Commercial Flying | Fatal Conveniences™ - Darin Olien
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Commercial Flying | Fatal Conveniences™

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Commercial Flying | Fatal Conveniences™

Commercial flying is necessary. We can’t get everywhere by horse and buggy anymore. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t spend weeks on a train or ocean liner. So airplanes are essential. But what do they do to the human body?

Welcome to Fatal Conveniences™. 

By all means, travel across our big, beautiful world. Just do it safely.

As the world cautiously returns back to “normal,” we’re all beginning to travel again. But the truth is, flying is stressful – for a multitude of reasons. Airplanes are amazing modern marvels, and I have the utmost respect for all those that design, build, fly and work on them. But we need to be honest with ourselves about how challenging flying is on the human body.

In this segment, I’ll give you a fascinating brief history of commercial flying and how it’s shaped our society. Then I go through how it affects your body, and how to minimize the damage. I definitely don’t expect you to stop flying on airplanes, I just want you to understand the science of how it affects your body. That way, you can make more informed decisions going forward. If you keep your body strong and resilient on the ground, you’ll be ready to tackle the skies!

Other info in this Fatal Conveniences™ segment:
  • The history of commercial flying
  • Lower oxygen in the cabin
  • How flying desensitizes your system
  • Why everyone is a lightweight in the sky
  • The grossness of airplane food
  • Cosmic radiation
More information to learn about this subject:

Radiation Dose Calculator 

This is why flying on a plane makes you feel terrible by Vox

Space Radiation: Should Frequent Flyers Worry? By BBC

Radiation from Space (Cosmic Radiation) by CDC

Do you have a particular subject you want me to dive deeper into for a Fatal Conveniences™ segment? I want to hear about it! Follow me, @darinolien on Instagram and leave me a comment.

The Darin Olien Show is produced by the team at Must Amplify. If you’re looking to give a voice to your brand, and make sure that it’s heard by the right people, head to www.mustamplify.com/darin to see what Amplify can do for you.

Episode Transcript

Darin: It’s that time of the week for another fatal convenience. This is a bite-size segment that addresses some of society’s fatal conveniences and the steps you can take to avoid becoming a victim of them. I define fatal conveniences as the things we may be doing because the world we live in makes us believe we have to, tap water, shampoo, sunglasses, food. I dive into the hidden truths behind some of our everyday choices that could not only be harming us but even killing us, so let’s dive in.

Darin: Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. This is The Fatal Convenience, for your liberation, for a healthier life, healthier outcomes, and ultimately more energy that you can then transmute towards living a life that gives you joy, happiness, and health. That’s the point of fatal conveniences, to be aware. Burying your head in the sand does not create change. That just creates more and more ignorance. We can’t afford to be ignorant in our life, it doesn’t give us power, it doesn’t give us choices. Awareness with actions liberates us and creates more freedom, more opportunity, and opens ourselves up to a greater potential in life. Those are some of the philosophies that I have, and the motivations I have to having and creating and discovering these fatal conveniences. This next one, most of us have done it, we’re still going to do it, that’s flying on airplanes. I have done a lot of it, holy cow. There’s a lot of little things and tweaks and opportunities here to look at. Obviously, the fatal convenience here is good luck in a horse and buggy trying to get to Europe, trying to get to another state over. The fatal convenience is, it’s really convenient to sit on a seat that’s comfortable that even leans back a bit. And we can go to sleep and show up in another country, another state within hours. What, it’s amazing. I mean, I want to get to our teleportation days, but hell it’s pretty good. Let us go to sleep and I’m there. It’s kind of like teleportation. So this one’s an easy one, fatal convenience is that there are some health effects that we need to take into consideration and we can do something about, most of. So obviously, it’s a cool history of aviation. I’m not going to go all the way back to the Wright brothers and even before that, but really, it was World War One. They were producing planes because they’re very effective from a military strategy standpoint, for sure. So both sides of the Atlantic were building planes. In 1917, the government progressed far enough to go hey, listen, let’s expand this, and let’s use mail by air. And then the 1930s, this was considered one of the most innovative periods of aviation history and went from the air-cooled engine replaced the water-cooled engines. So now all of a sudden it reduces weight makes larger and faster planes possible. That was huge. Then in the Boeing 247 and the DC-3 represented significant advances in aviation because they could fly to 10,000 feet. And so that was higher altitudes, lower oxygen, that created problems as well. So then the B-17 bomber was introduced in 1940. It was the first, also flown by TWA. It was the first pressurized aircraft. Now keep in mind when you’re at elevation, guess what you have less of? Oxygen, less oxygen out there. It’s going to play a role in this fatal convenience. So oxygenation, spoke about that a lot in Superlife, how we can increase the body’s ability to receive and hold more oxygen. An oxygen-rich environment is less and less advantageous for any pathogens, bacteria to create itself, cancers etc. When you have a terrain filled full of oxygen, it thwarts these things. So oxygen’s important. So flying in general and the pressurization, in general, as good as it gets, it’s like being at 8,000 feet. So on the one hand, it’s putting pressure on your body to create more red blood cells. But at the same time, it’s very stressful on the body. For those of you that have noticed, it’s easier to get drunk because you have low oxygen levels. Keep in mind, alcohol is a poison. Your body’s also under stress, it’s under low oxygen. So you’re creating a hell of a trifecta here to create problems, to create terrain issues of bacteria and viruses, and get yourself sick because it changes cellular metabolism because of those low oxygen levels. So not a good idea to start drinking on. You’re going to get drunk, you’re going to be an idiot, and you’re going to harm your body exponentially worse. So obviously, planes are incredible and they’re comfortable. Let’s just take your luggage, throw it on there, and away we go. The speed now over 400 miles an hour, we can get there really quick. But what should we care about here? Think about low oxygen levels, the body’s under stress, it also desensitizes you, it decreases your senses. So what they do to compensate with the crappy food that they serve you is they crank it up full of sugar and salt, so you get more of the sugar and salt in the processed foods so you taste it. So you don’t notice the fact that you’re under stress and your senses have decreased and then nutritional starvation. You need more nutrients in that space, which is why I bring my food on the plane. I bring fresh food. I bring salads I make, put it in a jar, put tape on it, bring my own bamboo silverware. Stewardesses always look at me like, man, I wish I had that. I’m like damn right. Can I just have a plate, empty plate, and a napkin, please? I’m gonna go to town on fresh fruits if I can get those in without smashing them and apples and fresh salads and bring my own food, drink water. We’ll get into that in a second. But it’s stress around, then your cells, your middle ear, eustachian tubes, that puts pressure on these things. You can even get motion sickness. So the brain got all this conflicting information when you’re jumping on of plane, bellies get bloated. The pressure inside your stomach and your intestines expand. Several harmful things here that are going on, the recycled air, the dehydration, the low humidity is virtually gone because it’s sucked in. Dr. Matthew Goldman, who did research, 50% of the air circulating the cabin is pulled from the outside at high altitudes, and the air is almost completely devoid of moisture. That’s more stress, that’s harmful. It might cause irritations of the throat, nose skin because it’s so dry. About 30 minutes after takeoff and relative humidity in the cabin drops to nearly zero. This makes it relatively easy to get dehydrated, especially on long, long trips. You’ve got to drink that water. Unfortunately, you can’t bring your own water, but you can bring glass. Get them out of the plastic. I don’t know. This is a placebo that I do. I just go to them, fill up my glass container, shake that up. I bring either a signature bottle that has frequency embedded into the technology or my blue water bottles with good vibes written on the side. And I oxygenate that by shaking it up a little bit, create some activity in a drink, the hell out of water on flights. This is super important. Dehydration is a big deal and you’re adding more and more stress with the low oxygen levels with the dehydration with the crappy food and the processed food, obviously, and the high altitude means you’re also devoid of more and more moisture as well as the need of more and more nutrients. As the plane flies, the air flows through the engine, gets sucked in as compressed, cooled, filtered, and pumped into the cabin. If this did not happen, everyone inside the plane would die. So they have to process this air. The low air pressure at the elevation planes fly typically about 35,000 feet means there isn’t enough oxygen of the air coming in. So they have to manipulate that air. You’re going to shove back into the cabin. 50% of it isn’t recycled. The air pumped inside doesn’t mimic sea level. It basically mimics the elevation of 6,000 to 8,000 feet, said by Brent Blue, a doctor and longtime pilot. If you’re flying for six hours and dropping your blood’s oxygen saturation by 5%to 10%. And then guess what, the fatigue sets in. I get so tired, so tired. And then we’re sitting down for all these periods of time, so that only exacerbates. Can you see? Add up all of these things, man, this is stressful on the body. Now, you add in cosmic radiation. Cosmic radiation we do get exposed to just by being on the planet. That’s forms of x-ray, forms of gamma rays. It’s ionizing radiation. These are charged particles that affect your body and part of it hits our atmosphere, stratosphere. The charged ozone in our atmosphere keeps this down. So our stratosphere keeps that down. But the thing is, now that you’ve gone up 35,000 to 40,000 feet, you’re being exposed to more and more cosmic radiation. So it’s detrimental for your body. Of course, the World Health Organization talks about this. Cosmic ionizing radiation is linked to cancer and reproductive problems. So again, we need to support ourselves as best we can. Don’t be one of those people. As soon as you jump on the plane, you let go. You eat whatever they give you, you start drinking, you don’t drink enough water. It’s just crazy to me that people do that. But the most at risk here is hats off to the crew members, they’re being exposed to low oxygen levels, stress, no humidity, cosmic radiation, these things can cause chemical changes in the body. And there’s a great article by space and radiation, Should Frequent Fliers Worry? Those are in the show notes. The point is, you need to take care of yourself on this earth. And then when you fly, take care of yourself, do the best you can, bring your own food, drink a lot of water, and get your ass up and move around. So here are the things that you can do, eat better, drink more, get up and move around, fly when only necessary. These things are super important. You can stay hydrated. Cleveland Clinic did a lot of research here and articles on drinking while flying. Got it in the show notes. And there are certain EMF blocking hats and caps and underwear and shirts now that you can use to lower the cosmic radiation, and the EMFs that are in the plane itself, and cockpit. These are things you can do. Recap. Again and again and again, same as on the earth, take care of yourself. Don’t drink alcohol on a plane. It creates more stress. Move up, get around. When you’re on a plane stretch, breathe deep, breathe through your nose only, increase oxygenation by that, drink a lot of water, bring your own food if you can, please bring your own food, or fast on the plane. These are great things to do. Wear EMF blocking clothes, if you have them, if you can get them, there’s a lot of things you can do. Lower the amount of times that you fly. Only do it when you’re on purpose. And when you really need a vacation. So there you go. The effects of being on an airplane. There’s a lot you can do. I know that I’m going to keep flying because I’m on a path on a mission and I will take that hit that the more I’m on the ground, the more I’m making my body resilient and powerful and strong, and that’s the point. Do the best you can, lower these effects. Okay, guess what, you have choices, you have power, you have purpose. Find it, go after it, live from that space. I love you very much.

Darin: Thanks for tuning in everyone. I hope that left you feeling inspired to take a closer look at the everyday choices you’re making and how they could be impacting your health and even the planet. If you want to learn more about life’s fatal conveniences, head over to fatalconveniences.com. You can sign up for the exclusive access to Fatal Conveniences episodes, news, insights, and more. And all this great stuff gets sent each week straight to your inbox, making it really easy. Now, that’s a convenience without the negative side effects. It only takes a few seconds to join. Just fill in the form and take that amazing step towards making better choices. Remember, small changes can have big impact. So, keep diving my friends, keep diving. And if you haven’t had a chance to check out the interview, I released earlier on the week, here’s what you missed:

Sarah: No one is going to come and save us. We’re gonna have to do it ourselves. And so when we roll our sleeves up, all of a sudden, this nebulous sense that things aren’t right has an outlet. And that is how I live my life now. I feel purposeful, I’ve got so much energy, I just get healthier and healthier and stronger and stronger. And it’s the wonderful thing about getting old, isn’t it? You get quite mindful and purposeful about how you move your body. And it becomes a joy, it becomes a mission. I am vigilant now, and I’ve got a cause. It’s not just vanity. Vanity is a very empty kind of endpoint but saving this one wild and precious life, that feels pretty good.

Darin: This episode is produced by my team at Must Amplify, an audio marketing company that specializes in giving a voice to a brand and making sure the right people hear it. If you would like or are thinking about doing a podcast or even would like a strategy session to add your voice to your brand in a powerful way, go to www.mustamplify.com/darin. That’s www.mustamplify.com/darin.

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