[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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Welcome, friends, to the Heart Rate variability podcast. I am Matt Bennett. I am here with my good friend. I finally got her on the show. I've been trying to do this for so long. Sasha Harper.
We met through Dr. Deborah Bourne, another friend of the show, and I've just come to greatly respect her work, her way of thinking.
And I'm so happy, Sasha, to bring your work, your energy, your vibe to our audience. So welcome to the show, and I'd love to start out, just introduce yourself. Your story alone could take up a whole podcast.
I love it. So welcome.
Give our audience just a brief introduction of.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Oh, well, thank you. That feels like the best introduction I could have had. Thank you, Matt. I'm so happy to be here and speaking about this so quick introduction.
She says quick, and then we'll see where that goes. So my name's Sasha. I know it's spelt a little funky. If anyone's interested, the origin is Serbia.
Yeah. So that letter sh, there isn't a h in my name, but yeah. So if anyone's seeing that written down, that's how you pronounce it. So my story is, I was a physics teacher. I was a physics teacher for a long time, and I was, like, super burnt out mentally, physically, I had a wonderful list of autoimmune issues, and I didn't really know what was going on. And essentially, I had a really big breakdown in 2017, I think. And it put me on this path to where I am now.
So I eventually left teaching. I got mental health support from the UK, which I'm glad there was some level of support there. It didn't match what I needed, which was interesting. But it was the first time someone was like, do you think you have ADHD? And I didn't at that point. Even as a teacher, between the years of 2009 to 2017, I still had a perspective of ADHD as being like the Bart Simpson.
Any training that I had, it was really on that big scale.
The top of the era bar.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: So flash forward, they said, you think you've got ADHD? I was like, what does that mean? They were like, well, at your age, not really much. They might medicate you. And because I was already self medicating with alcohol and cigarettes, it wasn't something I was really interested in pursuing at that time. Then we jumped to 2019. I was like, maybe let's look into this. Actually, I changed jobs. I was in a really great job for the Institute of Physics, and I decided to explore it again. I didn't initially go with medication, but long story short, that diagnosis really did shift a lot. It put me in rooms and in spaces and places with people to really understand how that ADHD had been showing up, how it's been showing up and what I can do about it. And my journey then took me into trauma informed know where we met our friend Deb, learning from Dr. Gabel Marte about emotional processing and how all of these pieces intersect. And I am so delighted now as an ADHD coach to be integrating heart rate variability in my daily life and with my clients as well. So I hope that is a short enough introduction. Anything you want me to add, expand on?
[00:04:21] Speaker A: I think that's a great start. And I would love to talk about that sort of hint that you might have ADHD. And I know I would easily consider you an expert on this topic now. And so I would love to think, because I know this is kind of a softball for you with knowing your expertise. Where does your understanding of the nervous system, especially with that physics background. I know we share kind of the nerdy side of this and really digging in the nervous system.
Let's make it a little personal to begin with. As you explored yourself and what this diagnosis kind of meant for you, where did the nervous system start to inform your thinking around yourself, and obviously going to transition this into your work afterwards. But let's start with you first. What kind of insight did it give to your own condition?
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Well, for me, so, to clarify, I did get a former diagnosis in 2019. I don't know if I said that I did. Weirdly, I actually got two. That's for a different reason.
But I can say this, like, hand on heart, learning about the nervous system was one of the most transformative things I have ever learned about myself as a human being, and especially as a human being diagnosed with ADHD and ASD, which autism.
So for me personally, this is actually quite interesting. So how I got into the ADHD world, I got my diagnosis in 2019, and then 2020 happened. So there was a lot of big change, the way we were interacting with each other, with the way we were sharing information. So, Matt, I decided to start a meme page. And this was like, I would make memes about my ADHD and I would share them. And I did not do it to, like, I run a business now. There's certain things I do for growth, but this, what I did, it was purely like, here's a creative expression of my ADHD.
That page grew. It grew to around 30,000 followers really quickly.
And what was interesting is I actually had to stop the page.
And it's because I was learning about the nervous system. I think I first was introduced to it by my coach, mast and Kip.
And when I started to integrate what that actually meant for me as a person with a nervous system. And these diagnosed, well, it was just ADHD at the time. It was like, I can no longer make the memes that I was making and say, this is ADHD, because in those moments, I knew that experience was my dysregulated ADHD, because I was embarking on a different part of my life where it was like, oh, my God, I'm not living in chaos. I'm not living from my fight or flight response. I actually have more choice and agency over moments that I've never had before.
My page laid dormant for over a year and a half, I think because integrity literally couldn't put stuff. That's not true. I reposted old stuff because I was like, what do I do at this crossroads? Because so much of what we understand as ADHD is actually a relationship between a dysregulated nervous system and ADHD, which makes perfect sense because a big part of regulation, as we know, comes from the vagus nerve and the relationship to the prefrontal cortex. So the fact when we've got ADHD, we have a weaker prefrontal cortex. It's not just like, oh, we've got a dysregulated nervous system, and that's all ADHD is. Absolutely not. We have a difference in, you can see it in an MRI, we can see a difference in these processes. But one of the best, most liberating things in the world is we don't have to only experience our ADHD or autism from a place of dysregulation. And I appreciate there are so many factors here. We've got socioeconomic, we've got different intersectionalities here, which it's not as easy as regulate nervous system, because there are many things that are out of so many people's control. However, I think it's super important, and I struggle a little bit when I'm seeing a lot of ADHD content exactly as I used to put it out there. So there isn't judgment. It's more of a frustration, which is, I would love everybody to know the empowering and liberating experience of learning about your nervous system and building it into a life with ADHD.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And I wonder, as you talk about that, because for me, I had very similar experience with trauma.
First, as a survivor of childhood trauma myself, obviously, I got into psychology. One, I wanted to help people. Two, I wanted to figure out this thing, what is, Matt, that is going to be a lifelong process that I'll probably never fully understand. But understanding the brain, understanding the nervous system really helped me clinically understand the behaviors and other things I was working with and then working in autism back in the early, like, 2001, 2002, before we had a lot of the brain science we do now.
What we were learning about the nervous system and autism sort of was very informative. And a lot of folks that I worked with, with autism had ADHD or someone diagnosed where they couldn't be in a public school classroom. So really working with them from, okay, what sensory stuff? Just a bouncy chair. I saw be life changing brushing, and then I started doing brushing myself. I was like, oh, this is awesome.
All that thing. So I wonder, when you help people understand their own nervous systems, what are some of your approaches with all the complexity you and I could nerd out with for days and days on, but may not be practical for everybody, what's your approach to coaching others about and helping them learn about their own nervous system?
[00:11:21] Speaker B: That's a great question, and I think the focus is their own nervous system. So my job as a coach, what I center any form of support or intervention around is I have my triangle and HIV is right in the middle. And it's essentially we look at where someone is at in relationship to the triangle. And so on one side, we've got the nervous system. So if they are struggling with something, we might just look at it through a nervous system lens. So for somebody that I'm working with who has no idea, they know they have ADHD, they know they have the common symptoms and struggles. They've resonated with things that they are seeing.
Maybe we're focusing here.
Literally, there's education around the nervous system, and then experientially, how does that show up? And what do they need to regulate their neuro nervous system? Because you even said, like, oh, like autism and brushing. What I find fascinating is we have this terminology stimming, more so in the autism community than ADHD, there's a lovely crossover, which is brilliant from the neuroscience perspective. It's just self regulation. And sometimes it is forced self regulation. It's less conscious. What I mean by that is, like, if we're pushed, we're in sensory overload. We've not been able to honor our boundaries. Our sensory or emotional needs have not been met, or they've been pushed. The body is going to take over and say, I got this, and it might start shaking, or the typical symptoms that are understood in a meltdown.
But before that, when we're in more control of what's going on for us, these stimming behaviors, like, I'm doing it now. I'm moving around in my chair. I've got my legs crossed, which is like bilateral stimulation. I know you said, like, nerding out all of these things to help Focus and process in the moment. So we'll look at the nervous system, and with that person, with that Individual Piece, the other side of the triangle is the Belief system.
This is where the trauma history comes up. And what experiences has someone had in the past which is showing up in their nervous system? And how can we address them safely? How can we shift those beliefs? How can we realize that for somebody that I'm working with, it might be actually allowing and honoring their needs? There might be a belief that they shouldn't have a sensory need, or they shouldn't only work a four hour day in the conventional sense and actually spend time regulating and having Nutrition and Exercise that actually supports them to work cognitively for those 4 hours. Because actually, they've even shown studies to show that neurotypical people don't effectively work for more than 4 hours a day anyway. So it is breaking down these Belief Systems which they have cultivated from their Individual Experience. And I don't mean cultivated like they've chosen that have come up from their Individual Environments or the societies that we've been raised in. And we kind of then look at how's that showing up in the nervous system. Then we've got that ADHD piece, the other side, which is, okay, how does your individual or that Individual's Brain actually work? So if we're looking at what does Matt need to have the best day, what does his routine look like? And that could be wildly different to mine, but you might have a set of support routines and behaviors that help you.
They have to be set. And basically what I'm trying to say is it's individualized.
And so it's really looking at where somebody they might come to me for business.
They might come to me for personal reason, whatever their challenge and goal is. So we kind of look at their challenges and goals, and we jump off at one of those points, usually around the nervous system, then the belief system, and then like, okay, so what is it that you actually need? And then, as I said, in the very center of that triangle is heart rate variability.
I am very privileged to be able to offer my clients optimal HRV readers and the apps so we can actually get to know what their energy like, what's in the tank for them today, because HIV and their cognitive function are directly related.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: If I'm not asking this question correctly, Lee, please correct me, because it's a question that I haven't kind of been in the trenches on for a while. So I hope correct my language or my thinking in any way that is appropriate, is one of the things that I still know is going on today in our school system, because my wife is in that school system. I have a lot of teacher friends. I dealt with it when I was running schools a little bit less because the students I was working with were so severe. I actually worked to get them off some medication, because sometimes they'd be taking eight medications, and I'd have no idea who the child was that I wanted to help. So we would actually hospitalize them sometimes, once we got them stable enough, hospitalize them to say, okay, docs, you put them on all these medications, we don't know who the kid is anymore. And I think that's an extreme example. But one of the things I still see is, oh, if we don't want our child on medication, medication is still a big issue, and I'm looking at it clinically, is you need medication, you have a condition, it's treatable with medication. We may not want to. Like most conditions, medication isn't the only thing we want to do. But ADHD seems to be an interesting thing where medication, there might be stigma around it. I know there still is for parents medicating their children, which I have empathy for. But I wonder kind of how you handle that, because I also know you offer people HRV, biofeedback, residence frequency, breathing. I'm assuming you're trying to strengthen prefrontal cortex function. So how does the psychiatric intervention kind of fit into your triangle in thinking about ADHD?
[00:18:07] Speaker B: That is absolutely brilliant question. And so what's interesting, just because I like to do a rule of three, so the three sides of the triangle, it's the nervous system belief system, and the top one, where I would usually say it's the ADHD. Actually, I call that the support system, and that is anything required to support your current level of cognitive function and functioning and regulation and where you want to go to it. So I'll use myself as an example. When I got the diagnosis in 2019, I didn't want to go anywhere near medication for similar things that you have spoke about. It's like, I'd heard things and it was like, and you can't drink alcohol on it. And for me, it's not something I wanted to go towards.
And it was a fear based reason during 2020, when I actually.
And if we think about it. So I went from going into schools and training teachers around. It was really interesting, actually. I was on two projects. I was helping coach teachers to teach physics, but also I was training teachers on unconscious bias. So I was getting into the spaces of, like, okay, what's going on below the surface? So, yeah, it felt very serendipitous to be in those spaces as I was learning about myself as a person with ADHD, then what happened during COVID So think of these regulating things that I was doing. We know co regulation is actually really important for ADHD.
We don't talk about the relationship between dopamine and oxytocin enough, especially in the ADHD space, the trauma healing space. Why is safe co regulation so important? And the answer to that is why body doubling and support and non judgmental spaces for neurodivergence is also so important.
We will accept that. Body doubling, where two people get on and do work, me and dev do it all the time.
We accept that that's important, but we're not actually looking at why. And why is that supporting cognitive function. Anyway, I digress, because we are super nerds. We could talk about that, but that's not the question.
I basically was going physically out to schools. So I was around people, and I was stood up there and I was talking, and I was regulated, and I was moving around when Covid happened, and we all went on Zoom.
My physical output reduced, my natural amount of movement and connection, as for many people, absolutely reduced. And my cognitive function suffered loads. And I was like, wow.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: I was like. I was on the up. I'd left teaching. That was an environment that really wasn't supportive for me. And I had improved in so many areas, had this diagnosis, blah, blah, blah, blah. But as soon as those parts of my support system were removed, I really started to struggle. So I actually started on medication in January of 2021, and I did it for about a year. And it was a great tool for me. I initially noticed a level of calm and regulation inside of my brain, which I had never experienced or had no recall of ever experiencing, which is huge.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Then I went through a number of medications, and they didn't really, like, I could feel them coming out of my system. So I might get a level of regulation early on in the day, but then it was coming out of my system at night, and so it was a supportive tool, but at a cost. And then I found, like, a long acting one, which worked, and I enjoyed it for about a year.
So I have a menstrual cycle. People don't talk about how medication is metabolized differently at different parts than the menstrual cycle. So I was still getting, on average, two good weeks and then two really a bit stressy, less cognitive and more anxious times. And so I was very lucky and privileged to be able to make the decision, which is, I have a life of regulation, I have built support, I have awareness, and I have a level of regulation which I no longer require this tool for. So I've stopped taking medication.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Excellent. So as we look at things like medication, like I said, and I appreciate you sharing your own journey with it. I don't know why we still have stigma around some of this stuff, but we're getting better.
You got HRV, biofeedback, I know you also, knowing you, there's other things on your wellness, resiliency, things that you do. So when you think about ADHD and you think about what we know about how it impacts the nervous system, and again, a very uninformed question, but I don't think inappropriate. Is ADHD more a condition that you're going to live with throughout your life, or is it something cure might not be the right word, but is there like, hey, I can get to a point where I don't have. Where if I go in to get a diagnosis, I'm not going to have the symptoms to get that.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry.
That is an absolutely great question, and I think it's really important to answer it in a number of ways. So, yes, I know a lot about this stuff, but I also don't know the lived experience of every individual.
And I think what's really important is, from my experience, there are three main stages of living with ADHD. And I just want to preface my answer with this. When I was undiagnosed and living in that dysregulated chaos, not knowing that I had a weaker prefrontal cortex, not knowing that these things I was experiencing wasn't my fault. And that internalizing that experience, getting a medical condition, sorry, a medical diagnosis that it was not my fault was so important. And that's what I said. I was making the memes. I was feeling validated. It was a really important stage to move from the undiagnosed chaos into, like, this makes sense. And this is why what I then did, after a while, once I'd integrated this new, I don't know, call it identity, if you will. Label whatever you want to call it, this new reality, once I'd integrated it, I was lucky enough to be exposed to the nervous system and understanding the role that plays with my prefrontal cortex. We're not sitting here saying ADHD is dysregulation. We are saying there is a very strong relationship between the two. And dysregulated ADhd and regulated ADHD are different experiences. Like, I sit here, I run my own business, right? But I still got ADHD. I still have to manage my life, my time, my experiences as a person with ADHD.
However, those experiences are wildly different to when I was struggling and I was self medicating with alcohol and cigarettes, because I didn't know the role that alcohol and those cigarettes were actually playing. So let's look at cigarettes as a stimulant. We talk about medication stimulating that prefrontal cortex, stimulating the nervous system to be able to get stuff done, to process emotions, to be able to respond to my environment the best way that I can, not the most effective way, however, that's what I was doing. So there are those stages where it's kind of like you're undiagnosed as an adult or even as a child, but I can't speak to that experience because it wasn't my experience.
And then being in that label, I don't worry. That's not the right word. I don't know what the right word is, but I alluded to it before.
When I see people saying, like, this is ADHD, and this is the experience of ADHD, there's a part of me that really wants people to be able to hear. It's like, there's a role in your nervous system is playing in that, and it's a big part that what drives me as a coach and an advocate for ADHD is actually getting that information out there. So that's kind of a side point. And then we've got that growth space. Know, I would say I'm experiencing, as you said, understanding, Matt, is a forever journey. Understanding the relationship between ADHD and the nervous system and our past experiences, it's a forever, you know, there's a lot of debate out, you know, speaks to ADHD being a relationship between genetics and environment. Some people are very opposed to that. I am very much where I'm at personally is we have these clusters of symptoms due to a weaker prefrontal cortex.
I'm open to that. I love discussing these things. I'm absolutely interested as a scientist and individual, like, the origin story of all of this. But me personally, it's kind of like, right now, my passion is in understanding. Is it something you're born with, and is it this, that, and the other? Because what I'm dealing with in the now, this may change. This may change. I'm saying this as the beginning of 2024. There's a symptom cluster which people experience that when we look at the right support, when we look at improving our HIV, when we look at all of these pieces that interplay with ADHD, the nervous system, all that jazz, we can build a better quality of life for people. So is it something that we cure? I personally am not in the school of thought that it can be cured. I think if someone's selling you a cure, I'd be super curious around why they're using that language, what their experience with ADHD is.
I believe that you can make significant. As I said, it changes your quality of life through regulation. But you say, is it lifelong? Well, I think it's different for people with menstrual cycles and people who don't. If you're experiencing menstrual cycles, your ADHD symptoms, as with neurotypical people, your brain function, cognitive function, changes through that cycle anyway, same with your ADHD. So the dopamine oestrogen relationship and then starting perimenopause or menopause, that is going to change cognitive function and also your relationship with your own nervous system, because we are complex little beings and we can't just isolate these pieces. So living with something like ADHD is a lifelong process because the support we have in one stage of our life may be different to another. People who do have children and don't have children or people are in certain jobs, or as I said, I was fine in one job. I was in technically the same job, but when it changed in Covid, then my symptoms were exacerbated. So I don't know if I've answered your question.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: No, I think it's good because it's an interesting.
Again, and we've just seen over the years, and I've been around for a lot of years now, just seeing the prevalence of ADhd just jump dramatically. And I think there's a lot of questions about what is it? Why is it so more, is it our awareness?
Is it drug use? By the increased drug use, whatever. I mean, I've heard so many theories thrown around and I haven't necessarily heard science come in and say, here's the answer to all these questions about this. I think our treatments have gotten better, our awareness has gotten better.
However, looking, where are we going in the future with this? And one of the things I have to ask you, because as our listeners know, this is a big part of my thinking, is you come from this from a trauma informed perspective. And one of the things that I've been, whenever I get medical providers in the room and talking about trauma, I really try to get an awareness that things like ADHD, I would also throw autism potentially for some people. You can see, I actually interviewed an autism specialist.
We really, in some ways, can't separate autism from trauma in a lot of cases because the symptoms of untreated trauma and autism, a huge amount of. And he wasn't making a scientific statement. He was. This is where I'm seeing the science leading us. I also like, hey, if you see ADHD symptoms, we see underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, overactive sympathetic, overactive amygdala. You may be seeing trauma. This is why the importance of what happened to you and why I hate the DSM. Well, hate is a strong word, but why I hate the DSM right now is we don't look at trauma developmentally, we look at it as symptomatically. And if you don't ask what happened to you, you might be missing some of the causes of these symptoms. That could lead to an ADHD diagnosis, that could lead to medication, which may be good and may not be good, but we're not addressing some of the underlying issues that could be trauma. So how do you bring these two together? And I'd love if you could throw anything about the nervous system in there as well.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's a really important question. And my background. I didn't say this, my master's is in particle physics. So I am a scientist and I am very privileged to be able to look at papers with maybe more of a critical eye than your average person, which is wonderful. And you could have a board of experts in the field who will disagree on their belief of the origins and relationship between ADHD and trauma.
All I can say is, from what I know, and my perspective, and this is just one perspective, is what seems to be very, very probable is there is a genetic component, this, there's many, many studies out there which ratify a group of genes for ADHD and I believe now autism, but I'm less sure on that one, that are present in people diagnosed with ADHD. Right. So we've got a genetic component to sensitivity which talk, Gabel Marte talks about this. People who are more sensitive are more prone to be creative. And when we're regulated and we can harness that, it's a beautiful gift. But if we are really sensitive and we are not in environments that are seeing our needs and meeting our needs, we are more likely to experience trauma. And I think this is where the nervous system and the whole point of what is the relationship between ADHD and trauma? I think it is accepted that people with ADHD neurodivergence with this sensitivity are more likely to experience trauma. Because what are we talking about when we're saying the word trauma? It is my understanding, and this is where, please correct me if you think I am using incorrect terminology or this is incorrect. It is my understanding when we are talking about trauma, it is when we experience an event or a series of events which are so overwhelming for the nervous system to be able to process. The body copes in many different ways. And we can fragment memories, we can internalize belief systems, we can be in hyper vigilance. We've got that overactive amygdala. We have all these variety of responses to when our nervous systems are overwhelmed. So if you are more sensitive and you are going through these periods of overwhelm or series of events that are causing this level of overwhelm, then there's going to be that relationship between what is ADHD and what is trauma. I'm sat here, well, I've got the ADHD and the autism diagnosis. How do I differentiate those?
Well, I actually can't because I'm a human being. So everybody, I advertise myself as an ADHD coach. But when I was putting those ADHD memes out there, there was a level of what has been now diagnosed as autism spectrum disorder that people were relating to. So I think it can be super useful to see labels and labels as resources, sorry, as guides to resources and community. And that's where the DSM five really just is pointless from my perspective. It is not serving people for those key reasons. So with that ADHD trauma autism piece, it's like how has that individual with these set of symptoms that are showing up. Now, that's why I say the belief system arm in my triangle is we look at your previous experiences, we look at where those belief systems have been formed, we look at what's happened to see what's happening with your nervous system, and therefore what's happening with your nervous system, with your prefrontal cortex. And it goes back to your previous question. Even if we did unpick all of that trauma, we're still left with a weaker prefrontal cortex. So whether what we are truly identifying as ADHD or CPTSD, ultimately, what is the goal we want? Well, I hope we want, as a society, more people who are empowered to live the best quality of life that they can, and we actually understand our systems better, so we're not perpetuating this level of trauma. You said the school system. I was in the school system, as in the school system as an individual, as in the school system as a teacher. And not only is it not neurodivergent friendly, it's not human development developmentally friendly. So it's just a weird place to be, essentially looking at that chicken, egg or just venn diagram of ADHD, autism and CPTSD.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: So how do you then integrate HRV? I love the triangle. HRV is in the middle with your coaching. How does it sort of inform?
How do you use it as a tool? How do you integrate HRV into your coaching?
[00:38:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, essentially, the way I use it with clients is another tool that they can use to get to know themselves, because a lot of the time, especially if we're moving from that chaotic space into regulation for maybe the first time in our lives, that's not true for all of my clients. Some people have a level of regulation that's absolutely fine. But to begin with, we don't really trust our own perception of self, because we've been told there's a disconnect between our perception of self. What we find comfortable or achievable or whatever, has not always been reflected back to us as accurate. So it's using the data to really look at the nervous system. And one of the ways that I like to explain it to my clients is like, let's see what's in the tank for today?
How much have we rested and digested from the night before? What's our starting point?
And learning to listen to those internal cues. So it's data to help along the way to really regulate the nervous system and listen to where the body is at.
Improving vagal tone is going to improve cognitive function. Brilliant. So that's the longer term goal inside of the coaching container, but on a daily basis, like how we integrate that HRV is really getting to know what's in the tank for today and then integrating those other pieces that may have come up in the one to one sessions and all that jazz. But essentially it's really getting to know what are your limits? Because for many people, it's having been pushed past them. Maybe because at school, why can't you sit down? Why can't you concentrate? Why can't you do all these things? So you're overcompensating with your fight or flight to push yourself through, and it's like, okay, let's just maybe take the foot off the gas today, or, oh, great, we've got a lot. It's a go day today.
We're in the green, we're having a good day. Maybe this is something where you'd want to push yourself at a growth edge or maybe do a bit more, maybe push yourself physically or mentally a bit more. Whereas if we're in those orange or red days, it's like, here's your data, here's your permission to take it slower.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And do you see anything kind of unique? One of the things that always fascinated me about the people I worked with clinically with ADHD is we're giving them stimulants, and with the youth I worked with, we gave them a lot of stimulants, like, a lot.
It's almost like a nervous system where logic is kind of skewed. It's a different nervous system in some ways with that. And you shared that smoking was. That was the stimulant that helped. You found regulation. And how many addictions can be kind of targeted back to regulation in some way, and probably the drug you choose is reflective of your nervous system. So have you got, as you look at other people's HRV track, HRV, any sort of insight, specifically your own HRV, that you see? Or are we looking at this population as really fitting nicely into what we know about heart rate variability? Because you specialize in this arena, I just wonder if there's any insight that you have seen as you've integrated HRV into your work.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: I wish I had a better answer to this, actually, because I would love to do studies on this, actually, and that is my scientific brain. I would love to have more controls and actual studies because I have my own theories from what I've seen. But in terms of insight around medication and the stimulants, I can't directly say with that. But what I can share is a great analogy to kind of unify that antilogic, which is like, okay, we're regulating people with stimulants. Like, what are you talking about? The analogy, which I love with the medication is know. Think of a know. We don't have them as much the US people do more. So. But we've got a crossroads, and it's cars at the crossroads. And what's meant to happen is there's a police officer stood in the middle of the crossroads, and the police officer is meant to wave people through, like, stop and go, okay, with somebody with ADHD, the police officer is asleep, so they've gone to sleep. So what then happens is none of the cars know when to go. There's beeping, there's honking, and these are representing the thoughts and the pathways that are happening, that prioritizing that logic, that processing, which the prefrontal cortex is responsible for. It's kind of like it's a free for all that's not online in the way that we'd want it to be. So what we're actually doing is giving that police officer a cup of coffee or some stimulants to wake that police officer up so they can start adding, controlling things better. And I think that's where a lot of people get confused.
What was on the medication? The one that I'm technically still prescribed for, is lizex amphetamine. And it's like, wow, how is that a regulating, calming substance? But when we run it through that analogy, it can be really like, okay, that's what's going on here. So we're stimulating that prefrontal cortex. But what I will say is, anecdotally, it's not like I haven't done studies. I wouldn't say, like, oh, my goodness, I have so much data on this, but there is definitely a correlation between regulation, hiv, and cognitive function and also quality of life. And I think that's the most important thing. I know I've said that a few times because somebody's starting point is ultimately, they want to improve their quality of life. Doesn't matter what metric you want to use to get there.
That's the goal.
That's where I see the correlation.
[00:45:11] Speaker A: Yeah. What do you see when you're working with somebody as they progress through? Because one of the fascinating. This may be another episode in and of itself, but that idea of the beliefs of that, I think for a lot of people, there's a struggle of doing that work.
You're impacting the nervous system, right? That is integrated part of your triangle.
I'm thinking about the self compassion research that's coming out.
This is just like, I'm obsessed about this idea right now as we're talking. And some of those. Amazing that it's kind of separate than mindfulness or meditation. It's a whole different thing. But we're resetting those belief systems and in some ways, resetting the nervous system with that. So, as you do this work on your triangle, I just kind of wonder, what do you see with people's HRV over time and maybe the insight that it gives you as a coach or them as somebody working with you?
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Yeah, that's one thing I can definitely say I've seen correlation with is compassion.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: And that's why. So my triangle, I actually explained it. It's actually like a spiral as we move through, because it's like, okay, your nervous system here, what's going on? Is it because you're not supported? Why are you not supported? You have a belief that you don't have any needs. You don't deserve to be supported. You're not used to reaching out and having your needs met. Oh, you're not used to. Okay, great. That's amazing. Let's look at it that side.
How do you bridge that gap from where you have been to where you want to be? Compassion. You can't shame yourself into better.
You can't shame yourself into motivation.
It doesn't work that way. But so many of us, and do, you know, transactional analysis, I use that as an example to be like, hey, we want to move from a critical parent ego state into a nurturing one. The only way to do that is via.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: And actually having a self moderating environment which is built on compassion and not shame.
And that is one of the biggest things. And, yeah, as you said, all roads lead to Rome. Doesn't matter how we get there. But essentially, that is the transformation is unpicking.
Where have we internalized shame?
Sometimes it's just like, let's look at what it is, how it is. Sometimes it's why it is, as you said, let's look at that trauma history. Let's look at those experiences. But it depends. And each person's individual experience is individual. So I actually work with a lot of people who work too many hours. So at the beginning is breaking that down and actually celebrating doing less. And the HRV goes up when we're doing less.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: I think that is a beautiful way to end my first episode with you because I'd love to unpack the entire triangle, really dive into your expertise in the future. But Sasha, my friend, thank you so much. We will put information about Sasha, how you can get a hold of her in the show notes, which you can
[email protected] or just scroll down on wherever you're listening to us and we'll put Sasha's information in there. My friend, I'm so glad we finally got you on. I've been dying to share you with our audience because I know we've been working together helping implement optimal HRV with you and you've just been such a great resource for us. I'm learning from you, I feel like on a regular basis and I just got a crash course, which I'm going to process for the rest of the day, I'm sure. So thank you so much, my friend. You are a joy and I appreciate you sharing your expertise with our audience.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me.
