EP 1398
1398. The Strangest Thing I Do Every Morning for 15 Minutes | Brad Pitzele
In this episode of The Human Upgrade, Host Dave Asprey sits down with Brad Pitzele, founder of One Thousand Roads and a self-taught expert in oxygen therapy and red light therapy who rebuilt his own health after autoimmune arthritis, melanoma, and Lyme disease, to break down why your cells are likely starving for oxygen even when your blood oxygen readings look completely normal. They cover why pseudo-hypoxia, a condition where oxygen in the blood never reaches the tissues, sits at the root of chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, brain fog, and accelerated aging, how Exercise With Oxygen Therapy floods the body with a full day’s worth of oxygen in just 15 minutes by exploiting the physiological changes that happen during exercise, why stacking EWOT immediately before red light therapy creates a synergistic effect that makes both modalities dramatically more powerful, how inflammaging causes capillaries to swell and red blood cells to stiffen until oxygen delivery collapses at the cellular level, why the endothelium and glycocalyx are among the most vulnerable and most overlooked systems in longevity medicine, how pulse wave velocity reveals your true arterial age and why Dave’s scores out at 24 years old after decades of targeted biohacking, why LED lighting is the junk food of light and how stripping red and infrared wavelengths from your environment quietly degrades mitochondrial function every single day, how nitric oxide production connects arterial flexibility, vasodilation, and markers of metabolic health you can track without a lab, why the lungs are the body’s largest detox organ responsible for eliminating roughly 70 percent of all toxins and how oxygen therapy directly supports that process, and how EWOT is helping people recover from long COVID and lung damage by restoring mitochondrial energy and giving cells the resources they need to repair.
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In this Episode of The Human Upgrade™...
Your cells are starving for oxygen, and it’s silently driving inflammation, fatigue, brain fog, and accelerated aging. This episode reveals how pairing Exercise with Oxygen Therapy (EWOT) and red light therapy supercharges your mitochondria, reverses pseudo-hypoxia, and unlocks a level of human performance most people never experience.
-Save up to $500 (through 5/17) at One Thousand Roads: https://www.onethousandroads.com/Dave
Learn more about:
-EWOT: https://www.onethousandroads.com/pages/exercise-with-oxygen-therapy -Photobiomodulation: https://www.onethousandroads.com/pages/red-light-therapy-education
Host Dave Asprey sits down with Brad Pitzele, founder of One Thousand Roads and one of the most credible voices in oxygen therapy and red light therapy. Brad didn’t come to this work through a lab. He came to it through desperation. After battling autoimmune arthritis, melanoma, and Lyme disease, he rebuilt his health from the ground up starting in 2016 by targeting mitochondrial function when he could barely walk. Eighteen months later, he founded One Thousand Roads to bring these tools to everyone still searching for a way out.
Together, Dave and Brad break down the unified theory behind oxygen therapy and red light therapy, two of the most powerful and underrated tools in biohacking. They go deep on pseudo-hypoxia, the condition where your blood oxygen looks fine but your tissues are starving, and explain why this hidden dysfunction sits at the root of chronic fatigue, inflammaging, fibromyalgia, long COVID, and poor sleep optimization. They also cover the endothelium, nitric oxide, arterial stiffness, pulse wave velocity, and why your morning biology might be the most honest readout of your metabolic health.
This is essential listening for anyone serious about longevity, anti-aging, brain optimization, functional medicine, mitochondria, metabolism, and smarter not harder approaches to human performance.
You’ll Learn:
- What EWOT is and why elite athletes and biohackers use it to flood tissues with oxygen in 15 minutes
- How pseudo-hypoxia silently blocks energy production and drives chronic illness
- Why stacking red light therapy immediately after EWOT multiplies results for both
- How mitochondrial dysfunction connects to endothelial aging, microcirculation failure, and systemic inflammation
- The role of nitric oxide in arterial flexibility, vasodilation, and real anti-aging markers like pulse wave velocity
- Why your lungs are your biggest detox organ and how oxygen therapy supports that process
- How ketosis, fasting, and cellular energy interact with EWOT and red light for maximum benefit
- What LED lighting is doing to your mitochondria every single day and how to fix it
- How to build an affordable at-home EWOT setup for around $2,500
Keywords: Brad Pitzele, One Thousand Roads, EWOT, exercise with oxygen therapy, oxygen therapy, red light therapy, infrared light therapy, pseudo-hypoxia, mitochondria, mitochondrial dysfunction, biohacking, longevity, anti-aging, human performance, inflammation, inflammaging, microcirculation, endothelium, glycocalyx, nitric oxide, arterial stiffness, pulse wave velocity, capillary health, cellular energy, ATP production, aerobic respiration, anaerobic respiration, VO2 max, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, brain fog, autoimmune disease, Lyme disease, Bartonella, long COVID, mast cell activation, detoxification, lung health, sleep optimization, metabolism, functional medicine, ketosis, fasting, red light bulbs, LED lighting, light therapy, wavelengths, near infrared, oxygen concentrator
Resources:
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"Oxygen is really the currency of energy production."
Brad Pitzele
00:00 – Trailer
Dave recounts his desperate attempts to fix brain fog and chronic fatigue, including lugging an oxygen tank to the gym and exercising with a welding oxygen mask.
01:41 – Welcome Brad
Dave introduces Brad Pitzele, founder of 1000 Roads, who rebuilt his health after autoimmune arthritis and Lyme disease using oxygen and red light therapy.
03:01 – What Is EWOT?
Brad explains Exercise With Oxygen Therapy: breathing near-pure oxygen via a large reservoir bag while exercising to flood the body with oxygen fast.
05:27 – EWOT vs. Hospital Oxygen
Brad breaks down why EWOT is different from hospital supplemental oxygen. Exercise drives vasodilation, deeper tissue oxygenation, and a pressure gradient that pushes oxygen into starved cells.
06:51 – Longevity & Inflammaging
Brad explains how chronic inflammation causes capillaries to swell and red blood cells to stiffen, creating pseudo-hypoxia where blood oxygen looks fine but tissues are starving.
11:42 – Pseudo-Hypoxia
Dave and Brad share personal experiences with tissue oxygen deprivation, including fibromyalgia, Bartonella, and the first time red light therapy dissolved a years-long painful muscle knot.
12:57 – Red Light Therapy
Dave reflects on founding one of the first consumer red light companies and why the technology has gone mainstream, while calling out the biohacking community for siloing oxygen and light research.
15:47 – EWOT + Red Light Unified Theory
Brad explains why pairing EWOT and red light works synergistically. EWOT floods tissue with oxygen while red light drives mitochondrial uptake, making each modality far more effective together.
18:00 – Nutrition, Ketosis & VO2 Max
Brad ties oxygen availability to VO2 max and energy production, explaining why oxygen, not macros, is the true gating factor in how much ATP your body can generate.
19:56 – Stacking EWOT & Red Light
Brad outlines the optimal protocol: do a 15-minute EWOT session first, then immediately get under the red light while heart rate and oxygen levels are still elevated.
22:01 – Equipment & Cost
Brad describes the home EWOT kit, an oxygen concentrator, large reservoir bag, and exercise mask, available at 1000roads.com for around $2,500, plus a broader discussion on owning your own oxygen supply.
26:00 – Junk Light & LED Problems
Dave and Brad argue that LED lighting strips out the red and infrared wavelengths the body needs, comparing junk light to high-fructose corn syrup and making the case for full-spectrum light at home.
30:51 – Sunlight & Nitric Oxide
A lighter segment covering butthole sunning, testicular light therapy, nitric oxide, vasodilation, and morning blood flow as markers of nitric oxide health.
32:36 – Endothelium & Microcirculation
Brad and Dave dig into endothelial cell damage. How Bartonella, inflammation, and aging degrade the vessel lining, triggering a doom loop of hypoxia, mitochondrial dysfunction, and more inflammation.
38:49 – Arterial Stiffness & Pulse Wave Velocity
Dave explains pulse wave velocity as an underused longevity marker, shares his own arterial age of 24, and Brad explains how EWOT and red light reverse arterial stiffness through nitric oxide and vasodilation.
43:29 – Lungs as a Detox Organ
Brad reveals that lungs are the body’s largest detox organ, responsible for eliminating roughly 70% of toxins, and explains how oxygen itself is critical to the detoxification process.
45:04 – EWOT for Long COVID
Brad explains how EWOT helps damaged lung tissue by restoring mitochondrial energy, enabling cells to clear metabolic waste and allocate resources toward repair.
47:58 – Wrap-Up
Dave closes by praising Brad’s work making EWOT accessible and affordable, reinforcing that less stress, better mitochondrial function, and recovery, not more exercise, is the foundation of healing.
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