Episode Transcript
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. Welcome friends to the Heart rate variability podcast. I am here with Dr. Dave today. Ina is not joining us for this episode on the book, cuz she is going to be the star of the next chapter. Uh, so you, you just got Dave and I today. But, uh, Dave, we're gonna talk about, uh, work strategies, basically how to structure a job, um, to, to manage work distress.
Speaker 0 00:00:56 So how can we look at our job? How, as leaders, how can we help structure the work environment to really minimize distress? And so if you're just joining us for the first time ever, uh, we are in the middle. We're in chapter, uh, four today of an ongoing series about our book, the Heartbeat of Business. Uh, so, uh, please go back to episode one. You'll probably benefit from this if you keep listening, but, but why not get the whole experience? We're also publishing for free, uh, chapters of our audiobook as well. So, uh, uh, please go back to episode one if you're, you're new. We want to get you the full experience. Uh, but Dave, hey, let's jump into it. So, um, I'm gonna kick it over to you to ask me some questions to start us off here since, uh, this is something that I, I've done a lot of thinking about, uh, over the years.
Speaker 1 00:01:50 Well, indeed, uh, and, and Matt being our, um, being our, our local professional with the, uh, with the Masters of Business <laugh>, uh, and somebody who, who focuses on this, um, quite a bit. But, uh, you know, nowadays we look at, we look at stress and they're coming. It's coming from everywhere. Um, and without a doubt, one of the largest sources of stress, uh, you know, whether we look at as of recent or, you know, in, in his and most recent history for humans is, uh, has been, Hey, your work, what is going on at work? And how is this stressing you out? Um, and, uh, and I think, you know, I I, you would know the stat on that, um, how many people have dis dissatisfaction with their job. Yeah. Uh, and unfortunately it's a majority. Um, so what are some ways that, that we can help somebody out with dealing with distress, uh, in their workplace?
Speaker 0 00:02:51 Yeah. And I, I just like to hit some of the highlights here of really concrete things for right now where I see kind of, that the real health of, of the work environment. And Dave, I'd love that you're here too for our healthcare folks, uh, also for our mental health folks and other people who see patients or clients throughout the day. Because I'll, I'll just, there's a difference between how you structure an office environment and how you structure more of a clinical environment, which I know our audience stretches across both of those. But there's some, some universal things that we talk about in this chapter. And I'll kind of hone this in onto where, where a lot of folks are in this workforce crisis right now, where rates of burnout, um, are at historic highs. What are some things that leaders and teams can do to really help focus on, uh, recovery?
Speaker 0 00:03:43 And, and the one that I'm really, uh, pushing right now is the idea of shared expectations. Um, I have a whole soap box, which, uh, I will try not to stand on for too long about how we use job descriptions. Uh, I think we, I think they're a bunch of BS to be honest with you. Uh, now listen to your HR professional. Just because math thinks they're BS doesn't mean you should throw them all in the trash without talking to your HR professional. Um, the, the reason why I think they're BS is because of the last bullet point on every job description. And we can all sing this in the chorus, all other duties as a sign that's nots that's not done. What, you know, what your brain does with that, Dave. It says, anything my boss asked me to do is part of my job, right?
Speaker 0 00:04:33 Because that's the last bullet point on the job description. And I believe we keep that on there because we're afraid of being sued. Though I haven't had an HR professional, gimme an example of that ever happening. But again, you listen to your HR professional, you don't listen to a rant from Matt about your HR policies, but what, what, why put that out is we know that if we have shared expectations, in other words, what does Dave, as my boss expect from me? I, if we can get concrete about that, we know that it promotes psychological safety, it promotes trust. It promotes a shared understanding about what the objectives are of the organization and why I say, think about this now, in fact, I would encourage you if you haven't done this, get the job description out. Look at it, first of all, and think, you know, is this the job still?
Speaker 0 00:05:29 Because we have shifted so dramatically, a lot of us have gone virtual in person hybrid. We, we've been, uh, just so in many ways in survival mode, which means we've really been trying to keep the doors open depending on what that means for you virtually or in person that we haven't, uh, we haven't sat down and really looked at these. So I've got, I've got some, uh, things for leaders here. One, think about the, the jobs you supervise. Write down what you think is on that job description before you look at it. Compare that to the actual job description, and then meet with people. And, and before you get into this, ask them, what do you think I expect from you in this job? Look at how that compares the job description. And then let's have an honest conversation about that. Even if we gotta leave that last bullet point on there for HR legal reasons.
Speaker 0 00:06:23 What I really think as leaders, what we've used that bullet point to do is we've been lazy. Um, because if I ask you to do something outside the real bullet points before you get to that last one, um, I don't have to have a conversation about what do I take off your job description if I'm gonna add this thing, I also don't have to say, do I need to pay you more because I'm changing your job description? Because that last bullet point covers it all. So we can still be, if we've gotta keep that to me, just a ridiculous, uh, bullet point on there, really thinking about, okay, how do we make every bullet point above that really reflective? And if we're gonna change some of those, how do we, how do we have that conversation and not be lazy as leaders? So, so sit down is a great time to get on the same page about your jobs. So, so Dave, that, that, that is, I know I got on my soapbox a little bit there, but that, that, what should you do today? What should you do this week coming out of the pandemic? Get the job descriptions out, let's make these real, let's make these living documents and get on the same page with your workforce.
Speaker 1 00:07:34 So Matt, I love that. And, um, and, and I would love to, uh, actually ask you a couple questions specifically about this. Awesome. So, so we know that, um, novelty is the biggest stressor for our autonomic nervous system, right? So the biggest stressor for us in life in general, right? Is something new that we have to deal with Now after we've seen the same thing repeated, right? Whether it's the same task that we do at work, whether it's the same, you know, <laugh> David getting him crying in the middle of the night, whatever it is. Um, when it's happening regularly, this becomes predictable to our nervous system and it's no longer that much of a stressor on us, right? Okay, so we understand that. So now, if you have a job description that is laying out exactly what you are supposed to be doing, then it's not that big of a surprise to you.
Speaker 1 00:08:22 It's not a shock to you. So I love that idea. Um, but what I would like to know is, okay, well as you know, as an employer, as a, you know, as a boss, I look at, I look at a job description and I say, okay, so I have your job description here. Now what about that employee who chooses to go above and beyond their job description, right? Because cuz those are, those are oftentimes, uh, a an employee that I, you know, that we say, okay, this is somebody who's, who's doing more than expected. So we like, uh, we do like to see that. But how do you, um, how do you propose, cuz I, I almost, uh, I don't wanna say that when you're, when you're putting somebody in a box by defining their job so tightly, uh, that they can't do anything outside of that either. Um, yeah. So how do we look around? I
Speaker 0 00:09:15 Think that's, well, one, I think we have to be careful going above and beyond is an interesting concept because I, I think a lot of times that means working longer, right? Is that, you know, probably their job description is a 40, and I know 40 hour work weeks are sort of a thing of the past, but it, it probably describes what they're doing for 40, 50, whatever, how many hours they're working. So above and beyond is not a bad thing by any stretch. One, we have to be very sensitive. Are we burning this person out? Because as leaders sometimes we recognize we reward, we give bonuses for those folks working 60 hours a week because they're giving us something kind of for free if they're on salary and we may be burning them out. So we still, if we have this structure and somebody says, you know, Hey Dave, I I wanna go back.
Speaker 0 00:10:07 I I wanna go get my, my doctorate in orthopedics or whate, whatever it might be. I, I wanna become an ot, right? And I wanna take on this extra responsibility. Having that discussion and bringing that into that structure, you're, you still got the flexibility. But as they take on maybe more of a role because of future aspirations, that's gonna be a huge sense of motivation, by the way, that's awesome leadership. But, but how do we structure this? So one, you're still getting your 40 hours of work done a day that I'm paying you to do, but how do we do this without burning it out? And then if you're doing additional work, how do we manage that? You know? And so to me it's not, you can't, if somebody wants to do more, great, but have that discussion with them about how do we integrate that into your work environment.
Speaker 0 00:11:00 So for example, I, I created self-directed teams wherever I go, I create self-directed teams. So now you've got two hours of team meetings a week to throw in there. How are we going to balance that out? Uh, because these are really crucial to our success, or we're gonna not have these teams meet if they're not doing something. So how do we balance that out? So it's just this honest back and forth discussion and in some ways making that job description a living document, that that's all I'm saying. Even if it's off the job description, you're having the conversation. Cuz I'm sure there's somebody in the corporate world to say, do you know how many steps I have to do to change a do job description with hr? I get it, but have the conversations. Maybe there's a side list of things. There are the real job, but this is how crazy we've gotten with this Dave. So Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:11:54 And I love that idea of it's a living document right there. Yes. Uh, cuz that's because that's not putting in a box. Uh, but, but you hit the nail on the head with the, uh, with the above and beyond oftentimes means more and longer. Yeah. Um, because, uh, cuz yeah, do, do people who are working harder or choosing to take on other people's responsibilities, um, you know, are these people overstressing themselves, right, to get into the spotlight, right? Um, you know, and, uh, and that might be a great conversation with a supervisor is I would like to do more, I would like to advance myself. How can we change this? Uh, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:12:34 And then just structuring that, because then we'll get to this in later chapters. But I think it's great to throw in here, we often as leaders, because oh, Dave is working 10 additional hours a week as a leader, I'm getting a huge amount of benefit for that. Let me recognize and reward Dave for that behavior. In other words, something that might be potentially burning Dave out. I'm getting dopamine hits too. So Dave, thank you. Keep doing what Dave gonna do. He is going keep working and maybe even working harder to keep my attention. And we get into this potential loop of I'm wearing Dave down slowly by asking him to do more and rewarding him. So he is getting positive reinforcements for maybe a behavior that puts him at risk in the medium to long term to burning him out. So we just have to be very careful about this as leaders, as what what behaviors are re rewarding, uh, to what end
Speaker 1 00:13:37 Indeed, uh, in indeed because that's, uh, that, that's a very short term view, expecting more, yes, more and harder. Uh, how long can you do that? Right? How long can you step on the gas pedal <laugh>? Yeah. Hey,
Speaker 0 00:13:49 We just wanna keep getting it because it's good for us, right? It's a win-win initially until it's, I have a burned out employee. The employee is now struggling. Now I've, I've, I've, I've lost the benefit and I'm at a deficit because I didn't have these conversations. And that's, that's I think what we miss with this is, yeah, we've, we've gotta make sure it's a doable job and we give people the support to be successful.
Speaker 1 00:14:17 Awesome. Awesome. So what other, uh, major stressors do you see for people in the workplace? Um,
Speaker 0 00:14:25 Yeah, so, so one of the things you mentioned is, uh, we, we talk about fit and job match here. I'm not gonna touch that on that, but I just wanna reinforce the only 20% of the people strongly agree that they like what they do each day. So we, we just get so much benefit from a leadership position. We find people that really are a good talent skillset, motivational match for the, the position we hire them. I just want to give voice to that right now is really difficult because the power is in the worker's court still of, you know, we just see that there is, there's not the availability of the workforce that we've been, I think, uh, you know, kind of spoiled by, uh, you know, if we can get multiple applications for a job and they actually have the degrees to do the job, we're offering signing bonuses to be competitive right now where we weren't doing that, uh, pre pandemic.
Speaker 0 00:15:24 So I, I know that there can be a struggle there, but as much as we can do that, it's going to have a huge amount of benefits for that. But Dave, the one I wanna talk to you about, because I know we've talked about this a little bit from the mental health perspective. We've, we've talked about this a little bit in the series as well, but recovery. Now I wanna think about this both cognitively and from a stress-based perspective because how we work, and this is where the individual and the leader, I think both take responsibility. How we work is going to determine the quality and the efficiency of our work. And we came up with this idea of hyper efficiency sprints. And this is where folks doing clinical work might not always take the full capacity of this, uh, because you're seeing patients, but office workers might have a little bit more flexibility here.
Speaker 0 00:16:18 But we know that our brain can only operate for two hours at most at peak capacity outside that our productivity, our effectiveness, everything just starts to drop off a cliff. Um, as far as us doing good work, uh, it, it just drops off. So, you know, one piece of recovery is how do we maximize our work productivity? Because Dave, I imagine you've got at least two hours of kind of administrative paperwork. No, you know, you got, everybody has a little bit of that. But even seeing patients, if you don't take a break within that two hour period and you just keep seeing people for four hours straight, but you know, we know the people that are at the end of that are getting less of you than the people at the beginning. So one is just breaks, you know, factory workers kind of had it right on.
Speaker 0 00:17:16 I I had a terrible summer in the factory. Uh, I, I realized not for me and a whole lot of respect for people that do that work. Um, but you know what we do and I'll, I'll just give my, that they become my role models and the Midwest. Dave, I don't know, you know, I know each state has their game, but in Indiana it was euchre. Uh, everybody played euchre. You know, you couldn't go to a party even it was a cool kids party. There's gonna be a EER table somewhere in the background, uh, kind of the shadiest place at the party, uh, at times. But, you know, so the, these people at the factory, they would start, they'd get there a little early and they'd start their game at ere and then we'd go to work for two hours, then we'd get a 15 minute break, they would go back and they would play ere then we'd get an hour lunch break, uh, play ere.
Speaker 0 00:18:03 We'd get the break in the evening, uh, afternoon play ere. And if they needed to stay later, they would stay later and finish their game in Euchre. And God forbid you touched their cards. You did not, you, you, you, you were going to die. Like these, these were not like kind dudes that would take to you mess with their ere game. Good guys, but don't mess with their ere game. So that, besides the breaks we had, they also had the social connections. They talked trash to each other. They had something to look forward to. I, I always would try to get it. Like when I worked at nonprofits, a foosball table donated cuz a foosball game, what is, it takes about 10 minutes. What does it do? It brings teammates together, changes the energy, uh, cause therapy and foosball very different energy, you know, so you get this break, you go back, you take the energy of the foosball game back with you into your work.
Speaker 0 00:18:57 So thinking about how we structure from a leadership, how we bring breaks back into the day, and then those sprints, what are we doing? I'll tell you what we're not doing. We're not multitasking. Multitasking is a myth that we need to destroy. Uh, because we still have these amazing phones that allow us to have 10, 15, 20 apps notifications going off everywhere. I don't know if you try to ever have lunch day with somebody who gets a notification every time they have a new email at work. It's like, it's just like, there's no conversation to be had. So the, with these hyper efficiency sprints, we're really, we lie out what we're gonna focus on. We shut off. Like my notifications are minimized. Like I don't really have any notifications on my desktop, on my phone cuz that buzz in the pocket, what we know is it's a little dopamine release or the email notification is, somebody needs me, I'm important.
Speaker 0 00:20:01 So we actually get a little dopamine boost every time we see that somebody's mentioned us, somebody's giving us a like, and that's gonna pull our attention. And every time we shift areas of the brain from, I'm working on my notes, oh, got email cause I got that notification, go to email, uh oh, I got three more emails, go back to my notes. You know, we're shifting areas of the brain and we just exhaust ourselves. So multitasking, we get way less done, way less done, and the quality of that work is, is kind of worthless as well. So really thinking about, okay, if I have a two hours of computer work, whatever that might look for you, how do I eliminate distractions, including other people If you do do not disturb signs, you know, hey, I want to hear about your hot day last night, but hey, let's, let's go out to lunch a and we can talk about it there.
Speaker 0 00:21:01 So, so really looking at that is setting those up and then having breaks throughout the day. And then there's the piece of research, Dave, that I hated to find on heart rate variability because it's great when you find research that just says, Hey Matt, you know, how you work is great. It's the hour lunch break. I I I I've never been someone who's liked the lunch break. I'd rather work through and get done with my work early here. It is heart rate variability though, dude. Uh, folks who took an hour lunch break, their heart rate variability was higher at the end of the lunch break than it was before the workday. And I'm like, oh crap. Like <laugh>, how can I ignore that? How can I ignore it? So I've, I've integrated this and, and it's true, you know, which makes a lot of sense. If you take a an extended break, you're gonna have more to do it with. So one part of recovery is really how we structure our workday and thinking about it in sprints, right? So I'm not taking a break because I'm lazy. I'm taking a break because I'm gonna get more done. Dave's taking a break because his patients he sees after that break are gonna get a better date than they would if they've worked straight through, worked four hours straight without any sort of meaningful break in there.
Speaker 1 00:22:20 That is awesome man. And you hit several topics that require a podcast within themselves, <laugh>. Um, but, uh, but that is looking at the breaks. And I love that social aspect that you brought in there. Uh, you know, the, the guys playing eChart, which is a game that I've only heard of never played. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:22:41 It's weird. It's weird. It doesn't cross state lines.
Speaker 1 00:22:44 Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I know, I know. Um, it, but but that, that sense of being on a team Yeah. Rather than just like, ah, you know, it's that guy that I work with or whatever. Yeah, no. Cuz you get to know a whole other side of somebody when you're doing something social with them. Uh, you know, which is why those team building activities and all that kind of stuff, uh, became so popular, uh, you know, pre pandemic and now I, and now nobody even sees each other. Right. Uh, how many, how many offices are filled with people that they've never even actually met in person. Exactly. So you don't, you know, you don't really know who that person is and, uh, and anyway, you develop a whole different sense for somebody when you know them at that personal social level, uh, than just the professional level.
Speaker 1 00:23:29 Yeah. I I think that that respect and, uh, and that sense of team and he's got my back, uh, becomes so valuable. Um, but it is that shift of the brain from our left logic, uh, right over to that, right. Fun, playful, artistic, creative. Right. Whatever it is that you're doing on those breaks and that brain break is so big, so important. Yeah. You come back so refreshed, you come back ready to go and Yeah, I, I agree with you, Matt. The, uh, the hour long lunch, um, you know, I prefer to not take a full hour, but, but you
Speaker 0 00:24:04 Got, you got a wife, you got a dinner, you got,
Speaker 1 00:24:08 Yeah. Yeah. But, um, but, but you can't deny the data. Um, and I love that concept of the hyper efficiency sprints that is, uh, that is so great. So, so adding that stuff in for employees is, is huge. Um, but how do, uh, I guess how can you structure that in you, you gave an example for a, uh, for a factory setting. Yeah. Um, how would, how do you structure that in other settings? Just so say, uh, you know, a person working at home who's doing virtual work all day, who's, you know, like, uh, you know, in a job that doesn't require any direct oversight and you're not in an office building, how do you regulate yourself?
Speaker 0 00:24:50 Yeah. This is where leaders have conversations, right? We need to help people because most people don't understand that if you, and and there's tons of research to back this up too. If, if you got a four hour stretch, let's say that's your morning, people that take a 15 minute break, get more work done than people that work straight through the whole four hours. So really, and, and some of this technology is a little bit big brother, scary to me. Like, they can tell if you're not engaged with your technology, do you really not trust your people at all? Like big, like some of this is like, ew. Like, like, I was like, okay, so one is we wanna structure this. If you, if you've gotta use that, hey, I've, I've you better, your mouth's better move, or you're not gonna get paid sort of scary stuff.
Speaker 0 00:25:44 Where's that 15 minute break coming in? Like how do you structure that and talking to people about 15 minute break, what are you going to do? Is, is it a, you know, mindfulness practice, a little bit of biofeedback? Um, is it, you know, I disconnect. There's some like business television shows in tech that I watch, I watch that live during my shake. That's sort of my morning break. My next break is walking the dogs, eating lunch, catching up on podcasts, those sort of things. So really structuring that in a way that, that really promotes that, that recovery and having, again, you, you may be hearing a theme here, having conversations with folks, how do we do this? How do, how do we do this in an office setting where some people are working virtual a couple times a week? Well, you know, I love the foosball table because people love to play foosball.
Speaker 0 00:26:36 Uh, at least in this team I had that. I did it. And so you hear the ball thing and if you are available, you're gonna try to run that table to be one of the four four playing. Now, you know, you always have the person that plays foosball all afternoon, so you also have to have a conversation about that. But, you know, it just builds that, that morale. So having those conversations, looking at, looking at the book, cuz we give a lot more details here. How do you help people structure the day that that last hour or two of work is just as productive as the first couple hours of work? And if you're an afternoon person, which I'm more of a morning person productivity wise, you, you might have the opposite piece in there, but really having those conversations,
Speaker 1 00:27:19 I love that. Uh, the disengagement, uh, yes. Is that, is that is, that's just such a big key there. Uh, making sure that you do something that totally disengages you Yeah. From work for that period of time. Um, so, you know, I so you're not going and doing something that is so similar that you're never leaving that space in your brain. Right.
Speaker 0 00:27:39 Well, and, and Lee leads us to the last topic we covered in this, which is recovery, right? Right Now, now that happens during the day. So you can think about this like as a basketball player, right? You, you, you rarely played the whole game no matter how good you were. So you had the, the halftime break, you had timeouts, you had substitutes. So you can kind of think about that as, okay, how do you organize the day as a leader? Think about it as a sporting event where you get those breaks periodically so you can get a little bit of recovery in. So halftime is lunch break, you got the other break substitutions where you are going to win the game counts and it's on the line. Your, your star players are gonna have enough left over to close out the game for you, right?
Speaker 0 00:28:25 So, so you, you wanna make sure that you balance that. I don't think like we just got done with the Super Bowl, you know, the chiefs dominated the second half maybe because they were only on the field for eight minutes, the first half. Like there are a lot of other things that went on that game, but boy do they just seem to have a little bit more in the tank probably because they just did a warmup. They probably had to get warmed up again at halftime because they didn't play that much. So thinking about the end game, but then it's the recovery outside the game where we're terrible. Where do, are you checking emails all throughout the night? Sometimes you gotta do that, right? You might be on call if you're a medical professional, you might have a big project due. So I'm always saying there's exceptions to the rule that I know there's exceptions to my rule, but the rule should be when you leave work, you are in a recovery state where you can bring your best self in the next day.
Speaker 0 00:29:21 Because what happens if you think back to the company analogy, we talked to the window of tolerance throughout the day. I'm gonna leave work with more probably cortisol cytokines in my body than when I started the day, no matter what job you're in, right? So when you leave work, whether that's sh and i, I physically shut down my computer. That's my, that's my mental trigger is I'm done with this for the day, is entering recovery mode. So what's recovery mode? One is we have some of those, you know, and this is where I think self-care can still be a legitimate term. My resiliency strategies, I'm going to eat a healthy dinner. I'm going to get some movement in, I'm gonna try to set myself up for a great night's sleep practice, a little RF frequency or RF breathing in, in the evening. So I've got my strategy.
Speaker 0 00:30:13 So I'm getting some of that crap out of my cup, but I'm also not adding additional work stress. So what happens when I get the phone out and start checking work emails, two things. One, I stop the recovery process. Two, again, and you've probably heard this in this podcast before. Not every email tells me what a wonderful, handsome, brilliant person I am. Get me this te right? It's gonna add stress to that cup. So it's like an athlete is, yeah, I know we, you know, we've got a day or two between games. Why don't you just get on the treadmill and run the whole damn time? Right? We would never do that to an athlete, but we do this to ourselves. And Dave, don't get me started on doing this on vacation. Don't get me started. Don't if you can't go on vacation, and I, I'm, I'm really serious about this.
Speaker 0 00:31:05 If you can't go on vacation without checking email, you are doing something very wrong. You are doing something as a leader, you need to think about you, you, you mean you haven't built, uh, an administrative team that can support you on a vacation without you not trusting them enough to keep the, the office going. Like, are, are you, are you that important? Because if you got hit by a bus, what would that do to the place? Right? <laugh>. So, so part of this is it like, it's not a, it's not badge of honor that you're emailing me on from a beach. In fact, I'll give you a lecture if you do. Uh, but, but it's like, you've gotta be able to do this and if your workforce, cause I hear this about from workers off, I don't, I don't feel like I can go on because then I have to come back to an unmanageable workload.
Speaker 0 00:31:57 So how do you onboard people back from vacations? Do you give 'em a half day to work virtually where they don't have any other things except catch up? Or do you give 'em a full day just to catch up? Because as a, as an employer, you are investing that, right? That vacation is a benefit that's both for you. Because we know people that take vacations are more productive. I just say if you're checking email every day, there's benefit to that. Don't get me wrong. If you're in Costa Rica and you're working for two hours each day, there's benefit to that. I'm not gonna pretend there's not, but you're not maximizing it. And then if you ask that person to do all their emails that they missed during that week while picking up their normal work week on that Monday back, they're gonna be more burned out on Wednesday than when they left on vacation. So let, let, let's just, I mean you don't need H R V even to do that, even though that supports this, but come on, people like, come on, be with your family, you know,
Speaker 1 00:32:58 Uh, Matt, and that is, uh, so, so I love, you know, we were talking recovery during the day. Now this is recovery after work, right? Yes. So yes. Recovery within the workday and now we're talking recovery after the workday is over and you are hitting some of these points. So on the head, and actually that's one of my biggest pet peeves that I talked to my wife about a lot is going to your child's sports practice or sporting games and seeing that every single parent is on their phone. Yeah. And all I can think is how often are you gonna get to do this in your life where you get to watch your child and you're gonna miss your child doing, you know, a, you know, a front for the first time you're gonna miss your child hitting his first home run. Yeah. Because you were checking Facebook because you were checking a work email, right?
Speaker 1 00:33:42 Yeah. Um, is that, is that worth it? Uh, right. So, um, you know, we, we have to look at it from that regard as well. Um, and uh, is there always an exception? Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah. Uh, a hundred percent. But you know, every work is gonna be different. Every office is gonna be different. Yeah. How they can handle things. Now, you know, how how we set things up is great in that, uh, in that we have a lot of crossover, so it's easy to have somebody cover when somebody's gone. Yeah. Um, you know, does that mean that somebody else steps it up a little bit more? Yeah. Well that person is gone. Yes. But then that person comes back and there's not a ton of catch up for them to do. Um, and that, and that's great. Uh, and there's not a lot of missed profitability in there either. Uh, because, because we did have that covered. Yeah. Um, you know, in a typical office setting, obviously that's gonna look, that's gonna look different. But there should be that flex between employees so that people can take a break. Uh, <laugh> that's taking a break and taking a real vacation and not having that burden of coming back is, is huge. Uh, that can ruin your vacation in itself. So, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:34:48 Yeah. And we see that with H R V, right? We see a day if a one week vacation, we, we see H R V trending in a good direction. Cortisol levels going down H R v going up until about Wednesday, Wednesday's the peak. And then we start to see this drop off because historically we have failed to set up Monday in a way that allows people to get maximum benefit. And this is gonna benefit you as an organization as well. That's why I can't like, talk enough about, it's like, this is for you. You know, forget that we hopefully care about human beings and care about our employee. You are giving this as a benefit, right? A job benefit, right? There is a huge amount of research on the benefits of vacation. You are going to get a payoff from that unless you like make this investment because it costs a lot to not have somebody work for a week.
Speaker 0 00:35:40 It's like investing your money. You, you've got the potential, you've got all this cash in front of you cuz it paid off, but doesn't just set it on fire, right? And, and we're, we're gonna like, not only increase your stress because of, you know, you're gonna come back to all kinds of craziness, but then we're gonna make that transition back to work some of the most stressful days of the year. What are we doing? What are we doing? Like what are we doing? You don't need H r v. You all know what I'm talking about here. So let's just like say logical. And I guarantee when you look at the, the research, if we can structure that Monday, like I said, just giving people a half day, maybe there's a really important meeting at eight o'clock, but the rest of the morning they just catch up on email.
Speaker 0 00:36:25 There's no, there's nothing else. That's the expectation is by Tuesday they use Monday to catch back up, feel on their feet. Now the expectations can increase by then, but let's just like, let, let's be simple then use heart rate variability. We talk about this too a lot is what's a healthy vacation? That's a tricky thing. And that's, that may be where individual responsibility comes in. What's the balance between pena coladas and recovery or snowboarding and recovery? Uh, you know, so just having the open conversation is, hey, is none of my business what you do on vacation, but let's think about what we can do to really use this to recover, um, and come back healthier as well. I, those are the conversations we can have knowing that as a boss, your time off is your time off. But I think sometimes we look at that as we're gonna fly, go to three, four different time zones, drink more, eat unhealthy, you know, all these things for me, sleepless physical activity, like I'm killing myself on the slopes, bringing it, there's a benefit from all that because we have fun.
Speaker 0 00:37:38 But just kind of balancing that with, hey, you know what improves your heart rate variability. So how do you work that in to some of this as well? Maybe stop drinking before six or seven so your quality of sleep's a little bit better. You know, those sort of things. We're tweaking more than we're maybe saying, oh, Matt's saying I can't drink or have a good thing, a pasta or what, whatever. No, I'm not saying that just balance, you know, don't, don't go totally unhealthy in a time that you need to recover because then you'll just come back as worn down as you were when you win. So
Speaker 1 00:38:14 Well, uh, education goes a very long way in those, uh, you know, instances. You don't have to tell somebody that they what they can and can't do. Um, you know, if uh, if you are supplying quality education, um,
Speaker 0 00:38:28 Absolutely,
Speaker 1 00:38:29 Absolutely to these, to these people, they're gonna make the right decision, you know? Yeah. It's just like, uh, it's just like raising a child in that sense, right? You hope that, uh, yeah, you hope that you supply them with the proper knowledge and they will end up being a great person. And that's no different with an employee. You give them the knowledge, you tell them, uh, you, you tell 'em this, this is why it's important to sleep. This is why it's important that you do these things when you're off of work. Here's the research. And um, and yeah, and they will, they will go forth and make the right decision. Um, yep.
Speaker 0 00:38:59 Hey, am I in the book? I think we do a good job, Dave, to kind of wrap up here. Is that the book? We give a lot of resources for folks to do that, right? Handouts you, you can download on our website. Do we, we give you all that piece. So, um, I wanna thank everybody for joining us. Dave, thank you for this. This is, I love talking about this stuff. This was so much fun, uh, to do. So, um, obviously at this point, you know, you can go to optimal hrv.com, download the book for free. Uh, you know, really enjoyed this series. So, uh, we've got, uh, chapter five coming up next week and then, uh, a great discussion, uh, where, where Ina is the shining star when we start talking about, uh, biofeedback and mindfulness. So, so Dave, thanks. I really enjoyed this conversation and for putting up with me in all my soap boxes around this.
Speaker 1 00:39:50 Well, thank you Matt. It's always fun to do these.
