Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to the Heart Rate Variability podcast. Each week we talk about heart rate variability and how it can be used to improve your overall health and wellness. Please consider the information in this podcast for your informational use and not medical advice. Please see your medical provider to apply any of the strategies outlined in this episode. Heart Rate Variability podcast is a production of optimal LLC and optimal hrv. Check us
[email protected]. Please enjoy the show.
Speaker 1 00:00:32 Welcome friends to the Heart rate variability podcast. I am Matt Bennett here with one of my favorite, uh, past guests, one of my favorite teachers on heart rate variability, Dr. Fred Shaffer. Dr. Shaffer, welcome back to the show. Um, we did this in really, uh, short notice because, uh, you have a course coming up that I really wanted to get out there to the World three course, which is great. It's always fun to sell three things. Uh, so I really wanted to introduce this topic to our audience, cuz I've been absolutely obsessed with it since the a p B conference. Uh, and knowing that I could talk to you about it, uh, just, uh, I'm glad this all came together. So I, I know our audience, uh, knows you, but maybe just a quick intro of yourself, but, but more so in the intro of the course, uh, so we can get that information out right up front, uh, before we explore the topic and, uh, introduce it to our audience.
Speaker 2 00:01:33 Thanks, Matt. I, I have taught at Truman State University since 1975. We established our lab around 19 76, 77, and for many decades, probably about three, we have worked on heart rate variability in respiration research. Uh, the, uh, webinar that, uh, I'm talking about today, uh, is a free webinar offered by our friends at the Northeast Regional by a feedback society. It will be August 3rd, uh, 12, uh, pm Eastern. It's just an hour. Uh, the topic is add slow pace, contraction to heart rate, variability by feedback training. And I will largely in that 60 minute period, try to talk about why she do it, the nuts and bolts of doing it, and the advantages, uh, of using muscle contraction, uh, as opposed to, uh, breathing or heartfelt emotion.
Speaker 1 00:02:46 Awesome. Well, let's start at the,
Speaker 0 00:02:48 Because
Speaker 1 00:02:49 I'll be honest with you, coming into the conference, I was not familiar with this concept, even at a basic level. So once I learned about it and I thought it was, I thought it was interesting too, cuz we had a lot of students at the conference presenting on it, which I always think is a good sign. Uh, if, if the young people are interested in it, it's always good for, uh, people, uh, my age to pay attention to what gets them excited. So, as someone who got, got exposed to this and then has really been obsessed about it ever since, can you give maybe a really layman's, uh, introduction, uh, to this slow place paste, uh, contraction and, uh, how it relates to heart rate variability?
Speaker 2 00:03:39 Okay. The research that, uh, was, uh, the foundation for slow pace muscle contraction was done in labs like the Rutgers lab of, uh, Paul Lair, uh, Yugen Valo, Braya Valo. And what they found were there were many ways to stimulate, uh, the body to increase heart rate variability, that it isn't just breathing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, breathing is great. Uh, and much of pauler in vers work, uh, has focused on using slow paced breathing, uh, to increase heart rate variability. But what by and his colleagues showed was you can do it other ways. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and one of the ways is to stimulate, uh, the blood pressure regulation system with, uh, very brief, uh, muscle, muscle contraction. Uh, back in the Clinton years, uh, there was a phrase, a catch phrase. Uh, it's the economy stupid. Uh, I never thought the word stupid was particularly kind <laugh>, but, uh, I get that they need to, to, uh, drive the point home. Uh, I will not adopt that word, uh, for my catchphrase would be it's the rate of stimulation. <laugh> smart person
Speaker 1 00:05:24 <laugh> love it. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:05:26 Uh, so it's, it's, so, it's the rate and not the method of stimulation that matters, uh, and how you do it then, uh, based on the work from French and work by the bahi lows and then work finally from our lab, uh, we're pretty sure that a good way of doing it, I, I never want to say this is the only way, right? Or the best way, uh, is you support your legs. So this is something that you would probably want to do when you are, uh, at home, uh, in a, uh, office session. Uh, you support your legs on a second chair, you cross your ankles, uh, and what you do is you contract your wrist, core and ankles for a very short period of time. Uh, basically all of three seconds a minute, all of three. So you don't have to do it very long.
Speaker 2 00:06:36 Uh, and, uh, so, uh, using the optimal H r v, uh, breathing app, uh, you would start the contraction. It doesn't have to be a very strong contraction. In fact, I think it probably can be just a very, uh, mild contraction. You start it one half seconds before the peak of the display, and then you end the contraction one and a half seconds after you've reached the peak. And you do that, uh, at whatever the person's preferred rate is. So it could be, uh, you could set your, if you could set it at your resonance frequency, you could set at six contractions per minute if you didn't, uh, calculate the resonance frequency, which you can easily do with the optimal H RV app.
Speaker 1 00:07:37 So there's that. Let, let me unpack everything and, and I love it cuz we were talking ahead, is that within an hour, there's probably not gonna be a lot of times for q and a after the course, so I love that I get the q and a session one-on-one, uh, uh, with the teacher here. So, uh, let me start to unpack some of that stuff. So the, the positioning, are we, with that legs up, legs crossed, uh, that contraction? You know, are we, are we looking for, like, is is there anything, I mean, there's obviously something special about that position. Are we looking for like a full body contraction? Is is that Yes. What, what are what are your thoughts to get people in that position to get the, the maximum benefits?
Speaker 2 00:08:24 I want it from the core. Uh, I want it from the core all the way to the ankles. Okay. So from wrist to core to ankles, uh, we have, we've compared, uh, wrist and ankles versus core, uh, with and without. Uh, we think that, uh, in, uh, uh, including the core, uh, better stimulates, uh, our blood pressure, uh, regulation lips. So we think that adding the core, uh, is an advantage. Uh, it's very easy to do. Uh, it's not clear why crossing the, uh, ankles helps. I, I think, uh, I think that is a research question yet to be answered. We know that this is how French originally did their research, uh, and so we adopted that. Okay. Uh, but whether it is an active component or, uh, is just superstitious in the sense of it was thrown in, but, uh, there's no evidence that it really makes a contribution. Uh, crossing just your ankles is not a big deal. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and if your legs are up there, crossing them is a very small thing. And we were able to replicate some of friend's findings. Interesting.
Speaker 1 00:09:56 And, and so the, the other part I wanted to follow up on was the, the rate itself. So not necessarily residents frequency, better or worse than any other sort of rate, or, or do you see some benefits of getting that at residence frequency
Speaker 2 00:10:18 That continues to be one of those, uh, unanswered questions in the field? Yeah. Uh, there are data, uh, but it is a very small data set from studies that have compared resonance frequency with values around six. Uh, what what we learned, uh, and largely by accident, uh, was that, uh, we can make the question more, uh, challenging. And that is we do see evidence for some benefit to slowing it down even well below six. And so instead of six, uh, or instead of four and a half, which tends to be the lower range, lower, uh, end of the adult residence frequency range, uh, we see robust effects around once per minute and three per minute. And the reason that, uh, we think we see those results, uh, and we see in the lab so that it, it they're real. Yeah. Uh, is that we are simply, we're very likely stimulating a different, uh, blood pressure, uh, regulation loop, uh, that's called, uh, the vascular tone, uh, system. Okay. And unpacking that vascular tone means the diameter of the blood vessel. Yeah. Uh, and it has a resonance somewhere closer to one to three.
Speaker 1 00:12:02 Interesting.
Speaker 2 00:12:03 Uh, so we do see some evidence of even stronger effects, uh, when we slow it down to say, one, one contraction, uh, a minute.
Speaker 1 00:12:16 So, and remind me, maybe you said this already already, but like, if I'm doing one contraction a minute, like my RF frequency breathing rate, like four breaths per minute, I'm, I'm on the lower end. So I, I would, how long would I be, so I, would I be holding that contraction for like, I'm trying to think like,
Speaker 2 00:12:34 The answer there is, it's just for three seconds.
Speaker 1 00:12:37 Okay. Just for three seconds.
Speaker 2 00:12:38 Full of three seconds and you breathe. The one important idea about slow, slow pace contraction is you just breathe at whatever rate you want. Okay. In other words, you're, you're letting your contraction do the work instead of your breathing doing the work.
Speaker 1 00:12:59 Fascinating. So, and then I, I know you, you're a guru and expert on measurement and the biofeedback aspects of this. So what, what, when you're studying this are, are you looking for like, improvements in low frequency R M S S D? What, what are you like seeing all,
Speaker 2 00:13:20 All of those things? Uh, we look for all of those things and, uh, clearly one of the ways you can tell where the person is stimulating, uh, the blood pressure regulation systems effectively is by increasing low frequency band power. Mm. Uh, this is the only time that you want to see, uh, increased low frequency band power. Yeah. If you see it when people are breathing at normal rates, uh, that's a problem. Yeah. It means the vagal break is on when you should have it off. Right. Uh, I think that, uh, we look at low frequency power, we look at R M S S D, and that is a a time domain metric. Let me unpack your audience end. Doubtly has heard about it, many, many, uh, different, uh, uh, podcasts. But this is one of the go-to metrics. It measures the, uh, amount of heart rate variability in the time that you're doing, uh, the, the monitoring, uh, it seems to be a fairly robust, uh, metric, uh, many, uh, apps, uh, apple Watch, for example.
Speaker 2 00:14:46 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, use rm S S D and then just name it heart rate variability without explaining. Yeah. Uh, at least initially what, uh, it meant. Uh, so arm SSDs one, uh, but you know, it's like blind, uh, sages, uh, trying to puzzle out an elephant, uh, by touching different portions of its anatomy. Uh, our SSD covers some aspects of heart rate variability, sd n n others, uh, we take a look at a number of metrics, uh, and then see where there's significant change. Uh, yes. Uh, in the end, you want to see higher low frequency power while you're performing this activity. You also want to see greater respiratory sinus arrhythmia and unpacking that. It would be the difference between the fastest heart rate and the slowest heart rate Yeah. For a period of time.
Speaker 1 00:15:57 So when you, you know, think about this as it is, just because I know in, in the, the, the course we're gonna go into, you know, more, more on the professionals bringing this into practice and, and working on that aspect. I imagine there's folks like me who, uh, one, I, I can't wait for the course, but two is like, can I use this at home? Because it seems like something I could do while I watch Netflix while I read a book. Even like May, maybe I'd have to like set up my book in a way that would be, but it seems so easy and accessible. It is for folks. So, so are we talking about like a, a 20 minute, like we talk about breathing practice or what, what are we, what do, do you have a home kind of recommendation of individual work around this?
Speaker 2 00:16:53 I do. Uh, and, uh, I would recommend, uh, that, uh, you use, uh, a very friendly app, uh, like, uh, the optimal H r V app. Use the breathing pacer, but not for breathing for muscle contraction. Uh, and, uh, what I'd recommend is I would actually set the time aside for no interruptions, for not doing anything. Especially if you want to teach mindfulness. Yeah. Uh, we don't want to distract them. Right. Uh, and so I would like them to, and the amount of time, uh, one could work up to 20 minutes, uh, you ease into 20 minutes would be the maximum. Uh, and to acquire, uh, this signal, uh, so you can keep track, uh, I would suggest that for this purpose, uh, you use, uh, a Polar H 10 band. And let me tell you why. If I use your excellent h RV reader, I'll get artifact from the wrist because you are contracting the wrist. Oh, interesting. And muscles that are, uh, contracted, uh, are, uh, essentially contributing to your ECG readings.
Speaker 1 00:18:28 Yeah, that makes total sense.
Speaker 2 00:18:30 Because their frequency spectra overlap, uh, almost completely.
Speaker 1 00:18:35 Okay.
Speaker 2 00:18:37 So I would just use a polar band, uh, I'd sync it up to the optimal H RV app. I would go to your breathing, uh, app and just use your peak pacer. And instead of breathing, I would just, again, a minute and a half, you know, second and a half, uh, before the peak start a mild, uh, contraction. And then, um, a second and a half after the peak, uh, I would then relax. And by way of analogy, uh, I love Dr. Ina Hasan's example of how forcefully should you breathe. And she says, as if you are smelling a flower. Yeah. Uh, in the same way transfer the concept. How forcefully should I contract gently?
Speaker 1 00:19:41 Yeah, absolutely. So the, the, the, these are sort of the questions. I'm glad I have you on the podcast cuz I could ask these and not be embarrassed in a professional, uh, sort of thing. But one of the things that pops to my mind and, and forgive the western mindset, cause it's just like I know some of the folks listening have got me thinking the same thing. Well, hey Fred, can I do this? And residence frequency breathing at the same time and get a multiplying effect?
Speaker 2 00:20:17 We think it's possible. Uh, I'll tell you how. Okay. Uh, you first of all have to, uh, not contract the core. So it would just be wrist and ankles. Okay. You still might cross your ankles, but you're not going to contract your core. Gotcha. And then you can synchronize breathing and muscle contraction, uh, with the same display. Now, I have to confess, I didn't bring my receipts today, <laugh>, and lemme explain what that means. Uh, just before, towards the end of last semester at Truman State University, uh, the university was, uh, paralyzed by, uh, malware, ransomware. Oh. Uh, and for roughly two weeks, all university computers had to be shut down <laugh>. And so this was a time we were transferring our data so I could do the data analysis. Oh. So we've done the study. Uh, it is a fairly large n uh, I believe it will be in the fifties. Uh, and it's undergraduates. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, the question can always be asked, how well does this generalized to clinical populations. Uh, my expectation is that for, uh, a a P V, uh, annual meeting, uh, which will be, uh, May, 2000, uh, 24, uh, in Denver.
Speaker 1 00:22:02 Yeah. I hadn't heard the Denver announcement yet. So, uh,
Speaker 2 00:22:06 That we just, uh, we just locked in, uh, the property and the date and, uh, awesome. Uh, I hope to present my students to present those findings. Uh, so I haven't seen the data, uh, but, uh, the data are, are safe <laugh>, uh, we probably have about a month or less of data, uh, transfer. So we, we have addressed that. We have addressed that question. Uh, and that was our, uh, semester project.
Speaker 1 00:22:45 So cool. So cool. So can I ask why not the core?
Speaker 2 00:22:52 Because you have to, uh, contract and relax your abdomen, uh, to breathe. And if you are at the point that you contract your core, you're interfering with breathing perfect sense for that period.
Speaker 1 00:23:11 Perfect sense. So I think the, the big thing, and I know I, you know, after sessions, or if I could corner one of the students who are presenting mm-hmm. <affirmative> on this topic, one of the things I know a lot of us were kind of nerding out about is like, I am a, you know, a student. I would say that beginner's mind level of cuong. And, uh, you know, I, I do sort of tai chi, you know, movement, and so I'm pelvic, you know, contraction, those sort of movements. And as I, as I'm listening to people talking about this, I, I think the thing that just resonated with me is like, is this why we see some of these benefits? Not that they're one-to-one comparison by any stretch of the imagination, but things like Tai chi, Ong, like these, uh, yoga maybe to some extent are, are we kind of tapping into maybe some of these traditional methods of slow, I guess low and slow breathing, low and slow movement? No. With the Tai chi, do you think we're tapping into some of the same systems with this? Or is that just my mind connecting dots that don't really exist?
Speaker 2 00:24:32 I go back to the idea, it's the rate smart person
Speaker 1 00:24:37 <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:24:39 Typically in, uh, these, uh, forms, uh, like Tai chi. Uh, you're not, uh, doing it, uh, in a rhythmic, uh, once a minute, uh, once, you know, uh, right. Uh, and so you're probably not, you're getting benefits, but not by stimulating, uh, the blood pressure regulation loose. Okay. Uh, you need to do it consistently at a given rate. Uh, and what we're doing is extending that from the four and a half to six and a half times a minute for breathing for adults and saying, Hey, you can do it, uh, at one. Yeah. Uh, or three times a minute. Uh, and these typically are, the issue is one of consistency. Now, understand that in some of their early work at Rutgers, they did something that was a little horrific. Uh, also ex uh, completely ethical. Uh, they,
Speaker 1 00:25:47 <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:25:47 Showed, they showed, uh, participants emotionally powerful slides mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, so there'd be positive images as well as horrific images. And it was the rate of the, uh, emotional slide, uh, presentation that, uh, increased hrv. Interesting. So that's visual as opposed to, uh, using, uh, muscle contraction or breathing.
Speaker 1 00:26:22 Fascinating. So I, boy, yeah, I, I just fi Yeah. It's, it's such a, uh, a new way to look at this. So one of the final questions that I have, because I, I do wanna say, I, I don't wanna go. So I got your slide deck right in front of me. So I'm trying to save, uh, enough juicy things for the course itself. Uh, cuz I, I, like I said, I can't wait, uh, uh, to, to participate. So, you know, with in's work around, uh, hrb biofeedback and then mindfulness and, and now self-compassion is almost these separate thing from mindfulness, I would say cousins maybe. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> would be, uh, uh, my layman's uh, explanation of that. So has, have you or anybody else looked at doing a meta mindful mindfulness practice, self-compassion on top of this, to measure bringing, like she's done with RF breathing, bringing mindfulness on top of that. Has any work been done around this while bringing in a, a guided meditation, mindfulness practice? Any differentiation in data that's, uh, you've seen coming out of, uh, anything like that?
Speaker 2 00:27:42 Many, uh, a few decades ago, uh, we explored something that is again, uh, a kissing cousin of what you're talking about, <laugh>. Uh, we were fascinated by, uh, our friends at the Institute of Hard Maths, uh, heartfelt emotion approach. Yeah. And we wondered what, uh, heartfelt emotion contributed to increasing H R V. And we did a series of about four studies, uh, that looked at, uh, heartfelt motion using their, uh, quick coherence method mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, to see if it could by, its, it could, uh, increase the benefits of breathing, whether it could buffer people from the effects of experimental stressors, help them recover from experimental stressors. The takeaway, uh, over the course of four studies over probably about four or five years, was that there are many desirable, uh, advantages to, uh, heartfelt emotion. We think, uh, that our friends at the Institute of HeartMath, uh, are right on target in encouraging people to be kind, uh, to be compassionate and so forth. Yeah. But one of the benefits that doesn't come from heartfelt emotion is increased heart rate variability.
Speaker 1 00:29:27 Fascinating.
Speaker 2 00:29:28 That, uh, it doesn't in by itself increased heart rate variability. It doesn't leverage, uh, slow paced breathing and make slow pace breathing more effective. So you do it for the fact that, uh, you become a kinder version of yourself. Yeah. You do it because you want to model this, uh, and change the people in your immediate world, uh, but you don't do it. Increased heart rate variability. Heart
Speaker 1 00:30:01 Variability. So this is, I I think you've, uh, you know, it's that western mindset is that if you know a hundred milligrams of vitamin C is good, 300 has to be amazing. It sounds like you've really, in many ways at this point in the research, have in some ways, I don't know, you can, you can throw a different word in here, but you may have isolated an approach that is just beneficial in of, of its own right. Might be, might be strengthening aspects of heart rate variability. And please correct me if I'm wrong here, but maybe strengthening aspects of heart rate variability or what leads to heart rate variability, that, that might be a different strengthening than a mindfulness practice or even a pace breathing practice is we've got a different way to strengthen part of that autonomic mm-hmm. <affirmative> service system. Am I, am I passing the exam here? Or even getting maybe a B minus, uh, on this,
Speaker 2 00:31:06 You know, I have another month till I have to start grading students <laugh> like being out of that business for a while I this summer. Uh, let me, let me uh, answer your question this way. I think there are fundamentals that, uh, can change the way that we live, change the way that we interact with others, uh, that in themselves do not, uh, increase heart rate variability as if that were, uh, the metric by which we judge everything. Yeah. In of itself, they, but rather sets the, the conditions in which, and let me give you an example. Mindfulness helps to set the conditions to better master any skill, whether it be, uh, xen archery or heart rate variability, uh, or emotional self-regulation, heartfelt emotion. By making us more appreciative, kinder, gentler sets the conditions in which a person is more likely to experience greater heartfelt emotion and greater heart rate variability, uh, compassion, uh, self-compassion, which, uh, it is easier for some people to be compassionate towards others strangers than to themselves. Uh, and as we've talked already, uh, particularly, uh, in the trauma population, uh, it is hard for, uh, these individuals to, uh, cultivate self-compassion. Yeah. So, uh, this creates the, uh, it's like you want, you have a garden, uh, you want your plants to grow and thrive. These are the water and other things that you provide, uh, to help the plants grow.
Speaker 1 00:33:24 Awesome. Wow. Well, that, that's an a plus answer. Uh, not, not that I'm gonna grade the professor, but, uh, <laugh>. And now that was beautifully put cuz I, I think we do have this, like, that's where all like the nerd conversations at the conference, because it was such a, it was a new topic, it was a new concept to a lot of us. And I think the mind automatically tries to attach it to things that we already feel comfortable with. And what I love about our conversation and really this approach having, you know, really at the beginning of my learning curve around it is no, this is, this is a beautiful, uh, non-invasive, um, easy to access, I would say, in my language, likely trauma informed for most people, because I don't think this could be re-traumatizing. Right. Or, I mean, you never know, but I, I think it's pretty, you know, uh, uh, like I said, non-threatening at the very least mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so it's, it's just really great to discover this, you know, in this realm of the umbrella of heart rate variability that there, there's this additional pathway to, you know, nurturing that garden, um, of overall health and wellness.
Speaker 2 00:34:46 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:34:48 Beautifully put. Well, one more reminder. Uh, if people weren't, uh, really excited before this conversation, I'm sure they are. Now, can you just give one more reminder about, uh, the course, uh, obviously we'll put up this all in the show notes too, uh, but just one more, uh, brief reminder, uh, uh, when and where they can find the course.
Speaker 2 00:35:10 Okay. Uh, the, when is August 3rd, uh, and it's 12:00 PM Eastern. It's just an hour and it's free. The, uh, where is the Northeast Regional by Feedback Society. And if you go to the website, uh, a link is up where you can register and it is free.
Speaker 1 00:35:34 Sounds good. Well, there you go, everybody. So, um, I'll put a little bit of contact information for Dr. Shaffer. Also a little bit of information in the show notes as well. But my friend, uh, this has, it's been a, I've just been obsessed with it since the conference. So, uh, to sit at your feet and learn from you again, uh, is always a, uh, extreme honor and pleasure of mine. So I know I speak for my audience. Uh, just thank you, uh, for your ongoing work in, uh, sharing with it on the podcast with us. Thank you. All right. We'll see everybody at the course.
