Inside the $14B Visionary Wellness Club Redefining Longevity, Health & Human Potential

Tim details each component: he uses a chili pad to keep body temperature at 18.5°C for deep sleep. Upon waking at 5:30, he does breath work followed by meditation that includes a somatic practice — intentionally conjuring stressful situations and then calming the body, repeating 4-5 times, which he describes as an HRV trainer. He then writes in a gratitude journal (8-year habit, most useful on tough days). After 20 minutes of stretching, the family gathers at 7am around their baby daughter India; they do prayer, meditation, devotion, and chat about the day ahead. This routine bookends the day with another family gathering at 6pm. Ben shares his own version — his 'family circle' practice at 7am, which Tim adopted directly from Ben after hearing him decline a call saying 'I've got my family circle at 7am'.

After the morning routine, he trains at 7:45am. The split is designed to avoid chronic cardio and overexertion; he credits Ben with helping him train less but get better results. After every workout, he adds breath work and meditation again, this time on a PEMF mat with overhead red light therapy. On Sundays, he consolidates all biohacking — ice baths, sauna, red light, PEMF, grounding sessions, nature walks — so the other days aren't cluttered. He also added exercise with oxygen therapy (EWT) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This structure came from a conversation with Ben about balancing training stress with recovery.

Tim tracks his naps; his Aura data shows 7h51m average sleep and 210 naps last year. He says this afternoon rest is 'really really important'. Ben shares his own extreme version: on a day of heavy travel, he did a 90-minute yoga nidra in a hyperbaric chamber (medical grade, 1.35-2.4 kPa) and felt fully recovered. He calls it his top recovery protocol. The conversation suggests that hyperbaric chambers (which Tim has in Saint Haven's 'Haven' biohacking zone) facilitate a deeper NSDR state. This is both a science-backed practice and a personal anecdote.

Limitless is a tiered testing program that Tim calls 'our ultimate human protocol.' It was not officially launched because it spread via word-of-mouth and reached capacity. The testing includes full-body MRI (via a newly opened Prenuvo location, first in Melbourne), DEXA body composition, 297 blood biomarkers, and urine profiles including mold toxin analysis. All results are fed into the club's team (doctors, physios, nutritionists) to create a hyper-personalized program covering sleep, supplements, IVs, and training. Tim designed it by taking the best testing he'd encountered globally and packaging it under one roof. This sits within Saint Haven's broader ecosystem of app-integrated data, wearables, and staff who know members' habits.

Tim describes this as an HRV trainer. He visualizes a stressful scenario, allows the physiological response (heart rate increase, tension), then consciously employs breath and relaxation to down-regulate, repeating several times. This is akin to exposure with response prevention and mirrors heart rate variability biofeedback training. He does this daily after breath work and before gratitude journaling. The practice is part of the larger morning stack he credits with maintaining his resilience through high-stakes business life and long COVID struggles.

Tim's diet is part of the overall Saint Haven ecosystem; the club provides organic, no-bad-oils, no-sugar food throughout the day for members. For himself, he has a set supplement protocol designed by Ben and the Saint Haven team, with supplements timed at breakfast, lunch, dinner. He tries to take 20 minutes to eat lunch mindfully. The nutritional approach is framed as a contrast to overexertion: one member case study involved a 50-year-old man who went from 130kg, 42% body fat, and crippling back pain to a transformed state not through extreme measures, but through 'very calm traditional things — focused on sleep, getting cortisol down, diet and restriction... proper routines of training that actually worked,' including addressing that he was overexerting and never getting into a fat-burning state.

Tim shares that he microdoses psilocybin regularly and finds it gives him a differentiated level of calm and creativity. He describes having his best three business ideas while emerging from a lucid state (though that was from hospital medication after hip surgery, he ties it to psychedelic states). He hopes Saint Haven will one day offer psychedelic-assisted therapies. Ben adds his own experimentation with Amanita muscaria microdosing as a GABAergic alternative to alcohol, noting it enhances sleep, lucid dreaming, and sex without liver toxicity. The conversation touches on the emerging trend of psychedelics and alternatives to alcohol and antidepressants.

Tim Gerner explains that Saint Haven introduced both weekly NAD injections and later IVs after high demand. However, the team noticed a pattern: younger members (under 40) were arriving with already high NAD levels. By testing everyone pre-treatment, they found that giving additional NAD to those with sufficient levels actually caused more exhaustion and created additional stress on the body — essentially overwhelming methylation pathways. This has led them to now screen all members before NAD therapy, an unusual practice that reflects their broader philosophy of avoiding fads without evidence. Ben Greenfield adds the mechanistic layer: excess NAD can deplete methyl groups, though taking TMG or SAMe can partly compensate; the larger point is that young, healthy individuals rarely need aggressive NAD protocols unless dealing with extreme stress, high inflammation, or elite athletic demands. The conversation frames this as an example of 'overhacking' — where stacking interventions without testing can backfire.

Ben Greenfield shares an insight from a practitioner who runs a new mitochondrial function test called the MIC screen. He describes 'overhacking' as a state where biohackers, by chasing every recovery gadget, end up creating excess reactive oxygen species that exhaust mitochondria. This creates a paradox: the people most diligent about recovery tech may be the most metabolically compromised. Tim Gerner connects this to Saint Haven's philosophy: despite offering all the gadgets (red light, cryo, HBOT, PEMF), the club emphasizes foundational ancestral principles — sleep, sunlight, grounding — and tailors tech to the individual rather than pushing maximum exposure. They also saw tangible proof of this philosophy when an HRV specialist (Kim) ran a program focused on purpose, gratitude, and spiritual connection, and members' HRV improved more than from any biohacking modality.

At 43, Tim's testosterone was mid-range, but his DHEA was low, so he tried DHEA. Instead of raising testosterone, his estrogen skyrocketed, his body fat increased, and his latest DEXA scan showed a significant rise in fat mass. He explicitly ties this to his high-stress, high-cortisol environment. Ben Greenfield explains the mechanism: when you dump upstream precursors into a stressed-out body, you get a 180-degree opposite response — aromatization to estrogen — whereas the same precursors in an anabolic state (good sleep, low stress, lifting weights, sunshine, etc.) yield a more desirable testosterone boost. They use this as a cautionary tale about context-specific interventions and the necessity of holistic balance before tinkering with hormones.

Tim describes how, as someone who doesn't drink much, he felt there was no social infrastructure for connecting with friends that didn't revolve around alcohol. Saint Haven was designed to fill that void: members can meet at 4pm, do a training session, sauna, ice bath, eat incredible organic food, and wake up feeling energized instead of hungover. He sees this as a crucial missing piece in Australian society, especially for men. This evolved into two club tiers: Saint Haven (no alcohol, surrender-focused, average age 39.6) and Saint (alcohol Thu-Sat nights, high-octane, average age 32), catering to different lifestyles but both offering a 'third space' for connection. Ben Greenfield adds that even as a moderate drinker, he's experimenting with Amanita muscaria microdoses as a GABAergic alternative to alcohol that enhances sleep and lucid dreaming without liver toxicity.

Tim explains that the app, which cost millions to develop, ingests data from multiple wearables and processes it to guide the member's entire day at the club. For example, if HRV drops from a typical 85 to 70-75 due to late eating or alcohol, the app automatically swaps a HIIT booking for a breath-work or fire-and-ice session. The next iteration, launching soon, will add supplementation advice, meal recommendations, and holistic guidance throughout the day. This personalization extends to the staff: when Ben walks in, they know his coffee order and whether he wants methylene blue with creatine. The system is part of a broader vision where members' Aura sleep data, genetic reports, and regular testing (Limitless protocol: DEXA quarterly, MRI every 6 months, 297 blood biomarkers, mold/urine testing) feed into a continuously updated wellness path.

Ben describes being 'wrecked' from travel and documentary filming, then doing a 90-minute yoga nidra session inside a hyperbaric chamber (medical grade, up to 2.4 kPa at Saint Haven) from 2:00 to 3:30pm. The combination, he says, shifts him into an even deeper sleep-like state than either modality alone, and he climbed out feeling on top of the world. This echoes Tim Gerner's emphasis on the afternoon nap/NSDR — Tim averages 7 hours 51 minutes of sleep and had 210 naps last year, viewing the afternoon deep rest as critical for sustaining his high-stress lifestyle. The synergy of hyperbaric and yoga nidra is presented as a likely future offering or protocol to be codified.