging, where a lot of the energy and investment and policy has been around, oh, let's just delay the aging process, let's like like anti-aging, right? Yeah, anti-aging, a pill, something you can take, a quick fix when yes, you'll live another 20 years, whatever. So, so that's been that has been listened, don't knock it. I mean, that's been the energy and a lot of fuel and a lot of energy and research has gone into that space, and that's fine. But I always saw that as one element, and I kind of go back to my time working in pharma and biotech, where of course, not only, but of course, a lot of the a lot of the focus is on drugs and treatments and diagnostics to help you when you get sick. But I think that there's a whole space there to try and keep you healthy and well, which is really important. And what I've realized, and again, it's because we're getting more and more evidence that we just really shows the starkness of how human beings feel impacts our biology and our genetics. And I listen, I studied genetics. This is like going way back now, 40 years ago, and we're now only really starting to appreciate. And of course, I came out of university when the human genome project was just kicking off. And of course, now we've had the human genome project, which coded the human DNA. And what we're finding is that actually our genetics is actually a relatively small proportion of the determinants of our health. It's actually how we are impacted by the environment, by the stresses in our life, across our lifetimes, but even before birth, right through to when we die. That has a huge impact on our genetics and how we epigenetically express our phenotype. That is actually where it's at the moment. And what we're finding is that actually it's our whole state of being and our existence and our psychological, emotional, spiritual health, our need for hope, our need for these things as a human being, these actually have a huge bearing on our health, which has really been discounted by the hard fringe of the longevity science community because they've been so focused on the mechanistic stuff, looking at cells and looking at animal studies and what's happening in a nematode worm and a mouse in cell culture, which is fine and important, but you have to also look at it in the context of actually what is really happening in the human context. And we are part of a system, we're part of an incredibly elaborate system where we're very and even they're even discovering that with plants and root systems, how they talk to each other. And you can't, you it's almost like you have to go back to the whole our evolutionary biology to understand how intricate it is and how actually how complicated it is going to be God and actually interfere with that. So so I think it's almost it's so there's this whole space that I realized just needed a lot more attention. And we also know, and this is more at a population health level, we know that social disconnection, loneliness, angst about the world, this is really depressing our health and our and making and actually a real leading cause of lifespan actually decreasing, if you can imagine, in in the most rich countries in the world, including the US and including the UK. I mean, uh the U US has actually had the worst results in terms of lifespan actually dropping. And this is at a I think it's now starting to get a little bit more stabilized thanks to the GLP 1 agonists, actually. I think they've had some new research getting the weight off because obesity, of course, is a massive cause of ill health. But that's all linked in with the complexities of the social determinants of health

The Post Lockdown Dance Epiphany

SPEAKER_00 21:50

and access to good food and depression and all these sorts of things, which are really important factors in the human population. And these are things that a pill is just not going to fit. And we know that even with the GLP ones, I mean, they're getting in the hands of the people who can afford it. They're not actually necessarily getting into the hands of those who most need it. And they're not actually addressing the root causes of all the symptoms. So I'm much more kind of like a root cause sort of person and kind of going back to basics, which I know is difficult because we've got so many perverse incentives for keep for keeping things as they are. There's big money and diseases. I mean, that's let's face it. And that's and making us ill. I mean, you only have to go look to the food industry for that. So I think these are all the big things that are obviously very complicated to disentangle and address. So I think in the end, I think we have to start home in our communities. And it's about people looking after one another and really sort of addressing, I guess, this business of social disconnection and loneliness, which I'm afraid has also been very much driven by big tech and social media and us being hiding behind screens all the time. That has not been good for us. So this is where the kind of the ideas around the rave, which of course is a kind of a very uh accelerated route to getting people together, and of course, the power of the music, which has its own effects obviously on neurochemistry and all the rest of it, and the and group synchrony and dancing. I mean, there's all these very powerful ingredients that then kind of create that environment where people are just in this zone, but and usually it's very community-driven and all the rest of it, where you just it's just got all these ingredients, which of course is why we're looking at that as a use case for the joy score experiments. So just going back to your original question. So I've I've kind of I've got it.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

It's great, Tina. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

So I just realized, well, we need to start looking at this. We we've got loads of stuff of biomarkers and all the kind of age clocks, biological age testing kits, but and functional ways of looking at your health. But actually, it was more around, well, what is that feeling that you get? And that's what I certainly get when I'm dancing, and that feeling of being really alive, and that feeling of just this sort of the state. You're in in zone, you're in flow, that's kind of state. How can we actually understand that? And how can we bottle it up and actually measure it? Because if we can, A, it's the reverse, it's like kind of like a positive mechanism to influence your health rather than just dealing with the negative all the time, like stress and anxiety. And it's actually like in itself a motivator. So I was quite fascinated by that. And I just remember going to a conference a few months ago when they, and a lot of people are talking about Joy Span, and but there is this conference, it was an investors' conference, and there's this group there called Exceptional Ventures, who I know and actually went to one of their events last week, and they were talking about Joy SPAN being this new emerging sort of investable opportunity. And that was at a time when I was engaging quite a lot with other industry verticals that were looking at longevity. So outside the biotech bubble, these were kind of industries like real estate property, hospitality, spas. If you look at the exposome, so I'm involved in a very big international project called the Human Exposome Project, the follow-on to the Human Genome Project that I mentioned, which is all around understanding the exposure side of disease. So all like air quality, toxins in the environment, psychosocial stress, the food that we eat, the activity levels, occupational hazards, all that sort of stuff, all the exposures and stresses in our life from pre-birth to death. So this is the Human Exposome Project. And so I realized that the way to scientifically actually talk about why all these other industry verticals have something to do with this and like sleep quality, like hospitality, hotels, the quality of your beds, the quality of the food that you get, the quality of bringing people together in a beautiful space where you're feeling good. These this is all longevity. And now we have the scientific framework to actually talk about and now have the ability to actually get the evidence now to show how powerful these are, which is beyond the supplements, the drugs, the diagnostics. This is like opening up a whole new field of research, investment, policy making. It's kind of like designing environments for health. So this is really the exposome in full glory. And now we can actually start to get, and this is where the technology is, to actually start to get the data on us as individuals, which is the hard part, because we can actually start to engage with technology to look at. I mean, it's complicated, but we can actually start to look at these impacts on us as individuals because we're all unique. We all are hugely impacted in different ways. Our microbiome is an obvious thing. We all have very different diets, even identical twins, they have different diets. They, again, they have a very different way of expressing that epigenetically. You can see that in twin studies. So this is like where it's at. So this is at the heart of a lot of kind of like my hardcore science hat is at the moment, and engaging with the business world in that sense. But I was wanted to do the joy score study to kind of answer this question. I said, I myself know that joy in my life and feeling really great about my life and my loving relationships, and of course, the dancing now, the DJing, I know that it has been responsible for my good health and my biological age reduction because I've been measured from hand to foot. And my little thing I would say is that do because people often will say, Oh, yeah, I did that biological age test. Oh yeah, I'm like 10 years younger or 10 years older than my chronological age. No, you have to have a whole range of different tests taken across a period of time. That is the only meaningful way that you can actually get any meaningful interpretation of that. And so you have to go about it sensibly when you're using these. So there's a lot of crazy stuff out there that will put you down the wrong path. So that's my word of warning. But I did have that insight. And I said, listen, I'm not doing any crazy stuff. I'm not paying 100,000 pounds a year doing all this concierge stuff. I'm not doing any of that stuff. Why am I so healthy and actually even quote unquote getting biologically younger? Simple stuff. Joy, purpose, meaning, love, relationship with my husband. It's such simple stuff. And yes, intermittent fasting, and yes, lots of exercise. Don't get me wrong, that's those are important. But it was not fancy stuff and for the most part free. So, so yeah, so that really got me thinking about this joy score study. So, or experiment as I've called it. So, and hearing the investable opportunity and all the conversation that was happening with the business world about longevity, where it's going. And I thought, you know what? If we can have a joy score that's a metric that you can empirically measure, so that feeling of that state that you're in in any experience, intervention, product or services, or whatever it is, and obviously my use case at the moment is longevity rave to even start looking at this. Boy, that is it could be a very powerful way, A, of raising awareness about how important this is. But if you can just imagine people talking about it, just like people talk about their step counts. Oh, yeah, I did 10,000 steps today, even though even that's a bit sort of, well, where did that where did that come from? And actually, even eight is probably just as good for you. But anyway, sleep scores. We know that people are now getting anxious about their sleep scores because our oar ring will tell you if you didn't get enough sleep.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

And by the way, my sleep scores are often not very great if I'm raving till seven in the morning. Sure. I make up for it. I make up for it in other ways. And so it's about balance. And I think this is the message. It's about what is the unique formula for you as an individual that makes you feel so connected with yourself and who you are, and yes, having the information and yes, the data that will tell you that will just get you in that place where you are motivated, happy, you want to keep living for a long time, all these sorts of things. And I just thought, this absolutely, let's try and do this. So I'm literally at the earliest stages of trying to do this. I launched it in San Francisco in F in December. I had a month-long study in Honduras. We now have we had preliminary findings that I'm presenting next week in Barcelona. And I've got a lot of interest, let me tell you, from a lot of events and communities. I've got Burning Man looking at this. I've got I as the empiric research engine for actually looking at this whole thing of human connection because the big tech guys know that disconnection, loneliness is actually one of their legacies, actually. So they've got to, you know, so it's sort of interesting where it's all going, actually. So wish me luck. It's it's very early days and it's not going to be easy. And I see this as easy, it's like a massive open science study. And I'm trying to get it to a point in the next six months where I can realistically start to really start to look at grant funding, philanthropic funding, maybe even private funding. But this is so all my partners at the moment are all in the tech community, are all the longevity kind of sort of biomarker providers, tech technology and solutions providers, all wanting to engage

The Joy Score Experiment Explained

SPEAKER_00 30:00

in this because everyone is realizing it's actually a really important part of the puzzle. It really is. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

I love that so much. And even if you go back to some of the, I was thinking about the like the Blue Zones project, right? Like when they were looking at what are some of the common characteristics of these long-lived people, and a lot of it was around this stuff. I mean, there was yes, there was some food, there was some movement, but like a more than half was about connection and purpose and joy. And yeah, I love that you're doing that.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

It's interesting that you mentioned blue zone because of course it's there talked a lot. So I kind of talk about the human exposome project. It's kind of like it's we're looking, it's a measurable blue zone idea. Like, how do you measure it? Because that's where the blue zone concept has been criticized in terms of it being done as a robust scientific study. And apparently, then of course, there are a lot of centenarias that may not have been a hundred and all that kind of stuff. It had loads of criticism, but what it has done really powerfully, and which I applaud them for, is it's kind of really made the point, just like you said. It's like the simple stuff, it's like what your grandmother used to tell you is see your friends, get your clean air, fruits and vegetables, make sure you get outside, get on your bike, spend some time with your friends, and just love your life. And you, as your parents and your grandparents in our community, will help you. And that's the point. And that's actually so, in a really bizarre sort of way, we're now going down this high-tech route with Human Exposome project and all the data capture and all the stuff that we can do with all this fancy tech to kind of give us the data and the evidence to prove what we already know.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Right. To prove what our grandmas told us.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

To prove it, exactly. So, yeah, it is a bit ironic.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

It's all good though. It's headed in the right direction. I think that's what matters most. And the message is I mean, it's simple. It's like it in some ways, right? It's really just teaching people to get back to some of these, some of these really basic concepts. So I wanted to, I mean, I want to be very mindful of your time, but I have one other area that I would love to ask you about because something that we've had, we've had previous guests on the podcast talking about sound in particular, right? And like how vibration changes frequency in our body, like our cells vibrate, right? Like you mentioned, that feeling of getting onto the rave floor and that electricity and that connection and that harmony. I mean, that is a real measurable energetic shift, right? In your body. And so we think of sound healing as one way to do that, right? Could be laying on the floor and having crystal bowls and all the things. But I mean, going to a rave or having a dance party, I mean, this is a very similar experience, right? Can you speak to that a bit?

SPEAKER_00 32:39

So, so yes and no, in the sense that I'm working with experts who are far more knowledgeable about this whole domain than I am. Obviously, I'm learning as I go, but I think you're absolutely right. I think there's something about, I mean, there's two things that we're looking at in terms of the joy score experiment, looking at the longevity rave as the use case. So I'm working with some really amazing people, including, for example, one group called the sound nutritionists. So Kristen Rat and Leon Jean-Marie, who I've literally just spent last weekend in Vienna actually, and holding a big talk about this and also a rave. But but there is something absolutely about healing frequencies. And of course, you mentioned even our cells respond to certain sort of frequencies, and there's some very well-documented ranges of gamma waves and all that kind of stuff, which are proven to promote healing and all that sort of stuff. So I think so. There's definitely more and more science in that vein that are really showing how important this is. And the thing is, you only have to look at some kind of more obvious things. So, for example, the heartbeat that a child in utero listens to in the moon, his mother's heartbeat, these are all, these are actually, this is part of who we are. And so even the rhythms of music, and this is actually one of the things that we're looking at is how do you actually craft a music program which promotes that feeling of recovery, sort of energy. There's different flow states that you can get, there are different states that you can get in, depending on, for example, the beats per minute of a music, right? And there are certain types of beats per music that tend to promote, for example, group synchrony, sort of synchronized people on the dance floor. So these are all the sorts of things that we're looking at in the way that we're designing the music for the Joy Score experiment with the long W rave as a use case. So, for example, in San Francisco and also in Honduras, we tested people's response to certain, we had five different music tracks, varying frequencies and BPMs. It was mainly around the BPMs, actually. And you may or may not know, but there's a lot of very well, there's a there's and we all have our own echo chambers on Instagram, but there's been so much research being pushed down on Instagram showing that house music, which has its had its resurgence, is promotes mental health and promotes people feeling great. In fact, there's a whole big campaign or a big sort of uh blitz now about how the over 50, the over 40 women population are all going out raving because it makes them feel great. There's something about, and so this is what we're testing out in the joy score. So we had five tracks between sort of 120 to 135 BPM beats per minute. And what does that do on your brain and your brainwave activity? And this is where we're actually measuring that with some of the latest neurotech devices. So, for example, we're working with a group who've just launched this device called AWER, which is a mobile brain EEG tracking device that can sits behind your ears. You can wear it as you're dancing. And we're also working with Muse 2 technology, which is a headband that sits over your forehead. And actually, we were looking at that, we were using that last week in the Raven Vienna, so that, and actually we had a beautiful way of visualizing what is going on in your brain when you're in the flow state, which the DJs are when they're in flow, and also the dancers when they're in flow. And we predicted that on screens, which is really cool and quite a televisual and all the rest of it. So we're trying to understand at cellular, at physiological, at brain level, what is going on when people are dancing and also responding to different types of music. And the way that we're capturing it, and this is the, I guess, the more complicated side of it. So, for example, in Honduras, we had four weeks, had a corehouse of people who had joined up, who had signed up for the Joy Score study, and it was part of a much bigger longevity biomarkers competition that was running at the time in this longevity community in Honduras. So I was there for the whole month. And what we were doing is we were capturing a whole bunch of data points, some of which were when people were going to a longevity rave and were wearing the brain EEG tracking device. But then, of course, all the moments in between those raves and all and also with all the other things they were doing in their day-to-day life, and sort of, and then of course, measuring them both in terms of urine collection every day. So, what are the metabolites, which of course change quite frequently to it with lifestyle changes. Then we had an epigenetic age assessment before and after, and of course, being able to show up any change in lifestyle takes a much longer in that context. We had glycan age assessments, which is measuring glycans, which again take a little bit longer in terms of showing up any lifestyle modifications or rays or whatever. And then, of course, we also had an app where you could subjectively where you're asked to sort of input into the app how you're feeling every day, three times a day. So obviously, we have a huge number of data points. We're just now actually started the analysis and we've got a preliminary analysis, which is I'm preventing preventing, presenting next week, which shows that people in the joy score study, arm of it, actually fared better in terms of their biological age trajectory than the ones who weren't in the joy score study. Now, there are lots of potential reasons why, and that's obviously going to be what we explore moving forward. But but I think the point that I'm trying to make is that in this world of being able to capture data now with all the wearables, with all the biomarkers you can collect in blood, in saliva, in urine, and with now all this neurotech, you've got a whole bunch of data points that you can actually work with and you can look at the patterns at an individual level over time, which and then you can actually start to look at well, what is it that's creating these moments where people are either getting healthy or less healthy, more joyful or less joyful? And you can actually then look, then use your AI and look at all the patterns. And so that's the whole, that's a whole next level of where we're taking the study. So it's early days, and obviously, right now, as any bootstrapped sort of organization goes, you're running with what you've got, you're you're taking a punt, you're working with established relationships and technology providers, and then kind of getting insight, and then you kind of then focus on where the gaps are and all the rest of it. So that's sort of like where we're at now, but it's really

Sound Frequencies And Neurotech Testing

SPEAKER_00 38:03

interesting. And it is a social exposome project, which is why I'm presenting it at this global exposome summit, the global, the human exposome project sort of gathering next week. So it's it is interesting. And we're looking at it from a very high science perspective, and it has to stand on its merits as a science endeavor.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

So sure. I mean, it's so exciting though. I love this so much. So, okay, before we wrap it up, I feel like there's so much more I could ask you, but I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep it succinct. I'm just so I'm thinking about the person who's listening to this. Yeah. And if I'll just use myself as an example, definitely as a younger woman, I love to go out dancing before I had kids, before I had a family. Yeah, that was something we would do almost every weekend. Yeah. Then the babies are born, and then like in the career, all the things we stopped dancing. Yeah, I still I've always loved music. That's always happening in the house, but the dancing piece has meant it was missing. So for my 50th birthday, I actually felt super inspired to throw my own dance party. I was like, I want to go dancing again. And we live in the countryside, it's a little bit harder to go find. So I just invited my friends over. We got speakers up, lights, we just had uh and we danced until three in the morning. It was so fun. So I am definitely resonating with what you're talking about. And I want to know for everybody listening, what would be your suggestion for them? Like, how could they really start to take advantage?

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Oh my goodness, you can you can do it in so many different ways because just like you said, just the way that you did it is is is a great way of doing it. And even, I mean, just dancing in your kitchen while you're cooking food, just put on your favorite tracks. I mean, it's just it's sort of like it's just engaging your body and mind and soul, and it's just in a totally different way. It just takes you into a whole different zone. And obviously, you have to play the music that you like, and of course, it's very unique to you, the sort of music that really resonates with you. And I would just say, just have a go. And also, I mean, I've done this myself, my sort of just dance and listen to music, and you're sort of dancing by yourself, just out of just feeling connected, and or maybe cooking or whatever. That's another passion point, by the way. I love cooking, it's like another creative kind of pursuit. But so just go with what feels right for you. I think that's the point. And I completely can see your point. I mean, I didn't dance or listen to music for years, partly because A, I was a workaholic. I had three sons who were, let me tell you, they were not easy, and it was probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. Wonderful men now. It was, but you know, it was tough. You know, keeping a show on the road, and you never had any time for yourself and all that kind of stuff. And and stress, of course, is a huge part of it. Work stress and all that kind of stuff, just keeping the everything on the road. And so, of course, I again I see this is the beauty about getting older, and you start to be freed up from all that sort of stuff. And you can actually start to do these things, but you know what? So there's lots of stuff out there. Just in this thing that I just mentioned, the plus 40 women are out now going raving again, and and the dance parties, and just but just start wherever you feel is great, even going to your local dance class or getting your husband to do a ballroom dancing, anything that feels right, you do you just have to start in the end. That's all I can say, and just go with it and just go with what motivates you and makes you feel happy. I mean, because that in itself is a motivator, so yeah, so yeah, I think there's no right or way wrong with this at all, any of this. So, but I do think there is something very powerful about there is something very powerful about the music, and of course, just being with other people, and I think that's what often is missing in our lives, just the energy that you get just from being in close proximity with other people, the oral energy fields, but like it's this whole thing, which my seat and my son's generation, they missed out so much, partly because of COVID, and then of course, life sitting behind screens and then dating apps and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Yeah, no, just get that's not actually exchanging energy in real life, which isn't and to your point too about coming to when you can, depending on where you live and what's accessible to you, but when you can venture into a club or to a rave or something that's a net the next layer of community, that is hard to describe that feeling of like everybody's sinking, we're co-regulating hundreds of people.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

It's wild, exactly. It is wild, it is wild, and it's a wonderful thing. And you know what? Just remember if you go back right through our ancestry and our evolutionary past, people have been dancing for a very long time, and drums and instruments, and it's like it's be it's these rituals. It's there's a reason for it.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

There's a reason for it, it's and it's in our cellular memory, I feel too. Our bodies remember that and it feels right.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

I often, and this is it's funny you say that because I often find so you are drawn to people when you're in that you're drawn to the energy fields of people, and I do sometimes think, and I don't necessarily believe in reincarnation, but I kind of think, well, maybe I do because I sometimes think I know these people. I just feel like I know them just through the vibe that they've got. So there is something there about the cellular memory. There's something there which I think is really fascinating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

That's beautiful. Well, that's probably a perfect place to end it. Thank you so much, Tina. Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to be with us, but also just this work that you're doing, this whole new adventure that you've

Simple Ways To Dance More

SPEAKER_01 43:10

taken on. It's really inspiring.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Oh, well, thank you. And I'm and thank you for for the opportunity to chat. And uh yeah, and look forward to speaking again, hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Yes, me too.

Closing And Share The Podcast

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Thank you everyone for listening. Remember, too, that if you're enjoying what we're sharing here on the Ground Root Podcast, please help spread the word. We want to get this into as many ears as possible. And until next time, have a beautiful day. Bye, everyone.