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 HR-v. Check us out at optimal hr-v dot com. Please enjoy the show.
Speaker 1 00:00:32 Welcome to the Heart Rate Variability podcast. I'm Matt Bennett, co-founder of Optimal H HR-V, and I'm on the fly solo here for this first episode in this new series. Uh, for those that may be, uh, binging us, uh, later on. Uh, we're recording this, uh, in the early January, 2023. So, uh, for those that are listening, uh, and keeping up with us in real time, uh, happy New Year. Hope you had, uh, a good holiday season. Uh, here at Optimal H R V, we really want to focus our work in 2023. Um, I'm calling it, uh, the Year of Resiliency and Recovery. And I say that because I, you know, as I do work across the country on, uh, staff resiliency, organizational leadership, I'm really seeing that, uh, people are falling into one of three categories. Uh, the minority of people are doing really good. Uh, maybe those are the industries I work in, but there's people doing well and I, I think we need to acknowledge that not everybody is struggling.
Speaker 1 00:01:38 Uh, I've come across organizations, I've come across people who are really thriving right now, and I would say in my experience, those folks are somewhat in the minority. Those organizations are somewhat in the minority, but I, I think it's important to acknowledge that those people exist. So, if you're doing really well right now, uh, my, uh, my hope, especially with this series that we're launching today, is that, uh, you really challenge yourself. How do I keep building resiliency, uh, looking at resiliency, maybe from the psychological perspective of we've been through some hard times. How do I transform some of those struggles, hardships I've been through, into wisdom that I can take forward into new challenges in my life? So, resiliency, not just getting back up, but getting back up and saying, okay, well, what can I do with these lessons? Uh, how do I build strength and resiliency within ourselves?
Speaker 1 00:02:34 I would say most of the organizations that I work with, and for those that listen through our podcast, you know, I work in some of the most burned out, uh, areas. Uh, when we talk about healthcare, education, social services, um, law enforcement, criminal justice, et cetera, is that folks are really struggling still. And, and the, the, the struggle for some folks is a crisis. I, I wanna acknowledge that, um, you know, to the, the point that I see federal dollars out there in grants, uh, going to, uh, uh, suicide prevention for healthcare clinicians. Uh, when you start to see that language, uh, you know, and having, uh, been to conferences and hearing the folks that are sort of sitting on the metadata about workforce health and wellness, uh, I especially see this a lot in healthcare, uh, that really, that it is a crisis. I, I've used the analogy before so often we're, we're trying to prevent the car from driving off the cliff and becoming a crisis.
Speaker 1 00:03:33 Um, the message I got in 2020 by people that are looking at the data at the meta level, is, the car has fallen off the cliff. How do we ensure someone survives? And I don't wanna be negative with this, but I wanna be honest, is that's what I'm seeing. Um, while I haven't heard that as much from maybe the Department of Education, I know a lot of the teachers, principals, uh, school districts I work with, um, also sort of feel that way, is that we're, we're in trouble. And for a lot of folks, what I'm seeing right now, and I've felt this within myself as well, is just sort of this, it's sticking with us, uh, you know, Jeff and I in the passive, uh, when we talk about heart rate variability, we talk about states and traits. In other words, that morning, heart rate variability reading, uh, really measures what state you're in.
Speaker 1 00:04:24 How, how are you doing right now? How are you doing today? So the state is more of a short-term state of being that you're in, I believe, for a lot of us. Um, and I've had a lot of people when I, when, especially when I get groups of people in person now, which happens occasionally, um, that we've been changed by this experience, uh, that this is sort of morphing into a trait. There's this constant low maybe sense of depression. Maybe a lot of people are, uh, uh, kind of owning a sense of, uh, like low grade anger all the time, exhaustion, uh, just sort of, am I ever going to get back to where I was before the pandemic hit? And for a lot of us, we may not have been doing great before this all hit because of the culture of, uh, maybe our industry or just, you know, working, working, working, working, working.
Speaker 1 00:05:20 And then with all the stress that has gone on. So, a lot of us need to think about 2023 as a year of recovery. And obviously, uh, unless this is your first episode ever about heart rate variability, uh, we believe that heart rate variability helps you to really quantify those efforts, uh, getting that baseline understanding, how am I doing right now? Right? Uh, you know, getting that, uh, five to seven readings in the first week to give you that baseline. And then as you do New Year's resolutions, is you work on ways to recover your health and wellness. Heart rate variability should go up over time. So we're really gonna focus on, uh, this sort of theme, uh, throughout, uh, 2023 about really, again, if you're doing well, how do you take the struggles of the last several years? I, I think we can all agree they've been hard, and really take those lessons and build resiliency from that.
Speaker 1 00:06:22 So perform your highest level and, and taking that in, in my world, mental health, working with trauma, we call it post-traumatic growth. How do you transform that, that pain, that suffering into wisdom, into strength, that you can take on to future challenges? And for those of us who are just sort of really struggling, that we, we can't get our mojo back. Uh, you know, uh, maybe we take a week off, uh, maybe we try a new diet. Maybe we've tried different things, uh, just not coming back. Uh, wanna really speak to you all as well and, and let you know you're not alone. Uh, like I said, the majority of people that I talk to and, and really even groups, organizations, teams are, are just kind of feeling stuck right now. Isn't this, this, this struggle has internalized in ways that, that is sometimes hard to put words around.
Speaker 1 00:07:17 So, you know, as, as we look at going into, uh, this new year, uh, we, we've got some exciting announcements coming up. Um, if you're an optimal, uh, customer, I just have to mention this, uh, you know, apple at the time of my recording has got out the new updates that we put out, basically a whole, uh, pretty much rewrite of, uh, the optimal H R V app, which we're really excited about. Uh, for some reason, Android Store is taking longer this time around, usually Apple. Uh, we get frustrated with Apple now, we're, uh, like, what's going on at Android? Why is it taking so long? So hopefully, because I have an Android phone, so I'm dying to get it, uh, on my app. So, got some really good things. Uh, the last podcast we talked about were those, the importance of morning reading with Ina.
Speaker 1 00:08:05 Um, we've got some other exciting announcements, some trainings coming up that we'll announce going into the new year as well. But we wanna start out the new year, uh, looking at the heartbeat of business. Uh, this was a book, uh, published in 2022, uh, not quite a year old yet, uh, that I did with, uh, ina Hasan and Dave Hopper, who, if you're a fan of the podcast, uh, you're quite familiar with them in their work as well. And so what we're going to do is twofold. One is we are going to play audiobook chapters as podcast episodes. In other words, we wanna give you the book for free. Uh, you know, so we, we will play, uh, sometimes you'll log on. I may do a brief introduction, but you're basically going to hear a, a chapter, uh, after this episode, we'll play the forward, uh, so you have that, uh, about 15 minutes, uh, more about our journey, uh, especially Jeff and I's Journey.
Speaker 1 00:09:04 So, we'll, we'll start out with the forward and go the introduction next week before we start to do a chapter a week. So we're gonna play a chapter, give that to you for free, and then, uh, ina Dam, and I will, uh, come on the next week and talk about that chapter. So, so that's gonna be the ebb and flow over the next several weeks. So, um, if you're like, annoyed with us, like just, I just wanna listen to the audiobook. You can still get that on Audible and a lot of other places, um, that you get audio books, hopefully everywhere you get audio books, uh, you can find a, a copy of that. If you can't get it from your library app, reach out to your librarian and request it. Uh, I, I'm huge fan of public libraries. Uh, I listen to most of my audio books, uh, through my public libraries.
Speaker 1 00:09:49 So you gotta kind of request books. Uh, some if you wanna throw in one, maybe you'll just get it for free. You can listen through it all the way through. We are also giving this
[email protected]. Um, you can sort of scroll down a little bit. You'll see the free book offer, uh, there, so you can download, uh, the P D F of the Heartbeat of Business. Uh, my other book, uh, more, uh, focused on psychology, uh, called Just Heart Rate Variability of the Future of Trauma Informed Care is also, uh, the P D F is also available for free on our website as well. So, a as we wanna bring stuff to the table, uh, not just tell you to go, Hey, go heal yourself, go recover. We wanna give you really practical tools. So when we talk about the heartbeat of business, we really wanna look at both the individual and the group health.
Speaker 1 00:10:41 Um, as we initially set out to create optimal H r V for clinicians, uh, you know, therapists, chiropractors, uh, MDs, uh, healthcare workers, uh, coaches, et cetera, we created a confidential dashboard, and that allowed a clinician, uh, this was one of my frustrations that didn't exist in the market at the time, we created Optimal H R V is as a clinician, I wanted to see my, the heart rate variability, um, of the folks that were on my caseload. I wanted to make sure that the interventions I was doing was helping to improve the functioning of the autonomic nervous system and the, the mind, the brain, et cetera. Uh, helping folks heal from trauma, healing from burnout. And so as we did that, we also very quickly realized we had created a great his team dashboard, uh, that a manager could wake up and say, Hey, how's my team doing today?
Speaker 1 00:11:39 Uh, and get that information. How, how is this new HR initiative impacting the health and wellness of our organization? Well, you can get collective, uh, data on the, the organization. And so, uh, you know, we, we found ourselves, uh, in this, Jeff and I, at least initially, in this unique position where, uh, business people were reaching out to us to try to convince us, Hey, I, I know your focus is on mental health, but what about the business world? Uh, what about using this as a management tool? Uh, and you know, it really, uh, Jeff always kind of laughs because a lot of people don't know. I also have a master's in business administration, uh, besides my master's degree in counseling psychology. And, uh, I, I've been a student of leadership. I have trainer, uh, coach of leaders, uh, pretty much most of my career, uh, as soon as I exited, uh, being an executive and moving more into, uh, capacity development and quality work, uh, and training.
Speaker 1 00:12:42 Uh, you know, I went from being in that, uh, c-suite to really working with folks, uh, doing that work. And so we're really excited to, to get this out to folks. Again, hopefully you can look at whether your team might be your family, whether that's your business, uh, your teammates at work, uh, whatever it might be for you. Um, really we hope this exploration, um, into the book will really give you some good insights. So we're gonna talk about this from an organizational perspective, but we're also pleased if you're like, well, you know, I'm not really a part of a business right now. Uh, please stick with us because one, I think there's a lot of great information here. I could listen to Dave and Ina talk just, and get a whole bunch out of it, even if they're just talking about the weather outside.
Speaker 1 00:13:31 So we hope to give everybody a really nice chunk of information that they can use personally. But if you're working, if you're a part of a group, you're part of a family thinking about it from that perspective as well. So, again, uh, the heartbeat of business, uh, if you need a hard copy, I'll hold one up for those watching us on, uh, u2, uh, it's on, uh, Amazon and hopefully again, uh, you can get the hard copy there. The, the e-book is all around, but you know, why pay for it when you go to Optum h r v.com, just download it for free. So I'm really excited to get started on this series. Uh, since the forward is a little shorter, I'm just gonna play it right after I shut up here. And, uh, it's, it's kind of a fun little introduction. Actually. Jeff Summers, uh, wrote the forward for the book.
Speaker 1 00:14:19 So it's sort of his experience with, uh, me bringing this idea to him several years ago. So it's a little bit about our journey and then how this journey took us into working with teams into working with businesses as a metric of organizational group team and individual wellness. So again, I hope you really enjoy these series. Uh, we always appreciate you reaching out to us. You can reach out to me at Matt and optimal h r v.com, and, uh, hope you enjoy the forward. I'll be next week. Uh, I'll give a brief, uh, introduction to the introduction, um, and then, uh, we'll get, uh, Dave and Ina on board as well, and, uh, explore this book together. So love to get your thoughts and, uh, enjoy the forward,
Speaker 2 00:15:08 The heartbeat of business positioning heart rate variability as a competitive advantage written by Matthew Bennett, ina Kaza, and David Hopper, narrated by Tiffany Williams. The information contained in this audio book, including but not limited to text, graphics, images, and other material is for informational purposes only. No material in this audiobook is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider for any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment. And before undertaking a new healthcare regimen, never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard in this audiobook. We dedicate this book to all the HR v nerds and early adopters of innovative technology. For those we have met, we love you and we cannot wait to meet the rest of you. Please take a moment to download the handout associated with this audiobook as it contains key graphics information, and the appendix is mentioned throughout this audiobook. You can also find it at www dot optimal hr-v dot com slash handouts.
Speaker 2 00:16:38 Hey, Jeff, I have a crazy idea you free for lunch tomorrow on a beautiful and sunny day in Denver, Colorado. In July, 2019, I first learned about heart rate variability or H R V. Matt Bennett had invited me to lunch to ask my opinion on a concept floating around in his brain as a tech industry veteran who has helped numerous small software companies grow. I immediately started to see the potential in his description of H R V over three hours that day. At lunch, Matt conveyed the undeniable science behind H R V, his frustration about the current application of H R V, his belief that everyone should care about H R V, not just athletes and his vision of bringing H R V into helping professionals. I had no idea the journey on which Matt and I were about to embark almost exactly 20 years before this lunch.
Speaker 2 00:17:36 I first had the good fortune to become acquainted with Matt. We were both young, idealistic 20 somethings who were long on ideas, but short on experience in our first few encounters, which purely social in nature. I was impressed by several things about Matt. His passion and energy struck me first, as they are apparent from the very first conversation you will have with the man. His energy is infectious and genuine, and frankly, a trait that still makes me a bit envious. So of course, I said yes to his invitation to lunch. Crazy idea or not lunch with Matt is never dull beyond his passion for work and life. His intelligence and constant drive to learn struck me next. As the years of our friendship grew, I followed Matt's career as an executive in the social services, healthcare, and educational fields. Instead of being satisfied by his accomplishments at such a young age, he focused more on providing better care for clients and improving the culture of his programs.
Speaker 2 00:18:42 As his passion and interest grew, he figured out a way to fit an MBA program into his increasingly busy schedule. It did not surprise me to find Matt early on in his H R V learning curve already thinking about how this science could help those struggling to heal from trauma. As a trauma therapist, Matt said that he always felt like a physician whose patient comes in complaining about severe pain in their leg, but he had no access to an x-ray to diagnose and treat the condition effectively. It bothered him that he had no way of measuring how someone's trauma affected their nervous system. Matt's greater frustration was that without such a tool, he could not measure the effectiveness of his interventions to help heal. The neurobiological injuries left over from traumatic experiences. Matt's frustration started to turn to excitement. After a series of episodes on his Trauma Informed Lens podcast, his fellow podcaster, Kurt Moer, brought up the idea of doing a series of shows on something called Heart Rate Variability or H R V.
Speaker 2 00:19:50 As the person who organized most of the topics for the podcast, Matt was happy to hand over the reins for a few weeks. Even after reading hundreds of books on trauma, the Brain and health, he had very little knowledge about H R V. As Kurt Matt and their fellow trauma expert, Jerry Yeager progressed in the series. I could hear Matt starting to see the potential in the science, which uses the slight variation between heartbeats to provide powerful insight into the health of the brain and nervous system. It became clear that H R V provided Matt the x-ray like tool he had desperately needed for the last 25 years. As he explored with Jerry and Kurt the possibilities of using H R V as a clinical tool, he also started to see its potential to quantify employee and business health. If interested, we republish these episodes in our heart rate variability podcast search for Matt's introduction to heart rate variability episode.
Speaker 2 00:20:52 If you want to experience his growing passion firsthand, as Matt does, when something excites him, he became obsessed with reading everything he could find about H R V and figuring out how to bring it to the helping professions. Although people discovered H R V centuries ago, its importance emerged in a handful of studies. In the 1960s, researchers began developing sophisticated algorithms to measure H R V from readouts of Electrocardiograms or EKGs. Each algorithm provided a unique way to capture the messages. The heart is communicating about cognitive, medical, mental, and social health and wellness. In the decades since those original publications interest and research in H R V have increased dramatically quickly. I started to understand Matt's excitement for H R V as an incredibly powerful biometric. A question came up. If H R V is such a meaningful measure, why is it not utilized by every business healthcare professional and therapist?
Speaker 2 00:21:59 Even more so, why have so few people in these fields even heard of H R V? I quickly learned that this was why he had invited me to lunch. Historically, technological limitations prevented the widespread implementation of H R V as a daily biometric. Unfortunately, until recently, taking someone's H R V required them to use an expensive E K G with a computer design to run complex algorithms. That turned the heartbeats on the E K G into an H R V score. Due to the complexity and cost of the machinery, H R V existed primarily in research laboratory settings limiting its usefulness as a practical tool. In the past few years, smartphone technology using the phone's camera or an inexpensive Bluetooth H R V reader drastically reduced the cost of taking accurate H R V readings. These readers brought H R V out of the laboratory setting and into the hands of individuals allowing people to take measurements whenever and wherever they wanted.
Speaker 2 00:23:06 In just a few years, H R V went from an expensive and challenging to access measure to a practical and inexpensive tool for individuals and professionals. Next, Matt started exploring existing HR V smartphone apps. He was very impressed with some of the available applications. However, most existing apps focus on helping elite athletes maximize physical performance and recovery. Matt could not find any that met the confidentiality standards or functionality that would allow H R V to become a clinical or human resources tool for those in the fields in which he worked. Now we get to where Matt's passion for learning and making the world a better place brought him into my domain of technology. The opportunity to apply technology to revolutionize an industry is rare and both exciting and daunting at the same time. When Matt initially approached me with the concept of using H R V for helping and healing organizations, I was taken aback by the potential.
Speaker 2 00:24:12 While I was new to the field, I quickly saw the ability to apply H R V within these organizations as a game changer and a potentially life-saving concept. The more I learned about H R V, the more excited I got. As we finished lunch, I entirely bought into the prospect of helping organizations leverage HR V based technology to provide better care, achieve improved outcomes, prevent self-harm, and relapse, and support their employees health. Along the way, it became apparent that we needed to develop the technology to bring H R V to the helping and healing arena. Eight months after that fateful launch, the optimal H HR-V app launched in March, 2020. While Matt and I ran the Technology Startup Playbook step by step for a successful launch, no one predicted what happened next. The day we officially launched the app, the world shut down. Because of covid 19 organizations set up to implement the optimal H R V app shifted funding quickly to surviving the public health and financial crisis that hit the social service and healthcare professions particularly hard.
Speaker 2 00:25:26 Every startup understands that even the best strategic plans will evolve and pivot. Over time, the pandemic forced us to take what we started to term a strategic pause. While few of our initial clients could focus on anything but survival, Matt and I took this opportunity to address the knowledge gaps surrounding H R V due to historical, technological, and cost barriers. The few books written on H R V focus more on complex algorithms than practical day-to-day applications. Most of the science on H R V stayed in journals or technical books. Few people ever read with time on our hands. Matte published his fourth book Heart Rate Variability using Biometrics to Improve Outcomes in Trauma Informed Organizations. We also launched the heart rate variability podcast in the spring of 2020. These two efforts connected us to the world of our fellow self-proclaimed H R V Nerds, who share our passion and see the possibility in H R V.
Speaker 2 00:26:33 Besides working to fill the knowledge gaps surrounding H R V, we also used the strategic pause to build a fantastic team. We asked a former colleague of mine, Ben Riley, to come on as our Chief Technology Officer toward the end of 2020. Ben immediately brought Vivian Lobo on board to help with further developing the technology and Amy Hanwell to assist with marketing their passion and drive continued to improve the app and help us reach a larger audience. While we will never forget our March, 2020 launch as halted by the most significant public health crisis in recent history, another date has incredible importance for optimal H R V. Matt had heard Dr. Ina Kazan's interview on another podcast. Dr. Kazan had recently published her excellent book, biofeedback and Mindfulness in Everyday Life, practical Solutions for Improving Your Health and Performance. Matt immediately ordered her book and reached out to Dr.
Speaker 2 00:27:37 Kazan before finishing chapter two. They scheduled their first call for January 6th, 2021. I will not soon forget my call with Matt. Later that day, a mob had taken over the United States Capitol Building. Yet, in one of the craziest days in US history, a new possibility emerged for optimal H R V A faculty member at Harvard Medical School and one of the world's foremost experts on H R V, biofeedback and Mindfulness is interested in joining our team. One of Matt's frustrations that led us to develop the H R V app is that few folks in the space returned his inquiries about helping get the technology for those experiencing homelessness, foster families, those struggling with addiction or those with other social issues. On that day, we could not predict the future of our country, but we knew our ability to help people through H R V took a huge step forward.
Speaker 2 00:28:37 As I started to read biofeedback and mindfulness and everyday life, I saw the reason behind Matt's excitement. Initially, optimal H R V focused solely on tracking H R V. You will hear throughout this audiobook why tracking is so crucial. Integrating Dr. Kazan's work on H R V. Biofeedback and Mindfulness allowed us to help our users not only track, but to improve their cognitive, medical, mental, and social health. Besides her brilliance, Dr. Kaza became an integral part of the optimal family. A few months later, Dr. David Hopper reached out to us after finding the heart rate variability podcast. I had heard from Matt several times that some of the best, most practical information on H R V came from chiropractors. Dr. Hopper's interest in H R V evolved from his holistic and person focused approach to health and wellness. It took only a few calls with Dr.
Speaker 2 00:29:38 Hopper to realize we needed to add him and his passion to our team. Dr. Kazan and Matt bring their strong expertise in mental health. Dr. Hopper brings the same expertise in medical and physical wellness. After the publication of Matt's book, we started to notice something unexpected. While most in the helping and healing professions struggled to survive, the pandemic business leaders began reaching out. They read heart rate variability and wanted to measure our interest in bringing the science into the corporate setting. While the focus on helping organizations drives our passion, helping to improve the health of people and communities is our mission. When developing optimal H HR-V for the medical and mental health professions, we needed to create a HIPAA health insurance portability and accountability Act compliant system to monitor their clients and patients and protect privacy. In doing so, we also created a perfect tool for leaders and managers to monitor the cognitive, medical, mental, and social help of their people.
Speaker 2 00:30:45 I had to sit back and laugh. As we started these conversations with business leaders, they all said they loved the book and tried to convince Matt that H R V could make a massive difference in the corporate world. I found this humorous because it is nearly impossible to find someone who has read more business and leadership books. The Met. It was great to find passionate folks in the business world who could quickly translate Matt's focus on helping and healing professions into their corporate environment. We started joking with Matt that he needed to write an H R V book targeted toward business leaders. It did not take long before he sent us the table of contents for this audiobook. As someone who has spent my career in the high stress world of technology startups, I'm so excited to get this audiobook out into the world. The business world needs to wake up to the vast amount of research on the connection between stress, burnout, and outcomes.
Speaker 2 00:31:41 In this audiobook, you get Matt's expertise and stress and mental health that resulted in four previous books and a career spent talking to and training thousands on how to help others. You also get to see how he translates this expertise into the corporate setting, showing companies how to improve people's wellness to maximize outcomes. I am also excited that Dr. Kaan and Dr. Hopper bring their knowledge to this audiobook. They further our understanding of how the physical and mental health of our workforce is crucial in accomplishing a company's strategic goals. Because of H R V therapists, like Matt and Dr. Kaan, no longer need to feel like a physician without an x-ray. In the same way those in the business world no longer need to guess about the health and wellness of their people. H R V and the understanding of how wellness and burnout affect our bottom line can help innovative leaders achieve a substantial competitive advantage.
