How To Use HRV Training To Boost Performance & Well-being and Protect Against Burnout

7:30AM Sep 13, 2022

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Intro

Dr Jay Wiles

Keywords:

hrv

heart rate variability

people

nervous system

baseline

angela

conditioning

exercise

regulate

affecting

stressor

stress

zone

increase

breathing

range

find

mechanism

body

health

How do we become more self aware of how stress, physiological and psychological work manifests in the same way? How do we become more self aware of what is affecting us and how it's affecting us? And then how do we better self regulate?

Welcome to the high performance health podcast with your host, Angela Foster, the show where we talk about everything you need to break through limits and achieve a high performance, mind, body and lifestyle.

So really excited to welcome a second time guests back to the show here on High Performance health. It is Dr. Jay Wiles, who is CO the co founder and chief scientific officer of Hanu health, which is a new device I'm playing with are very excited to hear all about this today. First of all, a very warm welcome, Jay. It's great to have you back.

Yeah, it's great to be back. Angela, always enjoy the conversations with you.

Yeah, really excited. Thank you. Not Not everyone will have listened because it was some time ago when we recorded the first episode all about HRV. But I do recommend people go back and listen to that. But let's kick off first of all with what HRV is for listeners and why it's so important.

Yeah, you know, this is something I've been on a few podcasts recently, where I'm like, You know what, I get the question of what is HRV? Like, my mind spins like in 1000 directions. So I've kind of had to ask myself, like, Why does my head spin in 1000 directions? And if my head's 1000 directions, why does like the what is the layperson think about HRV. And I'm like, You know what, the layperson is probably going to stick with the easiest definition that they can, which only makes sense for me, because I understand the nuances and complexities of HRV, my head goes everywhere. So I've kind of like formulated more or less an easier definition to understand. And then I like to unpack it. And I like to kind of like, keep things more simplistic than complex initially, just because the complexity of HRV could make for not just a three, four hour podcast, but really an entire degree. So what I'll do is just really start very 30,000 foot view on HRV. Because in the end, what heart rate variability is, or HRV, it's nothing but a proxy. And so when we say a proxy, what I'm talking about is that heart rate variability is the single greatest non invasive proxy that we have to examine or look at the shifts that we have in our autonomic nervous system, which is representative of shifts or change in our response to stress. So heart rate variability in and of itself, is a data point, it is a proxy, a lot of people see it as a data point, but they don't understand what it means within its own context. And I think that's where HRV starts to get really, really confusing. But if you want it to kind of just wipe the slate clean, and understand what it is, it gives us a snapshot, or at least it has been previously we'll talk about how there's mechanisms, not for a snapshot, but actually to see it over time continuously now with what hadou is. But really what HRV is, currently, it's a snapshot that looks at the state or shift change in your autonomic nervous system, which is representative of changes in your overall stress resiliency, or in your human or in the human stress response. But my guess is Angela, you probably want me to unpack it a little bit more.

Yeah, a little bit, just so people because I think when I'm speaking to people, and I know even myself, right, you can get really competitive, because I think people kind of inherently know that higher should be better. And I remember when we were speaking last time, and this has stayed with me because it gives me a great degree of comfort when when wine isn't always where I want it to be about you talking about the fact that actually, you know, a very well trained athlete may have a very high heart rate variability. But if they can't modulate it, it's not that good. Whereas someone else may have a lower one. But they can take meaningful steps and change it. But I think people do get hung up on the fact that why is it so low? Why can't kind of get it higher, and you can almost become competitive with it, which let's face it is going to be the wrong way to increase it right? It's probably not going to work.

For sure, you know, there, there's so many things, especially for high performers that we can be competitive with because we have the ability to somewhat have like a normative comparison. And what I mean by that I think about different biometrics. So when you think about blood pressure, or you think about triglycerides, or you think about cholesterol, there are some for the most part, normative ranges for these types of biometrics. So we kind of know, like, here's the range of where you quote unquote, should be. And that will depend on if you're talking to you know, more of a conventionally minded let's say practitioner or, you know, a functional medicine practitioner where those baseline normal ranges are, you know, that's a kind of a topic for a different discussion. But HRV just doesn't work that way. We don't have the SETT Framework that says you shouldn't be within this range. Otherwise, like your health is compromised or theirs something off or there's something wrong. So we can't compare what we say normatively, which is to others or within people who are kind of within our same demographic. So for me, it would be like mid 30s. Male, like we don't have that range we do because we have a tonne of data point. But what data points I should say. But what we're finding is that if we try to compare normatively so between people who are kind of like us, or between or against a dataset of people who are like us, is that those numbers really are kind of comparing apples and oranges. And that's because it's really the shifts in our nervous system, or really the shifts or changes that we see amongst our own data. That's most important. So back to your point, one of the things that we have found both in the literature and then also in working with an immense amount of clientele, is that because HRV is the single greatest non invasive proxy that we have for shifts in the human nervous system. And in our human stress response. What we know about that is that it's the stability of that number that is most important, as opposed to kind of us comparing to others. Again, this is apples and oranges. So let me unpack this a little bit more, because I think I can make it very simple for people to understand. If you're looking at HRV, and you start to see extreme fluctuations, people might ask what is an extreme fluctuation mean or look like? We're talking about significant percentage shifts? So let's say I'll use very easy numbers to understand that my baseline range of HRV is right at 100 milliseconds. So again, is that good or bad? We don't really know. But if I see that my HRV has dropped 40%, and then another 40%, and then another 40%. From day to day, today, we see a very steep downward trend. Well, what does that mean? That means that something is really taxing my nervous system? Because again, remember, this is a proxy for a shift or state change of my nervous system. Something's really impacting it, could it be exercise? Could it be what I'm eating? Could it be that I'm coming down with the sickness or an ailment? Could it be really intensive psychological stress? Could it be extremely poor sleep all within context, we can figure out kind of what is the culprit, what is the thing that's causing change here. Now, that is much more important than where I started, which was 100 milliseconds. And the reason why it's so much more important is because we now have context as to what is causing that change, or at least if we do some digging, we have the context there. Whereas if we just look at a simple sole number of HRV, it really doesn't kind of give us any information. It's kind of like if I provide you with data coordinates, and you see the actual data coordinates, for most people, and unless they're just like extremely knowledgeable about data coordinates, they're gonna look at it and say, yeah, these just look like numbers. Whereas then if we throw them into a GPS, okay, now we have context. Now I see where this is, where it's located, what's around it, and everything starts to make sense. A lot of biometrics are like that. But HRV is especially a light like that, and that you have to have the context and the framework, because the number by itself, doesn't really get us give us that much information. So yeah, it's all about how much are we seeing fluctuations away from our quote unquote, normal baseline range? And then lastly, to your point, again, how well do you have control over that? So if you do see that someone has, let's say, an HRV of 100? When you put them under a task of saying, How much control do you have over your nervous system, and the easiest way to find out is by slowing your breathing to see how much this affects overall HRV and heart rate. If we see that the numbers are slightly moving in an upward direction, then that's a good sign. That means okay, well, now the nervous system is responding to something it should be responding to, which is slow based breathing or breath work. But but if you then look at the next person who has, let's say, the same baseline of 100, and then they start to increase, or, sorry, decrease their breathing rate, and we see HRV significantly increase, then okay, they went from 100, let's say to 125 130, well, this person looks like they have a better autonomic control over their nervous system, and the person who just moved it up two, or three or four points, or maybe the person who only was able to move it up two or three points. at that given time, their nervous system was getting more taxed with that breathing practice, because of some maybe external condition. Maybe they were in a bad mental headspace. Maybe their body was just recovering from the sauna they just did or the workout they just did. So this is why it's so incredibly important that if we are taking a measurement of HRV we have so many other different data points that we're reading into this narrative and into this story because that number alone, for the most part, I don't want to over speak but I'm okay with saying this given everything I just set up for this, that number by itself is kind of useless. It doesn't give us a lot of information unless it is woven into the narrative. And we piece the puzzle together.

That makes a lot of sense, I think. I mean, for example, Peter tear, I think has publicly said, you know, my HRV is pretty low he did some years ago. And sort of a couple of years ago. Now, if you have people who say it's inherently low, it's like 30 to 40. So it's nowhere close to 100. Do you believe that everybody can increase it to those kind of levels? Or do you think is that what you found? And I'm going to come on to Harney, which is this amazing device that you've developed? But, you know, Can everyone get there? Or is that I'm just wondering whether there's genetic or physiological differences between people, or in terms of what that baseline might be as a starting point, and where you can go where that trajectory is?

Yeah, there are absolutely 100% genetic components in regards to people's baseline HRV 100%. So we know this, from plenty of published research studies, that there are genetic variants, as well as components related to basic demographics, sex, the height is another another one, I always say that, we see that white males who are tall, and fit and generally fit, typically have a much higher HRV than individuals who are not within that demographic. So I'm like, I kind of got set up, you know, for a quote unquote, better HRV just because I'm a white male who is six foot five, so I'm really tall. So height is actually a component genetics are components. Sex is a component, these are certainly things that we are powerless over, we cannot change, but are going to affect our overall HRV. So we do have to take that into into consideration 100%. Can people though, with different strategies raise their baseline HRV? The answer to that is a 100%. Absolutely, yes. So we actually know that the greatest contributor so the single greatest contributor to overall baseline HRV is cardio respiratory fitness. So as we increase people's vo two Max, as people increase overall cardio respiratory fitness, we see a upwards trend, the most significant upwards trend, and baseline heart rate variability. Now, that is not the only mechanism for raising HRV that I'll speak to the the other mechanisms here. But that is that is the greatest way. So the reason that this is happening and why we know exercise is so inextricably intertwined with with HRV is because as we increase overall cardio respiratory fitness, we're increasing the overall strength of our heart, we're decreasing overall baseline heart rate. And that overall increases heart rate variability. The other thing that we're doing is that we're increasing what's called Barrow reflex sensitivity. baroreflex sensitivity is our body's ability to regulate blood pressure under basically all conditions. We know that people who have hypertension or high blood pressure, that while they have a barrel reflex that works, it is less sensitive than those individuals who have a higher HRV and a lower blood pressure at least baseline average or quote unquote good blood pressure. So their their barrel reflects some sensitivity, these people with hypertension, it changes over time, it's basically the thermostat changing over time, it becomes less sensitive, and blood pressure stays higher. With better cardio respiratory fitness, we know that Barrow reflex sensitivity will increase decreasing heart rate decreasing blood pressure, or at least allowing it to fluctuate accordingly, and regulate accordingly. And that increases overall heart rate variability and the ability to for you to engage in better autonomic control or better control over your nervous system at will or with volition. So I tell people that if you want to really focus on increasing overall baseline heart rate variability, can you get it from 30 and 40? To 100? I've seen it done. But what I will say is that I think if the I think it's a mindset thing and a priorities thing, if the goal is for you to go from 30 to 40 milliseconds to 100. I actually think that that's the wrong goal. I think the right goal is how can I better train resiliency within the nervous system to recover faster, to modulate better and to just to be in more control of that aspect? I think that is the goal. But if you see the baseline range starting to increase, well, that's kind of like the icing on the cake. And it's a level of demonstrating like, yeah, there's there's some efficacy to what I'm doing. I have seen plenty of individuals go from like a baseline of 30 or 40, up to you know, 60 7080 and 90. But I think removing that expectation and having more of the expectation of developing good control over your nervous system for all the health well being and launch Nobody reasons for that. I think that is the most important and valuable aspect. And then secondarily, it's just nice to see that up word trend.

And with the really interesting, I love that it's actually very similar. When you look at people who, you know, want to achieve goals, they think it's about the end goal that you're getting to. And if they just kind of push harder, that's gonna get them there faster, whereas actually, it's becoming the person that achieves the goal that gets you there quicker. And it's that growth journey. And then you sort of almost achieved that goal by default. And it sounds that's very similar with HRV. So if you're actually work on your resiliency, yes, your HRV will increase, but look at all the benefits that you've developed in terms of managing the system. I love that I want you to pick up on the VO two Max the point that you made there. So if we're looking at somebody who is going to incorporate as part of this development in this training, the cardio respiratory training, what would they be doing? Would they be doing an exercise? What was it what heart rate zone? Would they be working within? Or is it a combination of different zones to achieve that?

Yeah, no, it's it's a great question. So I think that we have the most evidence for increasing vo two Max is really going to come predominantly from anaerobic training. So doing a lot of high intensity interval training, high intensity repeat training to data sets, I think there is a lot of research to indicate that that is one of the if not the most primary components or things that you should include, if you're trying to increase overall vo two Max, however, what I will say is that we are having a we're finding more and more research to indicate that zone two training in combination with high intensity interval work. So zone two plus zone five, that that combination is extremely powerful. So there's individuals, or there's one individual doctor and ego son Milan, who's out of the University of Colorado, he's been on Peter a TS podcast multiple times, probably known, it's kind of like the preeminent zone to researcher, kind of his go to strategy is anywhere from three to four times a week at around 35 to 45 minutes, minimum 60 minutes is kind of like the good sweet spot is what people should be doing in regards to that zone to range. Now, if anybody's wondering what what is zone two mean? So zone two, there's kind of like two ways, actually, there's like four or five ways to find out what's zone two is, but there are kind of some general rules of thumb one would be is doing a moderate to low to moderate intensity type of exercise to where you could hold a conversation with someone while you're engaging in that exercise. Will it be comfortable No, no zone to conversations, I've tried it. They're not comfortable, but I can have them. They're a little bit strained. I feel winded when I'm doing it, but I can have them. That's one way of doing it. That's kind of like, you know, the poor man's quote, unquote, way of finding out what zone two is, the other way would be doing by heart rate zones. And that just depends on overall age, what's your max heart rate, and then working at a percentage window within zone two. And I don't have the charts on me right now, what that percentage of the upper thresholds

of this one's quite difficult, I find that because if I plug in that data, and I and I use my age, I'm 46. Then what happens is it puts me in a zone where I'm definitely not finding conversation difficult. In actual fact, it's very easy. And so I think when there's really be zone to this feels like, I'm just going for a walk, do you know to me?

Sure. Yeah, it's it's, it's a little bit odd, and which is why I use the most expensive mechanism for doing that. But the one that's going to keep you like accurately in zone two, which is actually measuring lactate, the post workout, so you can get a lactate metre, these are not cheap things. So I just like to I like to throw this out there. Like I don't think that if I think that people are probably going to get, you know, somewhere within the range. If they use a heart rate zone or some level of heart rate zone, that they'll probably get pretty close. But this is like the mechanism for like I'm spot on. This is more like the clinical mechanism for knowing zone two, which is looking at whether or not you exited your lactate threshold, or if you stayed within that zone through a lactate metre. But again, these are like four to $600. And then each test strip for lactate is like six bucks. So it's like doing this, yeah, three or four times a week can see it really adds up. So unless you just have

interesting on that. But sorry, I do quite because she wasn't interesting on that is that on? When I look at genetic testing, the test I use, it's actually now gone off for some approved medical thing approval. They actually give you the lactate your how much lactate you produce and what how quickly you clear it. And again, that's interesting because I was somebody who produced lower levels and cleared it faster. So I wonder how that would affect things as well.

Yeah, I'm sure it would. I'm not sure that I could speak intelligently enough because it's probably I mean, but yeah, super interesting.

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the answer 1,000% Is that more research says yeah, absolutely. There are some things about the human about the human physiology about neuronal functioning, and the potential disconnects between the central nervous system and the autonomic nervous system, especially for women who are going through these phase shifts that we just do not understand. And it's these weird, just human physiology paradoxes that are quite fascinating that I know for a fact there are multiple institutions that are looking at why are these shifts happening that we just don't have the answer for, you know, if we are seeing that during the luteal phase, that heart rate is increasing, respiration is increasing, then we know that both of those combined especially with an increase in body temperature, are very similar to what will happen when somebody who is experiencing a nervous system that is being overly taxed. And so therefore, heart rate variability would go down. However, if we do then have kind of like this almost like competing evidence that individuals are releasing neuro chemicals and neuromodulators that are there for either causing more of a calming effect, or at least should be causing a calming effect, then like, where's this disconnect? I think that's kind of the problem that we're trying to solve. There's the gap is like, how do we have one essentially, like system, the central nervous system responding one way, and the autonomic nervous system responding a different way? Like what's at the middle of it? Like, what's there that's either causing this disconnect? And then what's the reason from an evolutionary perspective, from a physiological perspective, for any perspective? What's going on there? I don't know. It's a great question. So excuse me more research. Yes. Should be had there. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. And before we go into how people can start to regulate this and use the app, just one last question, just to kind of set the scene really, for individuals listening is what are the benefits of them doing this? I know like, I love watching your content on Instagram. And you talk about how important this is, you know, in terms of training, and I always say to people as part of my shift protocols, you know that the last T is training the body and the mind, and that includes the nervous system. What benefits Why would somebody put effort into you know, conditioning their nervous system, and what can they ask for? From a mindset perspective, decision making expect a perspective, a health and longevity perspective, what are some of the benefits that would you know, people think well actually, it's really worth putting the effort into this.

One of the single greatest detriments to the human body, the thing that has the most deleterious effects on wellbeing and on longevity, is when we experience a stressor, which is inevitable, something that could be utilised for good, depending on how we kind of take that stressor and take that experience, and then shift our focus. But the problem is, is that for most people, it is something that derails us from a psychological and a physiological perspective. So many people that I see experience a stressor that, for the most part should be benign to the body, but becomes quite malignant. And the reason it becomes quite malignant to the body is because it has compounded over time, whether it's work stressors, whether it's relational stressors, you know, whatever it whatever it is even an overtaxing of the body due to physiological stress, working out overexposure to zone five training or sauna or cold exposure, a lot of things that the biohacking community are really into right now. These things can work for us. But if they're unaddressed, or if we don't see how they're significantly affecting our physiology, well, then we might be missing something pretty big, we might be walking around completely draining our adrenals, completely draining our HPA axis, and completely draining our resources from a nervous system perspective. So you know, I kind of like the old adage of like, what, because what gets measured gets weighed, what's that? What's the what's the old adage? I was gonna say? It's what gets measured? Because

change? Yeah, oh, the other words change where you can't change what you don't measure? Yeah,

and I think and I think that this hold true to the nervous system, a lot of people don't realise the effects of stress until they finally just burn out. And they're like, Well, I didn't see that coming. Well, you could have seen it coming if you were measuring it? Or if you were more self aware, which is really what honno does, it trains to different things. How do we become more self aware of how stress physiological and psychological and manifests in the same way? How do we become more self aware of what is affecting us and how it's affecting us. And then how do we better self regulate, those are the two primary key components that we really must address. And the reason that we must address those is because again, we don't want to eventually get down the road, and we completely burn out. And now we're talking about like Mount Everest is in front of us, in order for us to get back to just feeling normal or baseline, we want to catch it when it happens, and then regulate it when it happens. Because if we condition, a response that is different than our normal response, maybe our normal response to stress is avoidance. Or maybe it's getting overly kind of like indulging in work, or overly indulging in food or overly indulging and whatever it is, that's maybe not so great or adaptive to us. We create these be habits, these habits and behaviours that allow us from a cognitive perspective, to just avoid doing any of the real self regulation work because we have other things that are quote unquote, effective and helping us to regulate our nervous system, when in fact, they're actually quite bad for us, they're quite maladaptive for us. So if we take the approach that when our nervous system takes a hit, and we use that stress for good, so this is a mindset thing, or we transition to self regulating through biofeedback or exercises, or meditation, or whatever type of approach really is effective for us, then we're conditioning the ability for our bodies and our physiology to respond that way, when it occurs again, and again, and again, as it inevitably will. One thing that I want to point out, because I think it is something that's not mentioned very frequently, is that stress inherently is a good thing. Stress is not bad. Stress, at its core is actually there to serve as a warning sign. It is a warning sign to say, Hey, this is something that is potentially threatening to you. This is something that could potentially harm you. Do you want to use this? Do you want to flee away from it? Or do you want to fight it? These are kind of like our ways of dealing with a stressor that's in front of us. And we have to make the decision on how we encounter that stress. Do we allow it? Do we make the decision to allow it just to consume us and really affect us negatively? Or do we say, yeah, I get it. It sucks. Like this thing is really tough. It's really difficult. But the only way for me to continue to make myself tougher is to develop the self regulation skills, because we know that if we do this over and over and over again, this is going to end Increase our overall emotional regulation, it's going to increase our self control. And we know that these those two components, emotional regulation and self control are very much intertwined with where our heart rate variability is, but also longevity. So longevity is the one thing that I think a lot of the health and wellness and biohacking community has really focused on. But they don't focus on this component of self regulation and self control. And they don't focus on this component of emotional regulation and how important that is, some are, but I think other people are really focusing on Oh, nutrition or exercise or whatever else is kind of more sexy than putting in the work of breathwork and biofeedback and emotional regulation. Yeah. So it's a long winded answer,

no grateful for I think it was really interesting. And I think, I totally agree with you, I think it's really, really fundamental thing to do. So Harlow, which you co founded, really exciting, because actually this, this gives you the ability to regulate and understand what's affecting your nervous system. In real time we were we were talking just before the show, aren't we even about things like food, and how I had some whey protein concentrate yesterday, but I don't normally have and I know not I don't tolerate it very well, and how that how unwell that made me feel and how that would have it effectively affected my nervous system. So really, I'm excited for you to share more about Harney because it sounds like this is a direct mechanism. And what I see just to be on sunlight, we can do I do quite a lot of testing with the Dutch test where we look at the sex hormones and we look at stress and we look at dopamine and epinephrine and norepinephrine and all these things. And cortisol and whether the body has moved into a that burnout stage or whether it's the stage before and it's kind of defending itself, or whether you're regulating your nervous system effectively. You can't just go and keep doing that test every week or every day, whereas this is giving you feedback. So when you've got a set of results, it's, I think, a great way of actually working on something and seeing the upward trajectory. Can you explain, like, what is Harney? And how's it gonna help people?

Yeah, so how to actually came out of us wanting to when I say awesome, me, myself and the other two co founders that company, us, we identify that there was a gap in the wearable market. We saw that if we think about what are the pillars of health, and again, this is a way oversimplification, but I think it helps to kind of paint the picture is that we saw that when we think about the pillars of health, we think about nutrition, we think about the wearable market for nutrition, we're really talking about metabolic health. So things like continuous glucose monitors are really helpful in that domain. We think about fitness. We think about exercise, we have companies like Fitbit, whoop, Garmin who excel there, then we think about sleep, that's another primary pillar. So for us kind of really known as being a front runner in that market, we have plenty of other really great companies bio strap and whoop and other companies who do sleep staging. And then the other one is stress. And we think about the stress component, we're like, Well, what does how does the wearable market address that? Well, they kind of dabble in it with HRV. But they're really looking at it from a recovery perspective. So how is the nervous system recovering during your night of sleep? Which is your prime time for recovery, which can give insight into stress and stress recovery? But is there a better way of measuring it? And is there a way of providing information that not just gives you data so that you say, Oh, well, there's my data point. But says, here's what you can actually do with that data. It gives you practical application, because it's one thing to put on a device. And in the morning, it says, Hey, you slept like crap. But now it's like, what do I do with that? Like, how do I make that applicable? How do I make that actionable? That's where we're like, the wearable market doesn't do a great job there. Oh, I didn't recover? Well. Well, what do I do? Like how should my day look today, so that I can focus on actionable steps for recovery? Well, it's not really there. So we said, Okay, well, let's do that for stress. Not only will we make a wearable, and a platform that's intended to measure stress, to give people better self awareness of stress, when they're experiencing stress and during that context, but let's also give them something actionable that they can do about it, where they'll see results, not later down the road, but instantaneously. And I think that is kind of the primary focus for us. So what Hanu is, it is a continuous daytime wearable, that is intended to monitor fluctuations or changes in the human stress response all throughout the day. And we do so through three continuous data capture points. Number one, heart rate variability, we are giving you second by second updates of heart rate variability, so you don't just get one singular score like you would with other wearables. It changes all throughout the day. It changes second by second because that's how Heart Rate Variability works. It's do continuous heart rate three is continuous respiration rate because we know that when people experience stressors, that breathing inherently changes, it's one of the first things to change that also then affects heart rate variability and heart rate. So we know when someone experiences a stressor, they can do one of two things. Generally, one, the respiration rate goes way up, from their baseline to it can go way down, because a lot of people want to get stressed where they do. They hold their breath, they hold it. So we see respiration rate go way down. So what we like to do is we like to track these types of fluctuations, and then put them within their context. So what does honey look like from a user experience? Well, when you're on our home screen, you see a running stream of what your heart rate variability is at that given moment, where your heart rate is at that given moment. And you also see what we call our stress resiliency score is a composite aggregate score that takes in three variables into consideration the ones I mentioned, heart rate variability, heart rate, and respiration rate. And it is a score that looks at how resilient is your nervous system at that given point, or how taxed is your nervous system at that given moment that you're looking at it, it is a score, unlike other scores that again, it will modulate throughout the day, depending on where those metrics are at that given moment. So it's not just like, hey, you get your readiness score in the morning. And that's it. And that's, you know, good luck with the rest of your day. Now, you can actually use that as a guide or as a gauge to based on the time of day and what you're doing. What this actually again, looks like from a user experience is that when you wear it, we find your baseline range of heart rate variability, and heart rate and respiration rate, we say okay, what is your upper ceiling, so where's your upper high average, and then where's your bottom shelf, your low average, and then where is kind of just your general right in the middle average. And your goal throughout the day is really for you to maintain as much consistency within your baseline range as possible. Now, I was mentioning to you, Angela offline before we got on here is that there are some striking similarities to how heart rate variability within our application works to like a CGM is that within when you're wearing a CGM, or continuous glucose monitor, you want to really limit kind of the strong fluctuations throughout the day of glucose. We know that from health, wellbeing, longevity, longevity, and metabolic perspective, we don't want significant fluctuations that are going all throughout the day through snacking and through really poor meal choices, like those really affect overall metabolic health. We know that same thing with heart rate variability is that we don't want to see these crazy drops and fluctuations, especially when we're not moving when we're kind of engaging like you and I are right now when we're just kind of really in a quote unquote, relaxed position, we want to see really good stability. A great phrase to remember when you're wearing Hanu Is that normal is better. So when I say normal is better is that we don't want to say you know, an overly high HRV is better. That's not tip, that's not necessarily correct. Raising your HRV is a really good thing. But just continuously going throughout your day, you just want to stay normal, you just want to stay within your range. But what we do is that when you drop below your baseline range below that lower shelf for a period of time, will actually alert you will push a notification to you saying it looks like something's a little bit off with your nervous system. And then you're able to log that event, we call that a life event within our app. And you can choose the category, well, maybe you are writing emails, and you are having email at me. And this is a big one for a lot of working professionals. They'll be writing emails, and they'll unconsciously hold their breath because they're tense. They're doing work that's tense. And their HRV will tank, their heart rate will go up. It's not a great thing for the body to experience that over and over and over again. And the reason it's not great for the body to experience that is because you are dis regulating your autonomic nervous system, and you're disrupting regulating your central nervous system, your brain and spinal cord at the same time. Because this is causing dysfunction within the HPA axis. It's causing these unnecessary cortisol releases. It's causing this dysregulation and adrenaline and noradrenaline these are things that are causing dysfunction throughout the day, especially as you experience it over and over and over again, just like you don't want to experience crazy fluctuations in glucose over and over and over again. And then what we do, which is I think the best part about this is that when we see things are not looking normal from a range perspective, you can do that life event, you can walk it and you can track it over time you can look at over the course of the last week, the thing that was really impacting me was my commute home, or the thing that was really impacted me was work relationships or you know, whatever you know, the category is, and then we give you the opportunity to train resiliency in that given moment through biofeedback or through breath work. And the great thing about is that you can see when you engage in the practice, you can see where you started from an HRV perspective. And then you can see where you ended and this is a great mechanism for demonstrating how effective that strategy was during that given time. So yes, you could to see the efficacy of your breathwork practice and how it affected your physiology in a positive way. But then also to what we know is that we're conditioning a response. So when someone experiences a stressor, if we then come every single time, or as often as we can, if we approach it with a way of self regulating the body and the brain starts to associate that practice with that type of stressor. So now we're finding that when we start to catch ourselves holding our breath, when we're doing email, email, or we're having you know, apnea, we immediately find that our body starts to slow, its breathing down naturally, to combat the negative effect of email apnea. So saying,

So training, almost like when the way you give, like I would say to people asleep, you know, you think about it with your children, and you do a routine that conditions their nervous system that helps them produce melatonin and gets them ready for bed, because you put them in a warm bath, you read them a story, you give them a cuddle with young children, you forget to do this as an adult, or even with teenagers. But pretty soon with that young child, a child, the moment you put them in the bath, their nervous system has been conditioned to expect bedtime. So what you're saying, I think, is that now, when you identify that as a stressful situation, where you might hold your breath, you might feel some agitation. If you've started to do that training over time, your body will naturally start to take a few deep breaths when you're in that state doing email, saying, estimate amazing, that's amazing. Yep.

This it's the core of biofeedback. And the reason why, when you look at biofeedback studies, the intention, yes, is to train self regulation. But what we see as the larger intention is a conditioning of a response. We know that the more and more we do something, the more and more the body naturally conditions that as our habitual response. So think about sleep, I think this is one of the primary things, if you train your body to go to sleep at a certain time, every single night. And to awaken at a certain time, every single morning, you find that, well, what do you not need, you don't need an alarm clock anymore, because your body naturally is conditioned to do it. The same exact thing happens when we conditioned our autonomic nervous system in our central nervous system to respond to events the same way every time. And that's why I say like, Hana was so incredibly important, not because of the self awareness component, that's great. Like, it's really good for something to help catch us during the day when we're fast paced, and we're going going going for something to remind us Oh, like that's affecting us in a way that's not great for our body to experience. That's good and all, but I don't think it means nearly as much if we don't then condition the response of self regulating. Because if we just continue to become alerted, well, we might become more aware of it happening. But if we're not self regulating that response, well, then I don't think we're getting nearly as much bang for a buck. Because if we didn't do the conditioning, if we put in the hard work of breathing slowly, then what that then will do eventually is help that to become such a habitual response, that you can look back in retrospect and say, Oh, wow, yeah, that was a stressful situation. I see how my body ramped up. But wow, I when I my body kicked into high gear, I just started breathing slowly, I really affected change without me having to consciously think about it. Because initially, you'll have to consciously think about slowing your breathing down regulate your heart rate, regulate your physiology, but what you want to do is you do it so much that it becomes unconscious, your your own mechanism for biofeedback instead of having to rely on any type of tech to do it.

That's amazing. And what about Could you could you use this to become effectively like more productive to have more flow because I'm doing like a lot of content creation, both in terms of like, video and writing at the moment, and I've identified I'm just curious how much this can help me with my with my time of day for example. So like I am very much a morning person. And I find that meditation followed by exercise is the thing that really Prime's my state. So I'll do those very early in the morning. And then I have about 90 minutes of just Ultra work, I can't Ultra flow, I just cannot replicate that any other time in the day in quite the same way. And that that primer just works so super well. I'd love to find a way I guess maybe tracking this of what's going on there. And how could it could I then replicate that for another 90 minutes during the day, like by using

it's you and I are so alike in that accord? Angela I am like in the morning I normally will work out around 630 in the morning so fairly early. And then when I come in to my office, especially after I've worked out I've done a sauna session. I've downregulated my nervous system, like for the night Next, like hour, two hours, it's surely like round two hours, like my mind is so focused, especially I'll put on like the Do Not Disturb on the phone. And I'm just I'm so full in. And then for me, it's like, around two or three in the afternoon where I feel like oh, man, like the really pointed focus is not nearly as there as much as it is like in the morning. And so what I've been trying to do is shift my focus and my training, kind of with my data. What I mean by that is that in the morning time, I use a lot more, I guess you could say, like mechanisms for upping the nervous system for ramping it up for engaging in kind of sympathetic output, through exercise through sauna exposure. And these helped me kind of generally in the morning, whereas for me, a lot of the times, I will find that in the afternoon, when I'm becoming more fatigued, I've had more time for norepinephrine and epinephrine to be released in the bloodstream kind of consistently throughout the day, I find that like just this kind of over flux of like sympathetic output is now at the point where I really need to down regulate it. So in the afternoon, I typically choose to do things that are less analytical, less kind of like pointed, and like I can get it done and check it off, and are a little bit more creative in my schedule, because that tends to be where my brain goes. But then also too, I utilise a lot of these downregulation techniques. So for me, what does that look like? It looks like a lot of slow paced breathing, it looks like a lot of breath holds, I mean, a lot of kind of co2 tolerance type trainings to increase overall vagal output, it helps me to get in a much more creative mindset for my afternoon focus work. So like for me, I just have a certain certain type of work that I do in the morning. And then a certain type of work I do later in the afternoon or evening, that are generally not a lot of like, and I like to do my harder, more analytical like, get like, this is the stuff that has to get done things in the morning and the afternoon, it's a little bit more flexible. So a lot of me it's kind of how I schedule my day. But then I also to just ensure that I down regulate my nervous system as much as possible. I will say that there's a caveat to this. For some people postprandial after a after lunchtime, especially depending on what they eat, let's say if they eat, you know, a nasty standard American diet meal, well, they're gonna get super sluggish in the afternoon, and they're actually going to have way too much parasympathetic output, and feel that just like crazy, just dive in energy, they'll actually see sometimes Heart Rate Variability go up in the afternoon, because they are just like overly relaxed and might be sitting on their phone and not getting a lot done. For those individuals, I would say, Well, number one, change your diet. But number two, like if you're thinking about this from a nervous system perspective, being in an overly parasympathetic state in the afternoon might actually not work to your advantage, you might need to amp your nervous system up, which is why it's so incredibly important to eat a really good meal around lunchtime if that's the thing you do if you eat lunch at lunchtime, but really also to use your data and your subjective feel it's good metrics. If you see that after lunch. Wow, yeah, my nervous system is really relaxed, it's good. But I'm not able to focus. Well, you might want to amp your nervous system up by doing maybe some more cyclical hyperventilation, maybe even integrate some kind of not intense exercise, but integrate some exercise and movement into your day. Do things that really get the brain firing

back to her in that situation, Could you could you decide to do some exercise and just really like amp it up.

I do it all the time. I do it all the time. So like I have a kettlebell in my office. So I'll do I'll kind of like rotate push ups, kettlebell swings burpees or maybe some, like get ups. Like there's a lot of things that I'll rotate and just amp the heart rate up, keep it up.

And this is just so people understand. This is where in the afternoon you've moved into a more parasympathetic state. So you're kind of feeling that sluggishness, that postprandial dip. And it's hard to motivate yourself in that situation. Doing something like 478 breathing that in enhances GABA is going to be completely the wrong thing. Because actually, we want to really elevate the nervous system, right? So actually, some exercise is a good thing or breath holds, things like that, that are quite stimulating on the nervous system.

Absolutely. But you have to know what your response is objectively and subjectively, China will show you you got to have a colleague of mine who like after lunch, like, like mornings awful for him like he is slugging mix looks like it's so bad. But then he eats lunch and he's like, ramped up like good to go. But for him like it's so amped up that he's like, I've got to down regulate in order to focus because my mind boggling all over the place because I'm so amped. It might be new, the caffeine he's drinking as well. For him like 478 breathing pattern would be phenomenal because now he's able to take something like that's like this and hone in. Whereas like, if you're already like to honed in and you hone in more through this type of breathing, you might just be like, I don't feel like doing anything I just want to sleep right now. And that's great for when it's sleepy time and not when it's like productivity time. So it's all about like identifying subjectively, how do I feel? And then where are my numbers?

I'm excited to try that. Because I think what you were saying, though, what's interesting, though, is sometimes I find though, the energy just has to be expended. So like, in your example of this guy, if I and I was having this conversation, actually, with Dr. Patrick Porter, you know, the founder of brain tap, we did an interview recently, and we were talking about how some days, I will wake up and say I've got a lot of, and some deadlines, I can wake up at 430 and go straight into work. And he was he was saying to me, be aware that that is mentally extraordinarily taxing on the brain, you may be hyper productive, but you're going to fatigue quite quickly. And I noticed that very, very much. So you fatigue, and you've got to reboot and do something quite parasympathetic. But on the other hand, if I do, for example, I don't exercise first thing, right. And I just take it a little bit easier in the morning. And somehow I've just, you know, when you're just not quite as on it that day, and I don't exercise, and then I've missed that window, I will become very agitated, and unproductive. And I don't know, like, you might say to me, Well, you could do a breathwork session. From my perspective, I feel like I have got to go and exercise otherwise, as my kids will say, Mommy's not such a nice mommy and they will

know that know thyself, right, you have to know what is effective strategies for us. And not just based solely on kind of where our data are. I think that data are really interesting guides. But the best guide that we have is our subjective experience. And then our prior history of knowing what is effective for us and what is not under certain situations and contexts. So it's all about like, if we can have everything aligned, if the stars align, like that's the best thing, if the data, the subjective experience, they're all agreeing with one another. Well, then now we have just a recipe for amazing success. But really, what I say is that like in the end, like always make the decision based on subjective feel over objective feel any day, because like, sometimes they're not going to marry up with one another. And then sometimes, too, one of the unfortunate things about data and Biometrics is that for a lot of people, they could be marrying up in a way, but they may not be able to make sense the data, let me give a great like, for instance of this. So people when they initially were using Hanu, they said okay, so if I drop a low my baseline, well, that actually means then that my body is experiencing a stressor. Yes, probably. I mean, we actually actually we know for sure that if your HRV drops below your baseline, then your nervous system is being taxed by stress. Could that be physiological? Yes. Could that be psychological 100%, it could be a combination of both of them. However, there have been some people who have said, well, I was driving, and someone cut me off, I felt my body go into like a shock that real quickly, type of experience. And when I looked at my Hanu, it didn't drop below baseline. And I would say, Yeah, but from where you were to where, prior to the event, to then the event being done, what happened to your HRV. And they said, well, it didn't drop below baseline, but I saw a stark drop. And I'd say yes, like that is what you would see and experience. Every time that we experience a stressor, this is not a bad thing for the body, the body has to mobilise energy and respond accordingly. That's how you stay alive. So it's not something that is negative. But even if you're not dropping below your baseline range, if you still see kind of these constant, like 50% drops in HRV, and then another 50%, and another 50%. Even if you're staying within your baseline range, we want to avoid those happening all day long. And the reason we don't want those happening all day long. Again, even if you're not dropping below your baseline HRV is because you're having to mobilise a tonne of energy during those small what looks like insignificant moments. And so what we actually have with Hanu is that we're not just looking for when you dropped below baseline, we're looking for those drops all day long, and we're alerting you to the significant changes, even if you're not dropping below baseline range. I know that was a little bit of a tangent me going off. But I thought that would be really interesting for us to really interesting, because because that's something we want to avoid. I keep going back to kind of like the CGM model, but it's very similar in some in some cases.

Yeah. Very interesting. And I think, yeah, so many people want this consistent output of energy. And this just feels like a very, very intuitive way of doing it. It's really helpful. You can track it and we'll see I'm, I'm excited. I know it's releasing next month, isn't it August? Do you have a special discount code for listeners? J please, you've been so generous with your time, please share, where can people find out more about you about Harney and also get using this device because I think it's on an amazing kind of entry offer right that people can get started with.

That's right, yeah. So you can check us out www dot how to health.com Hanu h a n New health.com. And our current pricing for our device is 299, which gives you the device and an access to the app for 12 months. However, for all pre orders, especially if you use Angeles code, which is Angela 40, you can get the device for 40% off, so we'll send you the device. And then we'll also give you access to the app for 180 bucks for the first 12 months. And then after the first 12 months are done, you can say yeah, let me renew or let me not renew. But if you choose to renew, we're actually going to continue to give you 40% off of the retail price. So grandfather you in because you're one of the early adopters, you're part of the Hanu tribe, we'll give you 40% off of that as well through that next year. So again, use code Angela 40. To give Angela to get that Angela 40% discount, which is something we're never going to run again. So we said we're running this for a very short window. And then once kind of like the preorder window is up, which is probably going to be around September ish, maybe early October ish time. 40% off will never happened again, will still provide you know, things like Christmas specials or New Year's specials or whatever. But 40% won't be there. So get in early. Get your device early. Be one of the first people to experience on it. And that will be great. You can find this. I really say follow us on Instagram. We put a lot of content out there at Hanu health, my personal Instagrams at Dr. Jay Wiles, on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all the social media platforms. And yeah, chat with us. We'd love to hear your questions. And we'd love to have people join in with a whole new tribe.

Yeah, amazing. And actually, your content on Instagram is just incredible. And all the science you linked to. And for members of the female bio hacker collective, I think Jay is going to come in and speak privately to that group. So if you're in the membership, you're going to get a really good inside look at Harney and be able to see really in detail how it works. So amazing. Thank you so much, Jay. We will link to all of that in the show notes. It's been incredible to have you on and thanks again for coming on the show. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the High Performance health podcast. We really hope you enjoyed the show. And this podcast wouldn't happen without listeners and supporters like you and the best way to support the show. And to support me is to head over to iTunes or whichever platform you're listening on and provide us with a five star review. This really helps us to spread the message wider and help and impact more people to optimise their health and longevity. And if we read out your five star review, please reach out to us at info at Angela Foster performance.com with your name and your postal address and we will send you a call biohacking supplement or something else. Thanks again for listening and until next time, keep our sinking and stay optimised.

Thanks for listening. Remember to review and subscribe. You can grab the show notes, the resources and highlights of everything Angela mentioned over at Angela Foster performance.com You can also snatch up plenty of other goodies including the highly helpful Angela recommends page which is a list of everything she personally recommends to optimise your mind, body and lifestyle