[00:00:00] Speaker A: 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
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[00:00:34] Speaker B: Hello everybody and welcome again to another episode of the Heart Rate Variability podcast.
Jeff Summers here. It's been a little while since I've been on with my good friends Dr. Ina Hazan and Matt Bennett on the show. Really excited to be know it's been what, probably nine months?
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Yeah, it's been a while.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: I've been part of the crew. For those that have not heard my voice, I'm one of the co founders of Optimal with Matt and Ena. So we are very close to the holidays and I wanted to come back on and spend some time with you guys doing kind of a year end wrap up and just kind of discuss the state of HRV, the state of optimal HRV and sort of some of the trends that we see coming next year. So Matt, I know we did one of these year ago, last year at this time, things have changed significantly in our space for our company. So really just excited to be back on with both of you as we near 2024.
[00:01:38] Speaker C: Excited.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: That's right.
So where do you guys want to start? I think from my perspective, let's talk about what's changed, what's advanced, what's new in the world of heart rate variability in the last twelve months since our last recap session.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I would love to hear from you on this. I have some thoughts, but I think you're a good one to start us off.
[00:02:04] Speaker D: I think what I've been most impressed with and pleased with in the field of HRV is just how much the research has expanded and grown. And in the last year we've had a whole bunch of metaanalyses and systematic reviews coming out for HRV biofeedback as an effective intervention for various conditions and various issues in various aspects of performance. And of course, that's exactly what we want to see because each individual study, while of course incredibly important and we need more individual studies, but there is only so much we can conclude from any one study. But once we have enough of these individual studies to warrant a metaanalysis or a systematic review, that's really when we can say with a fair degree of certainty, yes, this is it? Heartability is an effective heartability, biofeedback is an effective way of working with anxiety, pain, depression, et cetera, where heartability makes a difference in cancer, heartability makes a really big difference in cognitive performance. These are some of the examples of the more recent metaanalysis and systematic analysis that I've seen published. So I'm super excited about that.
Just in the last couple of years, there's so much more really good research.
We know that HIV is the way to go, but it's really great to have the research to truly back it up and say with certainty that what we are devoting our lives to does make a really big difference for everyone.
[00:03:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I would second that. It seems like, Anina, you may have put it a little different way than I would have, but I think we're talking about the same thing. It looked like having really been in the research now for three or four years and trying to find when published articles come out and the meta analysis are obviously a huge step forward, it seems like there's been a lot of potential doors open over the years in some of these smaller studies. And you look at AAPB journal and others, sometimes there's like, hey, we have a small group going through this, and those groups seem to be getting larger and larger, which again, when your in goes up, your number of participants go up, the study just increases in value. And so it seems like from someone that's new to the arena, it's like, okay, there were all these doors sort of open for HRV biofeedback around a range, seemingly like pretty much everything you want to make better.
HRV biofeedback can help. It helps regulate the nervous system, which we've talked about so much on. This just is how healthy we are, how well we are. And now to see some of those numbers in these studies increasing, and now to get to the meta analysis, which you're seeing more and more of, is really exciting.
It's proving what I think we've thought.
It's just coming out more and more in the research, which is really exciting.
[00:05:40] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Yeah. As you see more and more consensus amongst the academic folks that are looking into this and studying it, and it just becomes more apparent, it just helps, I think everybody that we work with get more and more excited and more motivated to continue the great work that they're doing, which is music to our ears, because this is something that you both have been passionate about for a very long time. So to see the world jumping in so quickly is really exciting. So kind of looking back. One of the things that we haven't talked too much about on this show yet is AI. And obviously that was something that has been the talk of the tech world for quite a while now.
Hot topic, certainly six, eight months ago, and still remains that way as we head into 2024. How is that going to shape the way people use HRV, how they interact with it?
What are some trends you're seeing in that direction that get you excited and maybe nervous?
[00:06:48] Speaker C: Well, one, I'd like to shout us out, Ena and I and Dave's book, the Heartbeat of Business, the epilogue or conclusion of that book before chat GBT three came out that the large language model, deep machine learning, was something that was on my horizon, because with HRV, we collect so much data. And one of the things I originally was kind of hopeful of, and this is a question I'm throwing out, not from a scientific perspective, but I think just a mad curiosity perspective, is, I thought, oh, we could start to compare SDNN, RMSD, low frequency, high frequency, and have large language models in chat GBT four, crunch all this data and give us something different than, hey, your RMSSD is higher today, you're doing good. And I'm kind of coming to the conclusion that your RMSSD is higher, you're doing good, is still kind of where we're at.
I'm fascinated by, is there more we can do with all this data we can collect? Can we pull information out about parasympathetic, sympathetic, other kind of functionings in there? And the answer in the short term seems probably not, which is disappointing, because I thought we might be able to get to the point where we could ask questions. And I've talked to some of the guests on this show about that because some offline mostly, but there hasn't been like a huge, this would be useful. If we crunched all these numbers together, used all these algorithms, it would give us something greater than, your RMSSD is higher today than it was yesterday. So I think where I'm excited to see where this might be able to go is giving us feedback on what that higher or lower RMSD or low frequency during a biofeedback session is telling us. I think my hope is to give more individualized feedback based on scores, which I believe, having tested it out, AI can do a good job on that. And then if we could maybe customize it for the individual based on maybe a wellness plan or something like that, I think that there's some good work to be done there.
I'm really still excited and just a little disappointed that I had this fantasy that we could get really specific with some of this stuff. And while we might be able to, I've kind of come to the conclusion it's not going to tell us a whole lot more than we already know.
[00:09:43] Speaker D: And that's sort of good news, both good news and bad news. In my book. The bad news is, as you were saying, it would be really cool to get into these nitty gritty details that we maybe are not seeing. On the other hand, I think the good news is the information we're getting from HRV is fairly straightforward, and that is really good news. Maybe we don't have to have this super fancy machine to tell us so much more that what we already have really does tell us a lot already. And that's definitely good news in my book. One thing that AI may be able to help us with is in seeing patterns that to just a regular flawed human eye may not be entirely obvious. So when we have a whole lot of data for each individual person, if a person's been tracking their HRV for months, three years, and putting notes in their morning readings and with their anytime readings, this is the kind of stuff that when we are looking at those numbers, we may not be able to tell a whole lot. This is your HRV after a workout. This is your HIV in the morning. This is your HIV after a big meal.
It's hard to integrate it, but this may be where AI can look at that whole thing and tell us something deeper, something more interesting, something more detailed.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: My hope that makes sense. And so for you both been clinicians, working very closely with patients in different environments, those kinds of things, how exciting is that for you? Thinking back years ago, just a couple of few years ago, right, that wasn't even in the sphere of thought. And so the fact that we're talking about it as potentially a near term option, what sort of feelings does that elicit for you guys in your work?
[00:11:51] Speaker D: I'm super excited, Jeff. You just made me think to, when I first started working in this, where in order for somebody to get their HRV measured, they had to come into the office, there really was no other way of doing it.
People were stuck coming into the office once a week and there was really not a whole lot anybody could do at home. And look how far we've come.
And now progress is picking up even faster. So I think a lot of this we probably can't even imagine. Maybe we'll be doing this recap next year and talking about things that we can't even wrap our minds around today.
So I'm excited.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I totally agree.
I think the possibilities that AI opens up, especially when we look at analyzing large data sets, whether it's for an individual, whether we have RR intervals and these studies we're doing, what is it going to tell us?
I don't know if we even know the questions to ask at this point.
I think in some, I was hoping maybe there were some questions that the Ena's and the Fred Schaefers and others of the world were just like dying to ask and AI would open that know. And for better or worse, it does seem like Ina said is like HRV in above itself is one of the beautiful things about it's incredibly simple biometric to measure. Overall, I imagine innovators will keep thinking around that way. It'll be exciting to see where this goes. I also hope maybe AI can open up integration of biofeedback into maybe individuals, clinicians, practitioners who have not utilized biofeedback in the past.
Now that our app and others, you can do residence frequency, breathing assessments, do mindfulness and everything else, residence frequency, breathing.
Part of that is on us to educate that group. But I think AI could maybe make it simpler for folks to integrate this into their larger practice as well. Especially if we can give practitioners a paragraph summary of your HRV over the last six months, giving physicians and others that level of data which AI can spit out in a matter of seconds, which potentially could be a really, I think, strong use of AI with HRV.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Well, that's so meaningful.
Sorry, that's so meaningful because as we've worked with so many different clinicians over the last however many years, now three years we've been doing this. Matt, one of the biggest challenges has been for folks who are just getting into it, just learning how do I implement this? How can I be effective with my client base, with my patient base?
How can I, as a professional, bring value for them with the data?
It's one thing to have the data, it's another thing to interpret it and realize it into something that's meaningful for them. So that in itself just makes this more accessible to more people more easily, which is hugely exciting for everything that we've been doing for the last number of years. And. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you there.
[00:15:25] Speaker D: No, I was jumping in the same time, and I was actually going to say something very similar. I'm excited that this level of progress can make HIV accessible to people who don't devote hours of years and decades of study to HRV. And while some basic understanding of HIV is really helpful, AI can help people who don't have the ability or don't have the time to really dig in depth into what all of this means and ultimately may not even have the need to with primary care physicians. They have enough on their plates. Many of them will have a basic understanding of what heart turbiability is. And then AI can help fill in the gaps because we may not be able to anticipate all the questions that people are going to ask. And this is where AI can again help fill in the gaps and provide the information that will help those clinicians help their patients. And same thing with people who are just using HRV on their own, without a guidance of a clinician or a doctor or another kind of provider. They'll have the ability to get answers to questions quickly and get more in depth interpretations without having somebody look over their data.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Customized, individualized, all the things that we know matter. But often people just don't have the ability or the background to do for their patient or client base.
Exciting stuff. So you kind of mentioned this a little bit. In terms of when we're doing this next year, will there be something that we haven't even thought about that we discuss? Very possible. But as we look ahead at the future, what are some of the trends you guys are monitoring? What are the things that are seemingly on the horizon that you think are going to be really impactful and things that are going to make it work its way more into the mainstream in 2024 and beyond?
[00:17:37] Speaker D: There are some new ways of determining resonance frequency breathing that we might want to look at from being able to use muscle contraction instead of breathing. So for people who, for whom breathing itself may be problematic, right. And there are plenty of folks for whom paying attention to their breath is, for various reasons, a problem, they may be able to have a different way of terminating their residence frequency breathing rate. So Fred Schaefer has done that research in 2023, really showing us that it's another very effective way of determining residence frequency breathing rate. So perhaps that will be at some point on the list to build into the app. Among all the other really awesome ideas that we have that are waiting their turn, there are other algorithms that are being investigated for determining resonance frequency that might be getting more and more validation in this next year. So I'm just curious and interested to see where that takes us in addition to really, again, expanding the realm of HRV relevance, because at this point, any new study that is looking at HIV in some new realm, like eating disorders where HIV hasn't really been looked at all that much. But with Dr. Mensinger's research, we now know that HIV is a legitimate way of looking at eating disorders. Right? So all these areas where we haven't really ventured in the past are being looked at. And the answer is pretty consistently, yes, HIV is relevant. It's relevant to everything. We just need to show it.
[00:19:31] Speaker C: Yeah. And I would totally agree with different ways to measure and do biofeedback.
A future episode that's going to be coming out in a few weeks.
Working with athletes.
Our guest was getting them into a warm up state before taking their HRV and finding some very interesting things. So when we take the readings, especially if we're trying to prepare for something specific, like an athletic training session with know looking mean, I think Schaefer's work around the constriction of muscles is really exciting. And I wonder what else is there in that? Know, we got a lot of ventral vagal stimulators out there, which I know gets mixed reviews on a lot of things, but it seems like we can maybe test some of this stuff out in different ways.
Just having different options for folks, I think is going to be big. I think the sensor technology continues to improve, not at the rate.
I'm kind of shocked it hasn't moved faster. But now that I've gotten realistic about sisters, I thought surely at this point we'd be talking about like a $12 Fitbit watch that gave us accurate measures, and we're still quite a bit away from there. But you see that technology getting better and better 24/7 monitoring has not seemed like a very useful tool. But as our tech gets better, as AI brings in, could that start to tell us something? So I think we're opening up to just different ways to think about heart rate variability, when to take it, what's it telling us?
And I'm waiting for the new algorithms, I'm waiting for the Kazan HRV algorithm to come out.
[00:21:37] Speaker D: No pressure there.
[00:21:38] Speaker C: No pressure.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:41] Speaker C: I'm a little frustrated that we're still primarily using this, almost, what was it, 1998 or something like that? European study is still the foundational piece. So, I mean, one of my questions, again, I don't have any insight to something being developed, is that there hasn't seemed to be a ton of progress over the last 20 years on new heart rate variability metrics. Now, maybe that means we have discovered what we're going to discover. That seems. Yeah, I don't know if I believe that. But I'm interested to see as we get more data, we get more people working on this, we get some of those meta studies, what might evolve out of this. I'm just curious. I'm waiting for that new metric to come out and been disappointed over the last few years that it hasn't. So I'm keeping my eye on that as well.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Yeah, good point. Something I hadn't even thought of. But who knows who's out there working on that right now and when it's actually going to surface?
[00:22:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Well, I guess that's kind of some of the topics that I had that I wanted to chat with you both about on our kind of year end wrap up. Want to thank all the listeners. Our listener base continues to increase. Matt, you've done a phenomenal job of getting really interesting guests on the show.
Ena, Dr. Kazam, we really appreciate your participation in this as well. Thanks to our users, it's been a phenomenal year.
We're appreciative of all of the support and want to continue to bring good content and good education to everybody out in 2024. Is there anything that you guys kind of want to sign off 2023 with here? Before we go quiet for the holidays over the next week.
[00:23:46] Speaker C: I would just like to, like you said, jeff, thank our listeners.
There was a question out there, could you have a sustainable podcast just on a single biometric when we started this during the pandemic, Jeff, I don't know. I mean, I knew we could knock out like 20 episodes.
I think this might be in the some sort with this too. So I just appreciate everybody that listens. Like I said, we've seen this steady intake uptick over this year of listeners. And so just thank you for everybody, all the HRV nerds out there that have taken this journey with us.
Really excited to see where we go next year as well.
[00:24:38] Speaker D: Yeah, as am I.
Thank you to all the listeners. Thank you to Matt for making this podcast viable and proving that it is possible to have a successful podcast on one metric. So there you go.
And thank you to Jeff.
Thank you to the whole optimal team, which has grown nicely this year. So that's another exciting thing, right? I'm very much looking forward to seeing how our team grows next year and everything and the way that the app develops and all the new features that are going to be coming. But most importantly, thanks to all the HRV nerds out there.
[00:25:20] Speaker C: Yeah, and as always, you can find show
[email protected]. Jeff Ena, thanks for jumping on here. I really love these episodes because we can kind of reflect back.
I think we put out about 50 new episodes this year, if I'm correct with that, I start bringing back some of the favorites, like over holidays and stuff like that. But it's always at this time of year to get a little sentimental about where we've been excited about where we're going. I always appreciate that. So I want to thank you both for doing this episode and welcome back, Jeff. Yeah, we need to find a way to get you on here more, my friend.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: I agree. It's always a pleasure.
Happy holidays, everybody.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Happy New Year, everybody. Have a good one.
[00:26:10] Speaker D: Happy holidays. Happy New Year.
