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 L L C and optimal HR-V. Check us out at optimal hr-v dot com. Please enjoy the show.
Speaker 1 00:00:32 Welcome friends to the Heart Rate Variability podcast. I am not alone today. Uh, I know I've, uh, launched the series off, uh, with the last, uh, several episodes. Uh, but now I got my co-authors, uh, Dave and Ima here, which I'm, I'm really excited, uh, to talk about chapter one of our book. So, uh, uh, hopefully if you're, uh, new to the podcast, we are running a series here, so you can easily find episode one, uh, where we sort of introduce the book. Also, if you're new to the podcast, we are releasing chapters, um, of our audiobook version of the, the Heartbeat of Business, um, uh, free as part of looking at 2023 as the year of, of recovery and Resiliency. So, really, we, we know so many people, and I know a lot of people, and I'm, I'm really excited to bring Dave and e into this conversation as well.
Speaker 1 00:01:31 A lot of people are really tired right now, or, or maybe there's this low grade of anger that they're feeling, or frustration they're feeling that the, just what we've been through, as you know, human beings is a pandemic of a political environment. Uh, war, all these things going on in our world has really taken a toll on a lot of us. So, you know, I know in my work, working with, uh, staff resiliency, self-care, a lot of people are, are just really struggling from that being a crisis for them to just kind of this low grade exhaustion or frustration that people are feeling. And we wanna know, Hey, if you're doing good one, congratulations. Uh, so thinking about it from a resiliency perspective, how can we use the science of the autonomic nervous system, the brain, uh, heart rate variability to really, uh, take some struggles that we've been through, hardships we've been through, and really transform that?
Speaker 1 00:02:33 Again, I love the term post-traumatic growth, even if you don't look back in the last few years as a trauma for you. How do we transform stress, hardship, struggles into wisdom, resiliency moving forward in our lives? So, hopefully that hits pretty much everybody. Like I said, if you, if you feel like you're struggling now, please know you're not alone. I know the three of us have had our own struggles, uh, wi with everything going on in the world too. So, um, uh, welcome, uh, to the club. Welcome, Dave, and Ina, uh, with this, and, and Ina, I wanna start out with, uh, throwing a question to you, cuz one of the topics, um, in chapter one that we started to cover was the idea of homeostasis and how the relationship between homeostasis, uh, stress and heart rate variability. So, I, I sort of wanna throw out, I know it's not a simple question here, but, but sort of throw out, uh, to get us started about the connection, what happens to us with homeostasis through a time of relatively in, uh, intense and constant stress. So, I, I'll throw that, uh, not a softball question to start out with, but throw that out to you, um, with this idea of homeostasis stress, um, and living through the times that we have.
Speaker 2 00:03:57 That's a great question. And you know, Matt, I think none of your questions are ever a softball <laugh>, but they're all good questions. Um, so the, the idea of homeostasis is, uh, our ability to, um, return to this kind of, you know, neutral state, this neutral internal, um, environment, uh, that's, uh, ideal for, um, you know, when we are addressed, when everything is functioning kind of the way it's supposed to. And homeostasis gets disrupted by all sorts of things, uh, you know, from, um, you know, internal, uh, stuff, uh, you know, like you've had a little, you know, too much to eat and, you know, that disrupts your internal homeostasis too. All sorts of external stuff coming at us. Um, and our ability to rise to the challenge is important. Uh, but perhaps even more important is the ability to return a two hemostasis return and recover, you know, from that challenge.
Speaker 2 00:04:55 Uh, and the reason that's so important is not just for us to be able to rest, but it also goes a very long way towards us being able to rise to the next challenge because we, if we are not able to return to homeostasis in between, uh, stressors in between stuff that happens to us, then, you know, over time, uh, we burn out, we have a lot more trouble, uh, dealing with stress and with challenges. So this ability to return to homeostasis is incredibly important. Um, and, um, harder ability, uh, is indicative, uh, of our, uh, ability to return to homeostasis when our heart rate ability is high. Uh, that, uh, tells us that our bodies are able to regulate themselves better. Um, and self-regulation means, uh, ability to activate as needed and return to that baseline, to that homeostatic state. So H R V is incredibly important in this process.
Speaker 1 00:05:48 Excellent. You know, that like returning, uh, piece, I, I think especially when we're under pretty much just constant stress from our world, and I think a lot of our jobs have been turned upside down. Family lives have been turned upside down. There's been a lot of traumas that have happened to people, some just that may have happened anyway throughout life over the course of three or four years. But obviously pandemic, political unrest, all this other things going on. Just, just that real challenge to that consistently over time, which I think distinguishes the, the last several years from, you know, most times, not, not that an individual might not go through that, but this collective experience, um, of stress and trauma. Dave, I gotta ask you, how, how do you see this all showing up in your office? Because, you know, and I, not being a chiropractor, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something that you may just say, Matt, you're, you don't know what you're talking about, but I imagine a lot of people come to you as, Hey, I, I felt good and then I screwed up my back. Get, get me back in some ways to at least a physical homeostasis of, of feeling good again. And, and I just kinda wonder as, uh, you know, and I know as, as, uh, learning from you what chiropractic care is, it, it's way more holistic than, Hey, can you pop my back into place again? Um, I just kind of wonder what you're seeing in your office, in your, your, your exam room. You know, what, what are you seeing as far as patients coming in?
Speaker 3 00:07:26 Well, I, great question. And, uh, and first, uh, first of all, you know, um, as we say to any patient in any time in life, right? Uh, you know, especially these last couple years, but, you know, I, people always have these, uh, you know, injuries, uh, that just pop up out of nowhere, right? Uh, you know, and, um, and we always like to say there was, it was never a, you know, just, it just happened. Uh, you know, there's, that's never the case. It is always, it is always a little bit piling on, a little bit piling on, and a little bit piling on until we have, you know, the straw that broke the camel's back and in, in some cases, quite literally, right? Um, so, uh, you know, and when we talk about
Speaker 1 00:08:06 Literally, Dave, I think you would be treating a camel with a back injury. I'm not sure if literally <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:08:15 Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 00:08:16 Maybe I, maybe I misinterpreting chiropractic care, but just, just, you know, you throw literally out there, I see a camel walking into your office with a back problem.
Speaker 3 00:08:28 <laugh> yes. Not, not quite that I treat camels, but, uh, the straw that broke somebody's back yes,
Speaker 1 00:08:34 <laugh>,
Speaker 3 00:08:34 That, that was more the, uh, the, the literal one there. Um, you know, so it is, um, uh, so, you know, it's never, it's, it is rarely just, you know, oh my gosh, I just woke up like this one day. Uh, you know, it, it's not just, I just got sick today, which that's another thing that I've been seeing so much of. Um, you know what, I'm sure you guys see that, that out in the world too, is there is so much more illness right now. Uh, you know, I, well, granted, I have school, uh, young school-aged kids, uh, so they're, you know, like every young school-aged kid out there picking their nose and, uh, you know, everything goes into their mouth and, uh, you know, so, so illness is constant, but, um, but they're also developing an immune system, right? That's how I like to look at it anyway.
Speaker 3 00:09:16 But, um, you know, there's a constant illness out there that is, uh, that is just going on. And what, and what is that about? Is that we all have weaker immune systems. Uh, you know, what, what is that? And the, and answer, you know, is that, well, we're all under a lot more stress, right? So, uh, so if we're all under a lot more stress, we know that that brings down our immune system. Uh, we know that that brings down our musculoskeletal system. Uh, we know that we are more prone to injury, right? To these things that just happen, right? We are more prone to illness, uh, you know, these opportunistic, uh, bugs that absolutely, if your immune system function is down because you have had cortisol racing for, you know, uh, days, uh, you know, weeks, months, uh, years, um, there there is a lot more potential that you are getting sick. There is a lot more potential that you are getting injured. So, um, so absolutely we've been, uh, we've been seeing that effect within our office, uh, and yeah.
Speaker 1 00:10:11 Yeah, I think the, the other thing that I see, uh, especially having my own laboratory, which is my, uh, wife's second grade classroom, uh, for a biochemical weapon factory <laugh>, um, you know, that wearing of masks, which, you know, I, I know from a psychological perspective, this area is really important for communication and social connection, but wow, when you, when we took the masks off, all of a sudden there was a lot more of that, uh, nose picking and coughing and all the things <laugh>, uh, we just like filled the room with, uh, germs that we didn't sort of have exposure to in the same way. And I just see that knock a lot of people, including my wife, uh, for the last couple weeks out too. So,
Speaker 3 00:10:57 Yes.
Speaker 1 00:10:58 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:10:59 Uh, yeah, that was, uh, you, you bring up a great point there. Uh, the, the mess did a wonder as far as keeping nose, uh, as far as keeping fingers out of noses and boogers on everything,
Speaker 1 00:11:10 <laugh> re remember when we, like, didn't wanna touch our faces, and I know we still should touch our faces, but that, that initial weeks of the pandemic, when you saw somebody touch their face and you're like, you, you just gasp. And, you know, we're, we're back to picking our nose in second grade. So, uh, <laugh>. So, so ina I followed on what Dave said. I I think one of the, the interesting sections of this chapter that we, we don't touch on as much, because it is, you know, from, from an organizational perspective, it may not be, when we talk about social, emotional, cognitive health, really those three components are so important to business success. Uh, and we're gonna, those are gonna be themes, uh, throughout the chapters that you listen to in our conversation. Social, emotional, cognitive health, how heart rate variability helps to track that, you know, the importance of that for, for business success.
Speaker 1 00:12:10 The, the one piece that we kind of knock out and having written this section, it's like, okay, we gotta talk about this, but it's not really going to be a huge thing throughout the book, but the idea of medical health and, and one of the things from, uh, you know, as, as you and I being a little bit more in on the psychological side of things, I would love to hear outta your mouth, and with your wisdom, kind of following up on what Dave said about, as stress starts to impact our autonomic nervous system, how that really manifests into long-term health issues. Because obviously, if you can't show up to work because you're always sick or you have a chronic illness, you're not gonna perform at your best either. So, I, I don't wanna skip over this, even though it's not gonna be a theme of just sort of how you see folks under intense, uh, chronic stress. Why do we then see a range of health issues all from this disruption of the, uh, autonomic nervous system?
Speaker 2 00:13:17 You're absolutely right. This is a really important topic, um, and one that on the one hand, people are sort of aware of. We all kind of know that chronic stress is not so good for us. Yeah. Uh, but, you know, it's also does get kind of brushed the way because the effects really are quite long term. It's not like, you know, you pick your nose today, you're sick tomorrow. Um, this is, this happens over, over, over years. Um, and I wanna say that not to alarm people, and, you know, if you've been stressed for years, that's it. End of the world. No, uh, there is a lot you could do about it, which is why we're talking about this, which is why, you know, hardship, reliability by feedback exists. There is a whole lot you can do to, uh, to improve from here on. But it's also important to pause now and think about it, you know, how have you been treating yourself over the last, you know, bunch of years?
Speaker 2 00:14:10 Um, and think about what effect that might have, uh, for the future, is now a time to think about it. So, um, ultimately, um, what chronic stress, uh, does, is it a little by little over time, it damages our ability to return to homeostasis. Um, our bodies are built for responding to stress. So for each individual, uh, stressor, the fact that your body activates and, you know, your heart rate, uh, heartbeats faster, and your breathing is faster, and your gastrointestinal system is doing something, uh, you know, all of that is okay. Your body is built for it. Um, the problem starts coming when those stressors are, uh, too intense, too frequent, without adequate time to recover. Uh, so each time the stressor comes without the ability to recover properly, the nervous system gets a little more fatigued, a little bit more depleted, um, and, uh, over time it, it gets dysregulated.
Speaker 2 00:15:11 So over time, the ability of the nervous system to, uh, respond, uh, to changes in your internal or external environment, uh, gets weaker and weaker. Um, and what underlies a lot of our chronic health conditions is ultimately a dysregulated, autonomic nervous system. You know? Yes, all it manifests in all sorts of different ways. And there, uh, different kinds of, you know, illnesses and, uh, conditions and syndromes, et cetera, you know, from things like chronic pain to high blood pressure, to, um, irritable bowel syndrome, and all of these, um, and they manifest differently, but the foundation for all of it is a dysregulated, autonomic nervous system. Um, and ultimately that's the connection. Uh, when we don't pay attention to our ability to return to homeostasis, giving ourselves sufficient time to recover, um, we predispose ourselves, you know, for conditions like that to develop over time.
Speaker 1 00:16:12 Yeah. And Dave, I think that brings us to, uh, uh, such an important topic of inflammation. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, that there's, that dysregulation. Um, cytokines is something I've been fascinated with, and I think especially with long haul covid, you know, we see this escalated, you know, level of cytokines, and we see that with chronic stress as well. So I would love for you to, to follow up on what Ina said with, well, what, you know, that dysregulation leading to inflammation, uh, is such a key thing because that, that also gives us that bridge to the social emotional cognitive functioning as well. But I'd love to just kind of hear your fa thoughts, uh, you know, kind of from the, the body perspective of what, what that inflammation is, is and what it's doing to our system.
Speaker 3 00:17:08 Well, well, absolutely. When we look at, uh, when we look at inflammation in general, we know that that is, I, that is part of it, is, is the root cause of it, you know, in a lot of cases of, uh, of what we look at as, as pain discomfort, it's, uh, you know, it's when we look at ai, you know, a cause for illness, a cause of breakdown of our body. Um, so, so when we are under long-term stress, we aren't sufficiently handling, uh, handling that right? We, uh, we see a buildup of inflammation, and we see these things causing, uh, causing long-term problems. Um, so yeah, uh, a a big question that I always get is, what can I do to decrease inflammation? Um, and, uh, you know, and of course, lifestyle factors are, uh, are, are a huge part in that. Um, but, you know, proper recovery, uh, is, uh, is always going to be, uh, you know, leading the way. Um, and, uh, and you know, you, I know that, uh, you and I will, uh, march down this path all day long, of which starts with proper breathing and proper sleeping <laugh> and, uh, and, and going, uh, and, and going there forth. Um, but yeah, uh, inflammation is ultimately going to tear apart our body, uh, weaken, uh, weaken us in every way. And, um, and we do will absolutely see that reflected in our H R V as well.
Speaker 1 00:18:28 Awesome. So, so the final topic I wanted to, to touch on, uh, with you both is this idea of the window of tolerance. And, uh, I introduce, uh, in this section an an analogy that, you know, has weirdly stuck around for about 13 years and how I talk about stress and trauma. Usually I need to find a different analogy every three or four months, or I get, get bored. But this one seemed to have a little bit of stickiness, um, over the years, because I think it, it really gives us a way to, to, in some ways summarize it as it, whenever you use an analogy, you, you have to sacrifice a little bit of the science, uh, to talk about something in five minutes that would take, you know, five months to describe. But this idea of this cup analogy with the window of tolerance and really looking at, um, that, that we each have this capacity to hold stress.
Speaker 1 00:19:23 And then next, uh, next chapter will get into states and traits and how important, uh, those are, uh, when we look at our health and wellness. But with the company analogy, if, if you listen to the chapter, we know that there's that capacity to hold stress. And then if we have a manageable amount of stress and, uh, allic load, uh, the good vocab word there is that we are, we are in our executive functioning part of our brain. We are, our, our heart rate variability is probably high, um, heart rate, fairly moderated, and we can bring our best selves to our life, whatever that is in front of us, whether that's a workout, whether that's time with family, whether that's a, a hard work project that we have to do. And then as we gain more stress over time, our cup starts to fill up and pushes us out of that sort of optimal zone of functioning into a more stress-based form of functioning.
Speaker 1 00:20:23 Uh, Daniel Siegel talks about the chaos rigidity, and then if that, that cup overflows, we can go in that fight, flight or freeze, uh, sympathetic, uh, or dorsal veal responses. And so, you know, for me, it's, it's just been a great way to share, where's your cup at today? Uh, if I had to say, you know, how high is your AOL load? It's difficult. How are you doing? Today is one that I think is almost just as worthless, because, you know, it's easy to shrug off. And, you know, with my work with folks with trauma, you know, one, one of the things that I've learned, it's hard to put our word or our emotions into words. Uh, my wife in second grade works with this, with her students with social emotional education, but it's easy to say, I'm okay, right? And, and, and go on.
Speaker 1 00:21:12 But really that reflection on where are you at today within that window of tolerance. And, and Nina, I, I just kind of wonder, because you, you hook people up to really expensive machines. I, I know with optimal h r b, we, we give heart rate variability. You know, looking at monthly averages, weekly averages, all this stuff. I sort of, I'm very fascinated with, you know, um, I use the analogy, you use fancy equipment. We, when you think about the window of tolerance as a concept, I'd love to just get your, your thinking around, uh, this, uh, topic.
Speaker 2 00:21:51 Yeah. Uh, first of all, I love your cup analogy. Uh, it makes a lot of sense. It's a really great, great way to explain. It's a, a static load, right? Aesthetic load is a fairly complicated, uh, concept. And, you know, I teach it, you know, to my students all the time. Um, and I've stolen your analogy at this point, <laugh>, and I use it. Um, cause it, it just, it just makes, it just makes so much sense. Um, you know, in, in order to be able to take on more, we have to take some things out mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Uh, otherwise you can't do it both ways. You can't keep everything, uh, and keep adding more. And at some point, the cup will overflow and, uh, you, you're gonna feel stuck frozen wanting to run away, right? Um, you can, uh, I think I also sometimes think of the window of tolerance in a slightly different way, um, when it comes to taking on challenges that you've hesitated to take on before.
Speaker 2 00:22:50 Uh, and this is where both the aesthetic load and the cup analogy and the heart of ability will come in here as well. But you can think about, uh, your window of tolerance almost being kind of like your comfort zone. Uh, you know, and there is this place, uh, where you are entirely comfortable and you're doing things you're familiar with, and it's not terribly stressful. Um, and your aesthetic load isn't just the right place. And your cup is, you know, I don't know, two thirds full, whatever. It needs to be helpful. Um, so just the right place. Uh, but then you have a big challenge, uh, coming up. Um, and you start thinking, ooh, you know, am I ready for this? You know, let's say, uh, you know, maybe you are asked to, uh, do a really big presentation to, you know, the c e o of your company that you've never met before, uh, and your bosses, this will be so good for you.
Speaker 2 00:23:39 This will be great exposure. You know, this will be great for your career. And you go, oh my God, I'm going, going to fail. Um, save me <laugh>, right? What, what is, what am I doing here? Um, a situation like this may be a too big a step out of your window of tolerance, out of that comfort zone. Uh, it may be taking you, you know, taking on so much stress that it, you know, actually overflows, overflows your cup. Um, and your H I v is going to reflect that it's going to decrease, and you're going to feel kind of stuck and frozen and overwhelmed. Um, and it's important to understand that it doesn't mean that you have to immediately say no to something like that, or that you have to power through and do it no matter what. It's not one option or the other.
Speaker 2 00:24:26 Uh, I think, you know, you can use the idea of the, um, of the cup, uh, and the idea of the window of tolerance and use your HR to figure out, well, how do I get there? You know, if this big presentation that's coming up and saying three months is too big a step, uh, well, you know, how can I take a smaller step that takes me out of my comfort zone so that I'm not, not growing, right? Because in, if you only stay in the comfort zone, it's nice, but then you don't grow and your career doesn't grow, and your personal life doesn't grow, right? And you, and that, that in itself can become stressful. Um, so, you know, you wanna take a step out by taking that giant step is too much. So maybe in those three months before the presentation, you, you know, using the analogy of the cup, uh, you think about, well, how can I add a little bit, uh, and maybe what things can I take, take off, take out of that plate?
Speaker 2 00:25:17 How can I take a small step out of, um, out of that comfort zone, out of that window, um, of tolerance so that I can still tolerate it? So it's a little bit of a challenge, uh, but it, it's enough of a challenge that I can, I can deal with it. It's not a threat like that big one. And then you, you know, as you take that small step, your window of tolerance expands, your comfort zone expands, right? This is, you know, you, you do a small presentation to, uh, your, perhaps your immediate group, right? Or maybe to people that you know, somewhat, et cetera. And then maybe, maybe you take a couple of smaller steps like this, and, um, by the time your big presentation comes around, your comfort zone has expanded a whole lot. Uh, so the step to get there is actually now quite tolerable. It does not overflow the cup. Um, and your window of tolerant is not exploding. Um, and H R V can absolutely guide you through that because your, uh, morning readings will tell you, am I taking too big a step? Um, or, you know, am I, uh, am I doing, what's, what's actually helpful?
Speaker 1 00:26:19 Yeah. And I, and I think that that is, you know, when we put this in the organization, whether you're the individual as you gave with that great example, or whether you're a manager supervising this, that, that idea of peak performance, I, it's, you know, one of the things I, I just get so frustrated with in the business world is the lack of ideal of recovery. Um, and we work with some tech people, right? We, we, we see this, and, and I know sometimes we're good at this, sometimes maybe not so good at it, but it's like, you know, I, I think when your cup is always pretty much at capacity, stepping up for that big presentation or doing a sprint in the tech world, you know, is you just don't have as much sort of in the tank, so to speak, to, to be successful at that.
Speaker 1 00:27:11 And we don't really look at this. I, I've just fascinated, cause tech makes great kind of documentaries. Like what? Wait, whether it's WeWorks or, you know, uh, uh, the woman that's going to jail, or the guy that's going to jail, everybody goes to jail, gets all their own Hulu, uh, documentary nowadays. But it is like, well, of course you were stupid. Of course you put out this with a million mistakes because you were sleeping two hours a night because you were just drinking coffee, red Bull and donuts for a week straight. Of course, your, your brain is functioning at 20% of what it was, and then your company tanks, or you say something incredibly stupid, um, and then you are, you're done. You know, and there's just, there's just so many examples of this. And yet, you know, and, and Elon Musk is the really, cause if got a podcast got thrown Musk at least once into the podcast nowadays, it's like, well, you gotta sleep at Twitter.
Speaker 1 00:28:12 I'm like, why? And there actually, Elon's been studied as one of those people who may only need five hours of sleep a night that there is, like, they, they, they, somebody did a study of these highs. So for Elon, that might be okay though. If you look at Elon's behavior, I think that's questionable. Now, I'm probably banned on Twitter, but you know, that that's probably a joy for me right now. But you know, how many of those people that he's asking to sleep under the desk can perform at a high level and do that as well. Probably research tells us maybe one outta 10, if not two outta 10. So eight outta 10 are going to be performing much below level. So Dave, I wonder, because I know you work with high performers, both corporate and you know, with your background in athletics as well. How, how do you look at this when we, we talk about stress level, no one, as Zena said, exactly right. We wanna push ourselves cuz that's where we grow. But I, I just love to hear how you help people prepare for those, whether it's, again, a sporting event, whether it's a big thing at work, how, how you help people get in that mode of peak performance.
Speaker 3 00:29:28 Uh, well, you know, I, I loved listening to, uh, in's explanation there. Uh, and, and, uh, and the great thing is that if, if you took exactly what Ina said and you, you applied that to a physical realm, that's exactly what you do for a top level athlete, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, it is, it is no different. Um, you know, you say, uh, you, you say you have the, the super, well, I guess Super Bowl's a a very, uh, a bad, uh, <laugh> bad representation. But, uh, but let's say, um, you know, for an event that you have coming up mm-hmm. <affirmative> athletically, um, you know, for a high performer, it is the exact same thing. You're gonna start with a lot of smaller events. You're gonna start with a lot of lower bar events and work your confidence up, work your level up until you, you know, until you are ready there.
Speaker 3 00:30:13 Um, and, and it, it just seems so much more obvious in a physical sense. And that is what, you know, what I love about, uh, the book about, uh, Eno's explanation there is that nobody thinks about this in that mental regard. It is always, no, you, you're not overloaded mentally. But it, if I lifted weights this morning, you know, or yesterday and I'm super sore, I know that I'm not gonna lift weights again today. You know, that's just obvious to me. But why is it not obvious that if I stress myself, you know, mentally, uh, that, that that doesn't need a rest as well, right? That that doesn't deserve recovery. Um, and, and uh, and that's what's really cool, uh, you know, when we look at, uh, when we look at heart rate variability, is that you can see the impact of a stressful event, whether that is physical or whether that is mental, emotional, uh, you know, a work related whatever.
Speaker 3 00:31:08 Um, so that, that's the power of it. It is, it gives you that objective number of, okay, there may not be any obvious physical sign other than, you know, uh, you're developing an autoimmune disease and you, right? And, and you can't poop in <laugh>, you know, and, uh, you can't hold down any food, uh, you know, other than those physical signs. Um, you know, there's not that screaming physical pain that, uh, that a accompanies in. So that's, uh, that's what I think is great about H R V in that regard is it does, it does help you monitor that. Um, and how do I help somebody prepare exactly like EMA said? It is, uh, you know, we, we watch that, we watch that heart rate variability. Um, we see a dipping and we want challenges. We want dips in heart rate variability. We want to see that you challenged yourself.
Speaker 3 00:31:53 We wanna see you move that needle. Because if you always stay the same, that means you're not challenging yourself. That means that you're never going outside of your window of tolerance. So we wanna see dips in H R V, that is a great thing, as long as you recover right? And we see that recovery, and then we're gonna challenge you a little bit harder, and then we're gonna see that recovery and then we're gonna challenge you a little bit harder than last time, right? And that is how you expand that window of tolerance. Um, that is how you get to that big presentation. That is how you get to that big athletic event and you do perform at your best. Um, cuz yeah, uh, tomorrow may not be your day, but maybe three months from now with proper training
Speaker 1 00:32:33 <laugh>, right? And, and, and managers hear what we're saying, right? It's, it's that, that idea that, you know, and I, I think sometimes athletics uses military analogies, business uses athletic, you know, we, we, we, we sort of do these worlds, but you know, the autonomic nervous system is the autonomic nervous system. So, you know, really helping people perform. And I, I just, that recovery spot, you know, has hit athletics, especially elite athletes. Cause being as old as I am, we never, not one moment talked about recovery. We might have a day off every once in a while, but it wasn't like, this is what you need to do to maximize the fact that you don't have a practice or a game today. Um, it's kinda like, well, let's go out and party. Like, cause we don't have practice. Like, you know, it's, let's stay up late.
Speaker 1 00:33:27 Like, there, there was no, I I'm just in that age group where if you didn't wake up and destroy yourself each and every day, you must not be dedicated enough to your work. And I still think in the work world, and now, you know, just listening to the news, all these layoffs that we see happening in the business world now, you know, that means it's gonna fall on people. The the worker, you had power for like five minutes. Now the corporation is going to be in charge, is how do we build these environments that allow people to thrive? And then personally, how do we do that as well? So I wanna, I wanna end this episode, Dave, I'm gonna go to you first, um, from the physical perspective on this, and feel free, obviously to throw in any of the middle as well, is this idea of homeostasis is so important is, is how well am I able to recover from stress stay in my window of tolerance?
Speaker 1 00:34:20 And now we've been in under this load of stress. So I almost think that a lot of people, and I'll let you, both of you correct me if I'm off here in my, my words, we've adapted to this high stress world in which we live, where there's always the threat of illness. And if you've got a young person or a teacher in your life, you know, how, how many different viruses are putting people in the hospital right now, question mark. Uh, you know, you, you've got occupational, like I said, things switched around, political environments, you know, everything war, all this stuff going on. Uh, we've had the big old civil rights movement in my lifetime. Throw that in, uh, to all the stress that people have experienced. So, so Dave, let me, let me try to ask something, uh, step outta my comfort zone here.
Speaker 1 00:35:14 So I'm always like this because I'm stressed out. And if you're not watching us on YouTube, I'm trying to be as luury as possible. My next tight, my back's tight. I, I'm just holding that stress and that's almost become in some ways my new set point. Ha do you have any thoughts? If I've been living in this stress for y a few years now, just kind of, what, what are you seeing with that? And, and where do we, what might be the first step for somebody that's looking to say, Hey, I can't go on like this. I, I need to do something different, but this is who I'm starting to be now. This is who I wake up, this is who I go to bed being, I don't like it, but, but it's kind of where I'm finding myself. What would be maybe some of the advice that you would give folks who just find themselves is, yeah, yeah, my cup's been full for three years now and that's kind of who I am. That's my life.
Speaker 3 00:36:16 So, um, so that is, that is very common, you know, uh, b before the pandemic and everything, uh, you know, absolutely there was a a ton of people walking around like that, finding themselves in that position and, you know, tenfold more now. Uh, so absolutely, you know, we see that drift, uh, of those shoulders coming up. We see the shoulders rounding forward and uh, and, and we call that a protective posture, right? Because, uh, cuz if you're going, if you're going to, uh, if you're going to fight, right, what are you gonna do? You're gonna be, you're gonna be here, right? If you're, um, you know, or, or you're going back to fetal position, right? Uh, you can look at it like that as well. Um, you know, you're, you're curling backups. Um, so you know, what, what, what do we see aside from that?
Speaker 3 00:37:04 So it's not just that you're going into this and you have some tight muscles and that's a problem. Um, that's part of the problem because those tight muscles are using a whole bunch more energy than nice relaxed muscles. So is this person fatigued at the end of the day? Is this person have a hard time getting outta bed in the morning? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, cuz those, those muscles that are supposed to be relaxed, right? They are, they are just expending energy like crazy. Um, we see that when you start to do this and you start to create this kind of a posture all the time, that breaks down the way that you're, you're breathing can naturally happen. So your diaphragm can't function nearly as well when you're in this kind of a position, right? And that defensive kind of a posture, and as a result, you end up using accessory breathing muscles.
Speaker 3 00:37:58 And what happens then? You know, more energy expenditure, more fatigue and less ability to replenish yourself. Um, so that is, uh, it's just a continuing cycle, right? Uh, and that stresses you out even more. That builds inflammation, uh, that makes it more likely that you are going to get disease, that you're gonna develop some kind of chronic, uh, chronic illness, um, all of these kinds of things. So what is, uh, what is the best first step for somebody like that to take, um, breathe <laugh>? Um, and, uh, and as, as easy and simple as that sounds, um, it, it really is, uh, you know, just, uh, starting, starting with breath work and, um, you know, and this is getting, um, you know, all into, uh, what what our app does amazingly and, uh, and a lot of ink's work and everything as well, uh, throughout there, but, you know, doing what you can to reverse that posture.
Speaker 3 00:38:55 Of course, consciously, whenever we can become aware of that, we can help to relax those muscles, we can do exercises to, uh, to help come out of that. But that's only gonna help to a point we need to reset the autonomic nervous system. And resetting the autonomic nervous system is something that we can do with, uh, you know, with a lot of, uh, tools lifestyle-wise. But chiropractic is very powerful for that. Acupuncture is very powerful for that. Um, and of course biofeedback is absolutely amazing for that. Um, and, uh, and, and that's about where I want to, uh, hand it off to Ina and her, her and talk about that. And, uh, and, and of course I address that issue in itself too, but, um, but that's where, that's where I always start with is, uh, is proper breathing, um, proper posture exercises to come out of that, and anything we can do to help reset that autonomic nervous system.
Speaker 1 00:39:47 Awesome. Well, you know, you gave me a great handoff to kind of wrap us up. So, uh, what, what are you helping, because I'm sure you see this coming into, uh, uh, your practice as well. So, uh, lo love to get sort of your, any suggestions you might have for folks that are finding themselves in this position?
Speaker 2 00:40:05 Well, I love Dave's answer. I think it covers most of, uh, you know, what I would suggest as well. Um, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, the funny thing about fatigued muscles, uh, to echo what, um, uh, Dave is talking about is, you know, you would think that a tired muscle would be kind of more likely to relax. You'd think that at want would want to relax, but fatigued muscles actually have much harder time, uh, releasing the tension, right? So when you're finding yourself walking around, you know, like this, you know, with your shoulders up, you know, at your ears and enough kind of protective, uh, posture, um, you might find that it's actually like you, you drop your shoulders down and you kind of do the right postural things. And as Dave said, it only goes so far because guess what? That tired muscle, even though you've released it, it's actually having trouble letting go.
Speaker 2 00:40:53 So the autonomic nervous system reset, um, is really important. You need to give yourself pr, um, much longer periods of time to recover. Uh, both, you know, longer periods of time for your muscles to release and just for your, uh, for your body, um, to, um, get out of that, um, chronic stress mode. Um, so plenty of sleep, so important. And, you know, as much as I love biofeedback, right, um, no amount of biofeedback is gonna overcome not sleeping, right? So if you're not giving yourself, you're not giving yourself enough time to sleep, start, start there. Uh, sleep, nutrition, um, biofeedback, um, just doing fun things, um, you know, all, all of that is, uh, is really, really important. And then just watching that mind body connection, right? When do your shoulders start going up? Like, what happens? You know, what's going on in your mind, what's going on in your life? Um, you know, sometimes it's purely you've been sitting at your desk too long. Um, it, it's just really physical and other times there is a very, very strong emotional component that needs, uh, uh, to be attended to both, uh, in order to prevent this from happening in the future and in, in order to address, uh, uh, the current issue, the emotional stuff needs to be addressed as much as the physical.
Speaker 1 00:42:12 Beautiful. Well, what a great episode to look at chapter one. So I, I wanna leave it there because chapter two, we start to look at health and wellness with H R V. So, so how do we start to quantify all of this? So I, if you just jumped in, again, I really encourage you to go back again, full experience here with us. Um, and we are going to look at, uh, chapter two next week so that that will be played as the audiobook chapter. And then, uh, Dave and Ina and I will be back to, to look that as well as my dog Moose has joined us, uh, for those of you on video, she, she loves the heart rate variability podcast, so she had to get in here as well. But, uh, Dave, thank you so much. Uh, I always learned so much from you all, and I really look forward to, to our next conversation.
Speaker 2 00:43:02 Thank you, Matt. Thanks Matt. Thanks Dave.
