[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Heart Rate Variability podcast.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Each week we talk about heart rate.
[00:00:04] Speaker A: 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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[00:00:32] Speaker B: Welcome, friends, to the Heart Rate Variability podcast. I am Matt. I am here with Parker and Hannah today.
I, at AAPB conference, saw their poster and got very, very excited, probably as we were talking about, maybe a little too excited, but they did a study with religiosity and HRV and stress response. And one of the things that I have not seen a whole lot, well, really, I don't see, I think we talk about enough is, is spirituality and religion as a source of resiliency and strength when we know it is so central to people's, you know, how they look at themselves, how they look at the world. And so I'm really excited. I, like, reached out. I was like, I got to talk to these folks. So I'm so glad to have you both here. Hannah, why don't you start us out with introductions? Just give us a brief introduction of yourself for our listeners.
[00:01:30] Speaker C: Yeah. So my name's Hannah. I'm from Fayetteville, Arkansas, and I moved to Utah about four years ago to go to BYU, and I just graduated last month.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Congratulations.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: So I graduated with a degree in psychology and a minor in political science, and I had a really fun time. It's a different atmosphere in Utah and at BYU, so I think that definitely led to, like, a strong interest into our project that we did.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Very cool. Parker, go ahead and introduce yourself.
[00:02:06] Speaker D: Yeah. So I'm also a student at BYU. I'm a senior this year. I study family sciences, but I work a lot with, like, the clinical psych side of the research. I used to be a neuroscience major and then kind of shifted my focus. So I have a broad interest with all of those kind of different soft sciences and chemistry and things like that. So, yeah, I just love to study religion, health. I study it extensively. And a lot of my different classes, a lot to do with children and then adolescents. So, yeah, it's one of my big passions. Yeah.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: So, Hannah, let me ask you, as the graduate of the group here, but before we dive in to the study, what's going on at BYU? Because it seems like there is so much energy around heart rate variability at BYU?
I don't know. Just tell me, what is it like to be in this arena of thought in one of the leaders in the country on this topic?
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's really cool. And it's especially cool as undergrad students to have, like, so many opportunities to work with different professors and work with doctor Stefan, who has done so much and have so many, like, resources available to us.
It's something I never really talked about in my classes. So being able to get involved in the kind of doctor Stephan's research lab and learn about it is super cool. And to see, like, how applicable it is, it's really neat to see, and there's so much research that can be done.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. I've become a huge fan of yours. Unfortunately, I'm, like, too old to hang out with you all at this point. But it's like, oh, the cool kids are from BYU.
At the conference, I just tried to go to your workshops and not be too annoying. So, Parker, just kind of give us a quick introduction to maybe how this study came about.
[00:04:05] Speaker D: Yeah. So we had learned about the APB conference or AAPB conference several months in advance, obviously, to try to plan out kind of what we wanted to do. And our leader, Doctor Patrick Stephan, had a lot of undergraduate research students as well as graduate research students. So he split us into, I think there's three different groups, and each of us had to kind of find a target or kind of what we wanted to research. And just like, from a few different workshops and kind of meeting together on a weekly basis, we ended up just really finding this topic and sticking with it and really ended up enjoying it and finding good data.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Very cool. Hannah, what was it about this topic that interested you?
[00:04:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we were going through all the different data that Doctor Stefan has collected, kind of putting out ideas out there.
And religiosity really stood out to us, I think, because we were at BYU, it's so, such a big topic. It's so interesting since, like, 98% of students are like, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. So from there, we really just went in deeper and started looking at what we could do with that.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: And I'll give this to everyone's the answer. When we say religiosity, I don't know if all of our listeners might know exactly what that term. They could take a guess at it, but let's define our variables here.
When we say that word, what are we speaking to?
[00:05:42] Speaker D: Yeah, religiosity is kind of a broad definition for a lot of different things. Originally, it kind of was more so. Just how religious are you? Do you go to church? Do you, do you know, religious rituals? Do you feel like yourself, are like a spiritual person? But more commonly now it's more split into, like, the motivations behind religion. So what we studied extensively was intrinsic versus extrinsic religiosity, more so, just like that, internal motivation for why you're doing your religious activity, your spiritual activity, versus the external motivation for that.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: And I wonder, kind of walking into this, Hannah, what were your expectations?
Did you feel there would be a difference between the internal and external motivators? I just kind of. What were your, some of your conceptions walking in?
[00:06:31] Speaker C: Yeah. So we found that, like, intrinsic religiosity is more of that, like, religiosity on a personal level and, like, integrating it into all aspects of your life, and extrinsic being more like social drives for actions and going to church and things like that. So we thought it was cool to study that on the BYU population, because even though we're all kind of members of the same church and we think, like, the majority of the BYU students are very religious, we were talking, and we could see, even though we all are very religious, we think we could see that people have different levels of intrinsic religiosity and motivations behind the actions that they do, even if the actions are very similar.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Fascinating. So, Parker, let's talk about the study itself. So walk us through how you set it up.
[00:07:28] Speaker D: Yeah, so we had just a large amount of data from over, like, a few hundred students of multiple different surveys that they had accomplished throughout the months of studying and through Patrick Steffen's lab. And one of the tests they took was the intrinsic extrinsic religiosity scale. And so we used that from the surveys as well as the das, which does the depression, anxiety, and stress scale. Both are very common, and then took those participants and got their heart rate variability data through EKG leads. We also took blood pressure and several other biological markers, but mostly focused on the HRV aspect of it and ended up with about 135 participants that we used for the study.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Awesome. So what did you, Hannah, let's talk about some of the findings.
What did you all find through these 130 some folks you studied?
[00:08:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So we were really looking to see if specifically intrinsic religiosity, if that had any effect on their stress and heart rate variability and if that could be used as a moderator in that.
And so we found that intrinsic religiosity did have there was a positive difference with the heart rate variability on the participants that we had. So that was really interesting. Interesting to find, and it was a little different than what we expected, but it was really cool.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Patrick Barker, how do you interpret some of that? Well, what do you think we're seeing here with some of the results that you have found?
[00:09:08] Speaker D: Yeah. So what's really interesting and kind of what I've looked at from other studies to try to make sense of all of this is more so just that, like, identifier of that internal versus external motivation. A lot of research has shown that external motivators often cause stress or increase perfectionism or are likely tied to neuroticism, whereas those more internal factors are not as much impacted by those life factors.
So a lot of, like, what we kind of base it upon is this kind of internal motivation and this lack of, like, expectations placed on yourself from others that you imbue into your own personal feelings about religion. You can just kind of have a significantly more positive relationship with your religion and get the benefits from that.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Interesting. And I wonder, you know, of the population being, and if I'm correct in hearing you right, uh, Latter day saints, and again, correct my language, I've. I've done a lot of reading, but if I'm. I know I. The m word is out of fashion. I believe so. But, but correct me if I'm. I'm missing the term. So. So Latter day Saints, I would assume, would be the majority, if not everybody you studied.
Again, outsider perception. Really, I would assume a tight religious community at BYU. From, from what I've learned, just as an outsider, did you see any potential aspects of this particular faith group with the internal and external? If we studied Catholics or evangelicals or jewish people of the jewish faith, do you think this would transfer? Do you think there's specific things about this group that we might want to keep in mind as we look at these results?
[00:10:58] Speaker D: I honestly wouldn't really consider it all too generalizable to, like, significantly various religious identities. From my understanding just of the research I've done on evangelical Christians, it seems like there are a lot of motivational ties to, like, lds populations and catholic populations. But of course, as not growing up catholic or experiencing Catholicism, it's really hard for me to make those connections. But there is a lot of data supporting significant, like, biological factors of various different religions, like christian versus muslim versus jewish. So I'm sure that if you were to study it, you could start to make it significantly more generalizable. But just with the research we've done ourselves. It's a lot harder to say.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yeah, Hannah, I wonder if you had any thoughts on that.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Yeah, so I think, and religions like the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter day Saints and Catholicism, I think you could see a lot of similarities, especially when you're going to church every week, and there's kind of that community and expectations.
I think we did really want to try to focus on intrinsic religiosity because we thought that could be a little bit more different between individuals, because it's not as much about going to church every Sunday and doing those type of things. But we also knew it wouldn't be super generalizable, especially with the expectations with BYU students and how they might have answered those questions.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I just kind of wonder, because we were talking kind of about the official results here, which are always that I give all my guests the speculation permission, which means where if research doesn't back this up a year or two from now, nobody's going to come after you and said, well, you said this on the heart rate variability podcast, and trust me, I give folks plenty to come back at, so I'll give you that shield there. But even if it's not necessarily in the hard results, I wonder is as you look at the research, because I know doing research, you might just.
You're thinking about it, what's this mean? Any, just sort of whether it's questions, wondering, insights that might not be, hey, I got data to back this up, but I think this is what we're seeing. Just love to see any intuition or thoughts or curiosities for you both that might have came out during this great research that you did.
[00:13:37] Speaker D: One thing that I really considered and thought about was kind of the community aspect of religion, because a big marker and a big factor within all of this stuff is that social connection that you get from religion. And so it's really interesting. And I would even go as far as to hypothesize, like, the religions that have that higher focus on community, with less of a focus on the spirituality aspect, could lead to more extrinsic motivation, just because there's less of that internal focus of, like, I'm trying to connect to a deity, I am trying to connect to my spirituality.
But honestly, that'd be really, it'd be really hard to generalize one religious population through this, because every church is so different. And even among Lds populations, every ward, which is, you know, like the small collective or nearby local church, each one can look completely different in how they do things with, you know, the core systemic and important things, but, you know, their more cultural aspect being completely different. So all of that would make massive differences and changes within.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd love to follow me up with that because, and again, outsider, I've spent time in Utah, but I'm not going to. And I've read a bunch of books, but that's it. So no expert. But I kind of wonder with the Lds community, like, we know that there is some good research out there of the impact of social networks and community on resiliency, mental health and heart rate variability. And so even the extrinsic motivators, I just kind of wonder about if you are motivated to be part of a community, which, again, with my limited exposure to Utah and I'm assuming only about BYU, is sort of the majority, so to speak. And such a sense of your overall community.
You know, I kind of wonder if that's a resilience factor in a way as well, if we might not see more resiliency being such in a tight knit community at BYU.
[00:15:45] Speaker D: I think, yeah, that's totally possible with it more. So, I mean, with the intrinsic extrinsic markers, one thing that was really interesting to see is, but people aren't one or the other, and they're not mutually exclusive. Like, you know, there's a lot of both. And so for a lot of our highly intrinsic individuals, they were also highly extrinsic, or they were moderately extrinsic. You know, there was a big diversity there. And so for a lot of those people, yeah, I would totally agree, especially at BYU, that there's a lot of people that go to church because it's, you know, expected of them and they feel like it's, you know, the important and right thing to do. But I think even among those people within the Lds population of BYU that we studied, they still have a lot of internal motivation for their religion as well.
So it'd just be interesting to see. I mean, I'm sure there's research and data done on extrinsic and intrinsic variations within certain religions or, you know, sects, but I really don't have any knowledge on that at all.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, fascinating. Hannah, I just love your curiosity kind of questions in between the lines or things that you're curious about coming out of the research that you did.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: Yeah. So throughout the process, I was kind of thinking a lot about how religiosity, and specifically intrinsic religiosity would be able to kind of moderate that stress level.
And one big thing that I kept thinking about was about have you, if you have this strong intrinsic religiosity, you have more of a purpose and a goal, especially if you're applying to that, to several aspects of your life.
And I think that that limits a lot of the extra stress that you can have from wondering and from trying to figure out what the right thing is to do and what you should be doing personally with your life. So I definitely think. I was thinking definitely the reasons of why that would help moderate the stress.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Did you again, speculation zone here, Doctor Stefan. Speculation zone. Any, any thoughts that you might have on that coming, coming out of this about what would he, what might be about that intrinsic motivation that could be a resiliency factor for folks?
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Um, I think it's just, it gives them such. I think it can give you such a big focus, and I think that's such a huge thing with managing stress levels and just overall well being. And I think if you have that strong religiosity in every aspect of your life, you also have a strong focus.
And it narrows your focus, narrows what you should be doing, and narrows how you can manage that extra stress. And there's just, I feel like you'd have like, less clutter and less extra things to worry about.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: I love that. I love that. So this is. I'm just going to say something and you can just nod your head and we can go on here. But one of the things with AAPB, what I loved about your research is that we're so busy and I'm guilty of this. Quantifying, quantifying, quantifying, quantifying. And I love how I can say with a whole bunch of research behind me, that heart rate variability is a great biometric for cognitive functioning. If we're stressed out, we know our cognitive functioning declines. Obviously, emotional regulation is what we're all about. And if you're emotionally dysregulated, your social intelligence or health is going to suffer as well. And then, as we know, it's a huge indicator of medical, you know, health, too. So it's like medical, cognitive, emotional, social. And one of the things that I've been, you know, and to the point where I've done some national conference presentations on this, but I'll throw out weird things that I probably have no right doing if I think it'll be a fun conversation to have at a workshop about the spiritual health side of this. And, and that is, I think it's tricky in the AAPB world because what are we measuring? Right? And this is at least, you know, and again, you can just shake your heads at me and say, okay, old man, great little ranch you did here. But I'm. I believe we got the research to say that people that are, whether we want to use intrinsically religious or. I would. I would. Again, I'm jumping. You're not jumping to spiritual. That there is spiritual through a faith community, through their individual relationship with a higher power, that that's a resiliency that is probably also built on prefrontal cortex, ventral vagal functioning.
But I don't know how we even talk about that at AAPB, even though I think we should. So when I say the word spiritual health as being part of the BYU community, very religious community, and connection to that overall health, at the very least that HRV is measuring, I just wanted any reaction to that. Is that like, Matt, you're jumping way off the boat here. Get back on. You know, we got to talk about metrics. Your. Your. How do we measure the soul? Am I just way in left field, or as you went through this, what was there any thoughts in your head about, you know, what we're measuring a relationship to? I mean, God is what we're doing in a community of faith, which are really powerful things. So I just kind of wonder if I give you permission to get a little bit more spiritual with me if I open that door up. Is there anything about your research or even your personal experience with HRV that makes you kind of maybe even just ask questions about spirituality and spiritual health as well?
[00:21:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I think I've thought a lot about this, and I think spiritual health is super important to your overall well being for every person.
I think if you're a strongly spiritual person, you don't have to be part of any organized religion because it's so personal.
And I think with that, like you were saying before, it also makes it very difficult to measure and generalize, which I feel like when we're doing this research, it is kind of tricky because we want to measure everything.
But I think talking about spiritual health and the research and trying to figure out how we can do more of that is super important, because it is, I think, such a big part of everyone's lives, no matter what you believe, I think it's something, as we continue to do more research with it, it's something that can actually really help people just on the everyday level.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: I love that. Thanks for exploring that with me. Parker, any thoughts on your end of it, at least think I'm totally off the boat?
[00:22:56] Speaker D: No, no.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: I appreciate you.
[00:22:58] Speaker D: I agree with you, actually, a lot one of the things that I've looked at extensively is kind of the mindfulness aspects of spirituality as well as the social connectedness like we talked about earlier. But it seems to me, and kind of just from what I've studied, that it has a lot more to do with just like. Like, the motivation is important of the internal, but even within that internal motivation of, like, are you using mindfulness techniques? Are you meeting with the community on the regular? And all of those things are going to be impacted because if you're only extrinsically motivated, you're not going to seek out those opportunities to be mindful because it's not as important to you or not checking the box. And as well as, like, the social connectedness, you're not actually as connected with them as you would be if they were intrinsically motivated, but you were externally. So you, you know, there's kind of that fraud mentality that can kind of come up. But I would say, like, those two things are a significantly bigger portion of it than it really is with the spirituality.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Beautifully put, beautifully put. Well, I just appreciate you both for opening up that door at the conference, because you may see this as you travel and your careers progresses, that there are like, it's incredible what happens. And depending on your age, you may or may not. But after, like a glass of wine or something like that, we're all like science until then. Somebody talks about their shamatic journey they had the other day or their, their faith or, you know, an ayahuasca trip, and all of a sudden we're like sitting around here, real. The spirituality comes out that doesn't always make it into the workshops or, or the poster sessions. And I think, well, I know, at least for me, it's like when I saw your poster, I'm like, oh, this could be a really good entry into talking about it because as my background as a mental health therapist, you know, especially with trauma, trauma, healing, for so many people, I'm not gonna say for everybody, but for so many people, there's a spiritual aspect in that recovery journey. It's a reconnection to faith or a higher power as the twelve steps so beautifully talked about. But that's part of the journey. And I think that when we're just into the HRV biofeedback and looking at low frequency, we can get lost in all the numbers, which I can easily get lost in all low frequency, all that nerd out about for days. But there is this other aspect that for the individual sitting across from us, might be one of their keys to healing and growth, which I find we can't lose in all this exciting science and numbers that we do get.
So, final question, and I'm really excited to hear from both of you. Hannah, let me start with you as the graduate here. So, one, tell the listeners what is next for Hannah. And I would love to see it as someone who. I wish it. When I was in your position, heart rate variability was something I even knew about. So somebody who's presented at a national conference and put a. Put a poster out in a very intense conference environment. So I got tons of respect for both of you for doing that and do put presenting really great research. I just kind of. Hannah, what's next for you? And where do you think HRV is. Is going? Whether that's a part of what you do or where do you see this going into the future?
[00:26:24] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:26:24] Speaker C: So right now, I'm just trying to figure out more what my specific research interests are, and I'm hoping to apply to some PhD programs this fall.
And I'm definitely looking into more of the health psychology route now.
After being in Doctor Steffen's lab and doing all this, I think HRV is definitely a growing field. I think there's so much that we haven't studied yet, like we were talking about before with the spiritual side.
I think it's such a good measure that we can use with other topics and other things to actually help people, just everyday people in their lives, because I think that's what's really important. So that's what I want to keep doing and focusing on and figuring out how we can kind of do that research and find out how to measure these things while also, uh, helping actual people love that.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: And. And one of the things, and you've probably seen it as well in your research there. If you. If you study cognitive behavioral psychology, there's always another research study, right. For every question, there's. Now there's, like, a meta study of meta studies to. To look at. With HRV, we hit, like, your research pushed the understanding of HRV in a major way. Like, that's what's so exciting to me is it's kind of frustrating sometimes, is we don't have the answer, but we come across the next question, and it's just so fun to talk with, whether it's students that are really just entering their career or somebody like doctor Stefan, who, you know, I can't wait to get my hands on his new book and what he's doing. Like, who? But even him and I. I might be able to ask him a question where we still need to study that, which is just, to me, so exciting that we can push the limits of research with this field. And there's really powerful things, Hannah, like you said, potentially life changing interventions and lessons that we can learn from people on the other side of those questions. So, Parker, what's next for you, and where do you see kind of HRV plan in your future?
[00:28:48] Speaker D: Yeah, so I actually graduate this December, and so I'll be applying to grad programs also in the fall, but I'm more looking towards, like, the family sciences route because that's more of my area of study. But just with this, like, research into religion, I've been so fascinated by it. So I'll probably continue that within my grad program of, like, variations between religion and how that influences stress and physical as well as mental health from, like, a family perspective. And I can totally see HRV being, like, a super important marker for that just because it's so accurately and so well shows, you know, those really intimate details of stress within the body. So to be able to use that on, like, maybe adolescents or aging populations and looking at that with their religious identities, I think could be very interesting for the future of the research.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: I love it. One of the reasons I created optimal HRV was I've done a lot of work in the foster care system. And one of the things that's so devastating is when a foster care placement doesn't work and there's usually a stressful event that happens. And, yeah, it's the youth that usually has the blow up. But we know in Parker, I'm sure, you know, studying family systems stress, even if it's the foster parent and it feeds off each other. And I'm just fascinated and curious about, you know, HRV within a family system. And I'm always working with families who are usually struggling. And I think successful families who aren't struggling would be just as interesting to measure. But there's so much work to be.
[00:30:26] Speaker D: Done in that arena.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: I think it's that family dynamics is such a fascinating piece to look at how emotions and stress can be contagious across this. Well, I just gotta say, I appreciate you both. Like I said, I saw your poster, and I just got goosebumps all over it. If anybody's. I would say, if you want to argue against me, I would let you, but I doubt you would, is if you're thinking of if you're a young person and you're listening to this old guy nerd out about HRV, for all these episodes. BYU just seems to be an amazing spot to study this. When I go to the conference I always see okay, where's Stefan and his students at this time? Because I really find that you all are really finding very interesting and really progressive topics that some of us old heads haven't even thought about. So I'll give a little bit of advertisement for the BYU program because everybody I've talked to and everybody I've talked to this about just that both have a passion, excitement but also just are brilliant about this topic. So I want to thank both you for your work and hopefully can follow your career here and there as you continue and good luck into your future. So thank you both for joining me today.
[00:31:50] Speaker D: Thank you so much.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Awesome. And as always you can find show notes, some information about Parker and
[email protected]. dot thanks for joining us this week and we'll see you next week.
