Full Transcript for 33. HRV Explained by the Man Who Helped Build the Technology, Vivek Menon

were in the HRV world, I it it wasn't a shocker to me anyway, uh by any means, because there's a heavy kind of flavor overlap. 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:17.600 But yeah, we so we haven't really touched base as much, but I knew that you've always had a lot of interest in so when I just in the last few days saw all these pieces about your background, it just uh okay, you know, I'm just glazing on you. 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:19.759 That's uh it's just uh you're you're a stud, man. 00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:20.480 It's like amazing. 00:04:20.879 --> 00:04:21.600 Amazing resume. 00:04:21.839 --> 00:04:25.439 Well I'm like I'm just embarrassed I didn't know those things before, really, to an honestly. 00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:26.480 Not at all, not at all. 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:27.120 Then thank you. 00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:32.000 And uh well, I you know, I definitely looking forward to digging into the heart rate variability standpoint. 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:56.399 I know it it was one of the reasons why I kind of got into trying to learn more about functional medicine and also came across you, and there's some commonality between how you w look at the mind and the body as a working machine of incredible complexity and how HRV is with its you know pros and cons is kind of like a check engine light for that for that, you know, mind and body. 00:04:56.560 --> 00:05:06.800 So I I you know, not to not to presume, but I do do folks know about heart rate variability already and what it is and how it works and all the kind of boring scientific stuff? 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:08.000 I mean, that's a really great question. 00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:09.439 It's too bad we're not live, right? 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:12.879 It'd be awesome to kind of poll a survey poll a crowd if we were. 00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:15.360 But I mean, I'd be curious your experience if you're asking me. 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:17.680 Uh so that's that's why I brought this up, right? 00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:22.959 I wanted to look, you you and I were just talking about how I asked you about this almost a handful of years ago. 00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:24.959 We had a phone call around it four or five years ago. 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:29.759 And uh and I find myself asking the same questions now that I'm I was asking you or myself five years ago. 00:05:29.920 --> 00:05:53.759 And I think that's where if we were to like uh give the abridged version of what you know is on my mind anyway, to bring forward to asking you about today and are sort of like it might be just one or two things, uh one or two topics, and certainly one of them is just, hey, uh how applicable and meaningful really is HRV, or where have we come along in the last handful of years and you know, what's the what's the future of HRV? 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:56.879 Because speaking to your point, how many people know about or talk about it? 00:05:57.040 --> 00:05:59.759 I have a very I have a good number of people who ask about it, right? 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:08.160 If you ask me in our patient population, and granted our it's not, I'm not gonna say that our primary care practices or root seeks virtual practice. 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:09.519 So let's let's split that out. 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:18.480 In our primary care practice, where we're a kind of a mix of some health enthusiasts and functional medicine familiar folks and more the lay public, okay? 00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:21.040 Uh because we're not a typical primary care practice, as you know. 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:26.639 I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna just guess I'm gonna guess at least a third have some familiarity with what HRV is by name. 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:26.879 Okay. 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:30.480 I mean, there's a good number of people who there's a fair number of people who are talking about like their, right? 00:06:30.639 --> 00:06:34.079 We we can get into this Whoop Watch, the Aura Ring or some kind of device. 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:40.000 I'm not I'm not even familiar with which devices do or don't have it, but uh a good number of people have heard of it and have familiarity with it, right? 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:41.680 Much less social media and all that stuff. 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:54.959 In the Root Seek community, the virtual function medicine consulting practice where we do it, it's it's much it's a skewed population from the office practice, it it's it's undoubtedly it's a much, much, much higher percentage, right? 00:06:55.040 --> 00:06:57.759 I would bet it's like, you know, conservatively 80 plus percent. 00:06:58.959 --> 00:07:02.160 So what's your what's your experience about the like public with HRV discussions? 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:03.439 Yeah, I mean it it is. 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:07.759 I think this will get into kind of where the value of HRV is and where it isn't. 00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:12.240 But it's it's it's that sounds very familiar to me. 00:07:12.399 --> 00:07:17.279 You know, it's it's certainly higher than it was, you know, a decade ago when we started. 00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:26.319 And so we were kind of the the company that is now Spren was then elite HRV, and it was begun at a time when wearables didn't really incorporate it, you know. 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:32.800 Certainly, you know, it was early days of the most popular wearable now, which is Apple Watch, and it was pre-Whoop and Aura and all these things. 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:47.279 And so our whole deal at that time was saying, hey, wait a minute, you know, smartphones are getting more powerful, everyone's networked, there's decent sensors around like chest straps and other things that are now sensitive enough to measure this biomarker. 00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:50.560 So why don't we try making it more accessible through an app? 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:53.439 And that was the original kind of genesis of our idea then. 00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:55.839 And that was before it was kind of more mainstream. 00:07:56.079 -->

00:08:08.560 So I think, you know, seeing where it is now, I can understand that there is uh there are several kind of subsets of the audience that really know about it and want to understand how to better use it. 00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:17.600 And I think they can find a lot more information now than they could in those days about, you know, what it is and how to use it and who uses it best and how maybe it doesn't work either. 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:20.480 And also it's also so much easier now to just give it a try. 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:23.040 And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, you know, no big deal. 00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:32.159 But you know, maybe before we jump in there, d should I should I do you want me to explain a little bit about what actually it is for the 70% that aren't as familiar on the Yeah, that's good, yeah. 00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:32.720 Yeah, that's good. 00:08:32.879 --> 00:08:33.039 Yeah. 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:40.240 Okay, so just kind of the high-level consumer version of this, you know, HIV stands for heart rate variability, but it's actually not a cardiac measure. 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:41.600 It's looking at the nervous system. 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:42.879 Isn't that confusing? 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:43.759 Right? 00:08:44.399 --> 00:08:49.120 It should be called your your nervous system score or something like that, your homeostasis score. 00:08:49.200 --> 00:09:00.320 But what it's actually doing is looking at the fingerprint of uh your autonomic nervous system, which is these two branches of your nervous system that operate without you really having to think about it. 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:05.519 From fight or flight, which is kind of the crisis of the now, to rest and digest. 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:06.639 And that's not just us. 00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:10.799 All mammals, you know, it's a deep evolutionary capability. 00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:22.080 And what happens is based on what's going on in your environment, a healthy nervous system should be responding to your organs and muscles and sensory, you know, tissues to handle what it needs to do in the moment. 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:28.240 And a healthy individual should have a quick and resilient response, kind of like a fluctuation. 00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:38.399 If a tigers chasing you, should quickly be able to go into fight or flight, activate those muscles, turn off digestion, turn off reproduction, turn on your senses so you can, you know, flee. 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:40.720 And then when that's done, it should be the opposite. 00:09:40.799 --> 00:09:47.200 It should be turning on digestion, turning on recovery, turning on reproduction, turning on, you know, all these other rest and digest measures. 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:54.240 And so HRV, the way that uh the fingerprint of that activity does show up in different places in your body. 00:09:54.399 --> 00:10:05.519 It shows up in your pupils, it shows up in body temperature, it shows up in your the skin, uh, sorry, the sweat on your skin, but it also does show up in the variability between your heartbeats. 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:13.679 So you can have a 60 beats per minute pulse and a 60 or 80 and 80, but they could be two very different 80 beats per minute. 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:17.600 One could be like a metronome, another could be highly variable. 00:10:17.759 --> 00:10:20.480 And so that's the HRV we're trying to measure. 00:10:20.559 --> 00:10:23.759 And there's many different kinds of statistical ways to measure it. 00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:33.840 Some of them get really exotic, and there's research on all of them, trying to compare them to specific kind of markers of disease, certain states of mind and body, et cetera. 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:44.960 But at the grand scheme of things, the way to look at HRV is if your nervous system is performing well, then it should be sensitive and responsive to the stresses and when there is no stress. 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:59.919 And in modern life, a lot of people, this is no surprise, I think to anyone, tend to, for various reasons, controllable and uncontrollable, live in a situation of chronic stress that can be exacerbated by decisions or things that happen during the day. 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:10.480 And so that's the key for the right populations on where HRV could be useful, either used directly through a wearable or through a you know coach or a practitioner or somebody else. 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:12.639 I'll just pause there for a second to see if that made sense. 00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:14.080 No, I I love that. 00:11:14.240 --> 00:11:25.440 I love your I really appreciate you taking that time to explain that because transparently, and if we would have had that this if we were to think back to the conversation from almost a handful of years ago, I wouldn't have been able to delineate that, right? 00:11:25.519 --> 00:11:29.919 I'm I I part of it's my mind goes into the technicalities of so what is it about the heart rate and this and that? 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:33.120 And again, the name just as you say connotates something about the heart, right? 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:36.080 So and we know it's connected, then everything is connected, obviously. 00:11:36.159 --> 00:12:00.559 But but I think you just right off the bat, I I wonder, I've never asked people and I've never had the conversation to get enough of a intuition feeling, but I'm I'm wondering for you, what's your sense of the general population when they if they have a familiarity at all with the term HRV, maybe likely even know that the name, the term heart rate variability, equate it to nervous system slash stress management as a metric versus something about their cardiovascular health? 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:01.759 What's your take on that? 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:06.960 Yeah, I I know from our company's kind of so we we know we've served over a million users. 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:14.000 And one of the biggest questions, yeah, I

mean, one of the biggest questions is what what how how does measuring my heart help me with recovery? 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:22.720 You know, it's obviously connected in people's minds to a cardiac outcome rather than the deeper, you know, fingerprint behind it. 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:35.519 What we used to tell people, which I think is more mainstream, particularly I think for your for the uh online uh folks, is it's useful for a used as kind of like a recovery baseline status score. 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:49.039 And I think that's how a lot of wearables generally portray it, you know, they'll factor into other nowadays they're using other, they're adding other things to that algorithm, including resting heart rate and blood pressure and other things, sleep quality is a good one. 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:55.360 But they're generating kind of okay, here's how you are doing compared to how you were doing before when it comes to your readiness. 00:12:55.600 --> 00:13:04.639 Well, so I'm gonna challenge I'm gonna challenge you back to the question and then we're gonna move on to that because you've you've just touched on uh twice now the the second biggest question that I had as a summary of this chat. 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:06.240 But going back to the original here. 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:39.840 Yeah, what if you had to if you were forced to give an answer from your experience working with the public, et cetera, through Spren or through your personal life, yeah, what percentage of people actually have a meaningful association and recognition that HRV is about the nervous system regulation and stress management, let's say I mean I'd say that's it's probably less than of the people that that are familiar with HRV, I'd say maybe a third know that um or really understand that if if even that it was it used to be one of our most common questions of people that would come to using the um the biomarker. 00:13:40.159 --> 00:13:40.720 Yeah, that's my guess. 00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:42.799 I was gonna say at least under 50 percent. 00:14:03.160 --> 00:14:03.320 Yeah. 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:05.480 I mean, conservatively conservatively. 00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:06.040 Yeah. 00:14:06.440 --> 00:14:18.600 And and you know, when you look at kind of like articles and more kind of you know fluffier information that wearable companies put out about it, and they're doing it deliberately, not to get too deep into science, they don't actually talk about that as much. 00:14:18.920 --> 00:14:29.000 You don't they don't go down that rabbit hole of you have the these nerves that come from your head and your sacrum, and those are different than the nerves that come from the rest of your spine, and those go to your organs, these go to your muscles. 00:14:29.080 --> 00:14:30.519 So the it doesn't really get into all of that. 00:14:30.759 --> 00:14:35.879 Well, because historically, um you know, where I've seen people talk about HRV is it's it's commonly the athletes, right? 00:14:36.040 --> 00:14:43.800 The athletes who are tracking all the more pro uh more athletic and fitness-minded folks who are tracking a lot of metrics because they're into it, right? 00:14:43.879 --> 00:14:44.840 They're health enthusiasts. 00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:53.480 And so that's where I even myself included, I I just equate and associate it more to do with cardiovascular fitness, especially where it says heart rate. 00:14:53.560 --> 00:14:55.000 It's obvious to it's easy just to do that. 00:14:55.240 --> 00:15:09.320 But that's and I think that's a a a large reason why I I'm bringing it back to the forefront here and asked you about doing this chat, because you know, you you may not be aware, but in in a lot in a lot of these podcasts already, the the the sessions prior to now, we talk a lot. 00:15:09.400 --> 00:15:16.120 We several people and I have talked about, especially Mike, who's a Mike uh Schranz is a an in indoor environmental professional. 00:15:16.280 --> 00:15:20.200 He he's a like indoor building inspector, right, for sick environments. 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:25.960 And we talk a lot about this mold illness topic, which I won't go into detail here, but we talk a lot about the fight or flight. 00:15:26.040 --> 00:15:30.440 Now, people who've gone through a lot of health issues often deal with a lot of fight or flight. 00:15:30.519 --> 00:15:36.600 They've been told by a countless number of practitioner healthcare practitioners that it's all in their head or it's not real or whatever else, so they get traumatized there. 00:15:36.680 --> 00:15:39.400 Then they got stuff on social media that's just gaslighting them all over the place. 00:15:39.480 --> 00:15:41.560 And so this fight or flight thing is a very common topic. 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:56.040 And so somewhere in the last couple of years or whatever, when I it it sort of just had there's an epiphany light bulb in my head and was like, okay, wait, we were always talking about how it's so hard to gauge and assess what's happening with our, you know, quote unquote limbic system or our fight or flight status, stress management. 00:15:56.120 --> 00:15:58.040 Everyone talks about stress, but how do we really gauge that? 00:15:58.200 --> 00:15:58.840 Ding ding ding. 00:15:58.920 --> 00:16:00.280 Oh, like, hey, HR V. 00:16:00.440 --> 00:16:01.720 You can use that for that, right? 00:16:01.879 --> 00:16:12.440 And then but I quite frankly, I don't I don't know that I hear I don't hear that our in the professional colleague community in the functional medicine world, not even conventional, I don't hear people talking about it in that in that context. 00:16:12.519 --> 00:16:14.600 And all of a sudden I'm like, wait, we're missing something here, I think. 00:16:14.680 --> 00:16:15.000 I think. 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:16.200 That that yeah. 00:16:16.280 --> 00:16:18.040 So let me parse through that a little bit. 00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:20.840 Uh the that's that all makes sense.

00:16:21.080 --> 00:16:30.600 I think firstly, so yes, in the sense HRV kind of jumped jumped the shark through athletic performance needs, particularly in endurance sports. 00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:47.400 And so I know for a fact that our the bulk of our earliest users were, you know, cyclists and long distance runners and and people who wanted benefits on the margins of their training, typically around avoiding overtraining when what they needed was more rest and recovery. 00:16:47.560 --> 00:17:01.960 And in that situation, your nervous system actually has a pretty good fingerprint on HRV for that state of of or for trying to make a decision there, especially if you're measuring yourself consistently over a long period, I mean days and days. 00:17:02.120 --> 00:17:06.039 And we can get into kind of how to measure and good versus bad ways and all that later. 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:16.039 So just to be clear, I'm pretty sure I heard you right, but you're saying these these athletes, they're they were using the metrics to say, yeah, am I pushing myself myself too hard and I actually need to tell myself and force myself to take a break? 00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:18.359 Because a lot of these people like push themselves all the time, right? 00:17:18.599 --> 00:17:18.920 Correct. 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:19.160 Yeah. 00:17:19.799 --> 00:17:26.759 In fact, they're what they're doing is a is a very similar thing, analogy to what your parasympathetic nervous system does to your heart. 00:17:26.920 --> 00:17:30.039 So your heart wants to beat at 100 beats per minute. 00:17:30.120 --> 00:17:37.559 You're you're, you know, the sanoatrial node wants to beat at 100, but your parasympathetic nervous system in the right moments should tell it to beat slower. 00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:47.000 JRV is a way to do the same thing for people psychologically who were conditioned to, you know, no pain, no gain, do that, do that long run no matter what. 00:17:47.079 --> 00:17:49.960 You wake up in the morning, you feel terrible, but nope, nope, do it. 00:17:50.120 --> 00:17:57.880 It gave them that external validation to say, you know what, you'll actually probably have better progress if you don't do a hard workout today. 00:17:58.120 --> 00:17:59.799 And so that was the the original genesis. 00:18:00.279 --> 00:18:00.840 That's fascinating. 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:07.480 If if patients of mine who are you know more fitness-minded like that are using it for that purpose, I'm not sure that I'm actually aware of it. 00:18:07.559 --> 00:18:09.079 I don't hear them like inferring that. 00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:11.160 So I'll have to start asking that more poignantly. 00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:11.960 Thanks for that insight. 00:18:12.279 --> 00:18:13.240 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:15.880 And so, and yeah, so that was kind of the original one. 00:18:16.039 --> 00:18:29.880 Having said that, I think you used the the term the limbic system, it's not just athletic performance, you know, it's not just moving and exercising and training load that induces strain, good or bad strain on our system, right? 00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:50.039 And so if you have constant micro and maybe not so micro doses of inflammation through your lungs, through your digestive system, through kind of issues with your circadian rhythm, all of these other things, through mental stress, through emotional trauma, through all these other things, those do leave fingerprints on your nervous system. 00:18:50.200 --> 00:19:03.160 And so, for example, you know, those kinds of tracking those kinds of things is a little bit trickier because it's not like, hey, I did a workout for and I did this volume of training, whether it's reps or miles or whatever else. 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:22.680 But if you can track long enough, like say, for example, you're part of the first responder population or you're in the military or in active combat, those kinds of populations can use HRV and other markers to kind of understand if, hey, maybe today is not the best day to, you know, put in the 24-hour paramedic shift. 00:19:22.840 --> 00:19:24.840 And so that that is another way to use it. 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:28.680 I think it really comes down to what are you trying to track? 00:19:28.759 --> 00:19:30.039 You know, what is your goal? 00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:35.720 Because if if that isn't clear, then the value is is going to be harder to find. 00:19:35.799 --> 00:19:43.079 And we could talk about a little bit more about what those can be outside of athletes or first responders, but where it started was in that population. 00:19:43.400 --> 00:19:43.480 Yeah. 00:19:43.640 --> 00:19:45.000 No, that's really fascinating. 00:19:45.079 --> 00:19:47.400 I mean, so I'll kind of extend off there. 00:19:47.559 --> 00:19:57.799 The other big question I wanted to ask you, and that maybe this is just a reflection of my limited or my my wandering mind over the years, I it's only recently for me. 00:19:58.039 --> 00:19:59.559 So I've heard, I'll just say this. 00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:08.120 I've heard many people, even colleagues, but most mostly patients and and just social uh friends, friends, talking about the term recovery. 00:20:08.279 --> 00:20:10.200 So you've used that a few times already, all right? 00:20:10.360 --> 00:20:13.319 And people just talk about it kind of whims f whimsically, right? 00:20:13.400 --> 00:20:18.680 There's a lot of terms I'm I'm I can get a little over analytical about terminology and semantics and all that stuff. 00:20:18.759 --> 00:20:24.279 And so this is just one of those ones that I I keep hearing, but I've not spent a lot of time asking people, like, what do you mean by that? 00:20:24.360 --> 00:20:24.519 Right? 00:20:24.759 --> 00:20:26.039 Same goes with the term longevity. 00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:28.120 I'm always asking people, okay, so what do you mean by that? 00:20:28.279 --> 00:20:32.440 Because it's I still, in my opinion, as

it for another time, I think that's something that's evolving. 00:20:32.519 --> 00:20:36.440 I don't know how many people really have clarity within themselves, but recovery, right? 00:20:36.680 --> 00:20:37.559 What does that really mean? 00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:45.400 I've again, when I've heard that from people who are athletes, you know, I'm I'm inferring from them that they're talking about recovering from workouts, right? 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:53.960 And I'm thinking about it more in terms of energy or uh maybe cellular regeneration, whatever, just uh energy and the cardiovascular side of things. 00:20:54.120 --> 00:20:59.079 I like I don't hear people talking about recovery in the context of the fight or flight topic, right? 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:03.240 And then somehow for me, many times it's gotten mixed into or bleeds into topics about sleep. 00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:03.559 Okay. 00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:21.799 So for me, from from my experience, when people and I'm talking about over the years, you know, not just in the last year and a half or two, as I've been thinking about this more and listening more and questioning it more, but when people talk about HRV and recovery, it's commonly the athletes, and I'm they're they're talking about like uh exercising more, and then they're talking about being sure they get enough sleep. 00:21:21.880 --> 00:21:29.079 And some people do talk about like stress management, but I'm not hearing anybody like definitively give me a feedback as to what they're doing about it. 00:21:29.160 --> 00:21:38.440 They're just using it as a general gauge, and it's a little bit of like a trial and error or you know, just be mindful, but it's not there isn't like a straight protocol that I'm hearing people about what they're doing about it. 00:21:38.519 --> 00:21:40.120 So again, I didn't ask more questions. 00:21:40.200 --> 00:21:42.120 But anyway, the point just re being recovery. 00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:51.640 Now I'm understanding it more as as you just point out, recovery about the the nervous system, more so than like I feel like I recovered from that workout per se. 00:21:51.799 --> 00:21:58.680 And so it makes a lot more sense for me about, yeah, uh, if athletes are pushing and pushing and pushing it, then there's a there's a limit. 00:21:58.759 --> 00:22:17.400 And we and we see this in the longevity world in biomark biomarkers now for biologic aging and stuff, where certain kinds of fitness athletes, endurance athletes in one way, power athletes in a different way, they can arguably, when they've crossed a certain threshold, they can arguably be less healthy than some sedentary individual you know, average uh individuals. 00:22:17.559 --> 00:22:20.920 And so now you're telling me, yeah, yeah, that's we've we've Seen that for years. 00:22:21.079 --> 00:22:24.039 It's their way of measuring, okay, we I need to stop pushing it so hard. 00:22:24.200 --> 00:22:34.759 It's almost like the chronically sick people we

deal with, and they're not pushing it, they're just sick and they they've got other reasons outside their control, out of their own doing, their volition doing, right, commonly, that are causing them to have chronic inflammation. 00:22:34.920 --> 00:22:39.400 The athletes, they're not dealing with mold illness and chronic Lyme per se, not in a meaningful way. 00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:41.799 They're pushing it, you know, out of volition. 00:22:42.120 --> 00:22:44.440 And so, but but all in all, it's a common denominator. 00:22:44.519 --> 00:22:49.880 It's a way of saying, hey, some action needs to be taken to reduce the load, the provocation with the inflammation. 00:22:50.200 --> 00:22:51.880 Fair to say or feedback thoughts on that? 00:22:52.120 --> 00:22:54.759 No, uh yes, very fair. 00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:01.000 And I I will agree there's no good standardized comparable definition of recovery. 00:23:01.319 --> 00:23:04.039 I would argue, not only between different populations. 00:23:04.120 --> 00:23:24.680 So obviously, quote unquote recovery looks different for a, you know, an avid whoop user who does high-intensity interval training and is measuring their recovery and strain score versus somebody who's, you know, perhaps battling chronic fatigue syndrome and is measuring or needs to know how recovered they are for a completely different reason. 00:23:24.840 --> 00:23:26.840 I think physiologically it's it's a different one. 00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:27.880 It's you can't compare it. 00:23:28.039 --> 00:23:36.039 I also think you can't necessarily compare you take two people from the same population of, you know, let's say they're both endurance cyclists. 00:23:36.120 --> 00:23:40.680 I don't think you can compare recovery, quote unquote recovery across the same people either. 00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:47.160 I think it it is actually, from what we've learned, it's it's a highly personalized measure of what's going on inside. 00:23:47.319 --> 00:23:51.240 And I do think to your point, it has to do with nervous system function. 00:23:51.319 --> 00:24:03.640 But deeper than that is I think it has to do with kind of underlying inflammatory load, which has a million different sources, and that inflammatory loads impact on your body to maintain what's called homeostasis. 00:24:03.720 --> 00:24:11.160 And I know we're getting abstract, but it's basically like your body's ability to adapt to more changes that you throw at it the next day. 00:24:11.400 --> 00:24:15.319 So if we take the example of a an athlete, it's it's the next workout, right? 00:24:15.400 --> 00:24:19.559 That's that's usually what they're trying to gauge how how they could do. 00:24:19.720 --> 00:24:28.519 But if you look at, you know, uh somebody suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, they're just trying to avoid that malaise that comes before they get that episode, right? 00:24:28.600 --> 00:24:37.079 And you know, I don't I don't want to be too glib about something that's really serious and painful and difficult, but their form of recovery looks very different. 00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:56.360 Um and and there are companies that use HRV, we can link them if you're interested, but they use HR, they they provide tools that incorporate HRV and other things to help somebody suffering from a form of, you know, a condition like chronic fatigue syndrome better able to design the next day based on how recovered they are. 00:24:56.600 --> 00:25:13.079 I don't know if I answered your question, but if if I was to say one thing is it's it's highly personalized, and what's maybe more impactful is looking at your own recovery over time versus trying to like standardize it against a subpopulation and definitely not against kind of a a more general group of people. 00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:15.400 Yeah, and I think uh we could easily extend there. 00:25:15.640 --> 00:25:26.759 You know, before we popped on, we were just bantering a few minutes and we were uh so you know, one of the questions I had in mind, I was actually originally gonna just lead off with, you know, I I I think I I don't know, are you I'm ESPN fan? 00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:27.480 Oh yeah. 00:25:27.880 --> 00:25:28.039 Okay. 00:25:28.200 --> 00:25:33.400 So you know, they always have these like commentators and then they do these fun little like almost like talking head segments, right? 00:25:33.480 --> 00:25:39.720 Like, you know, buy or sell, or you know, like, you know, it you know, are the are you are you agreeable or you're not agreeable when they come up with fun terms, right? 00:25:39.799 --> 00:25:46.519 So I was gonna ask you like, hey, so right now as it stands, you know, HRV trajectory going forward, like, you know, buy or sell is on, you know, is it on an upswing? 00:25:46.680 --> 00:25:54.360 Is it kind of like starting to become a I don't want to say passe, but you know, are other topics becoming more trendy and HRV is sort of being pushed to the periphery? 00:25:54.440 --> 00:26:04.200 And and so we we kind of skirted on that again before we jumped on recording, where you were talking about how there's various reasons why, perhaps arguably why the HRV has been hard to scale, right? 00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:09.240 In terms of either you you weren't specific, but I kind of inferred as whether it's interest or utility. 00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:20.120 You know, easily we both agreed, like, hey, yeah, conventional, I I can't imagine conventional practitioners are there's they're not talking about it volitionally, and how much are they actually responding to patients talking about it? 00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:21.799 I have no idea, but I can't imagine as much. 00:26:21.960 --> 00:26:30.360 And I think your comment there, which is kind of like an epitome illustration of functional medicine, is that when it's very personalized, it's hard to scale when it's personalized. 00:26:31.079 --> 00:26:31.480 Fair? 00:26:31.720 --> 00:26:32.120 Absolutely. 00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:32.440

Yeah. 00:26:32.680 --> 00:26:33.079 But yeah. 00:26:33.319 --> 00:26:35.000 But I think that's really it's really insightful, right? 00:26:35.079 --> 00:26:45.559 Because I think a lot of times, and so for me, for me, this there's a there's a there's a similarity uh for right or wrong in my head about the HRV in in talking to patients about this with the VO2 Max. 00:26:46.360 --> 00:26:46.519 Right? 00:26:46.600 --> 00:26:50.120 There's a lot of different wearables and companies saying, like, oh, we are in the biologic age now. 00:26:50.200 --> 00:26:51.400 I mean, there it's all the board. 00:26:51.480 --> 00:27:02.519 All kinds of devices are like, oh, we have a biologic age, and well, we you know, I mean, I enough enough about it from my wife's work that it's you're looking, you're basing it on one metric, that the accuracy is extremely poor, extremely poor at the best. 00:27:02.680 --> 00:27:09.799 And I'm sure the same thing, without getting real technical here, because I know I remember talking about that with you a handful of years ago about, hey, what's the accuracy, quote unquote, the HRV? 00:27:09.960 --> 00:27:30.680 And it varies, but I think what you just pinpointed, which is what I've been telling people, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, is okay, look, even if it's even if your HRV from your Whoop Watch or Apple Watch or a ring or whatever, even if it's not that accurate compared to a gold standard metric testing device or test of whatever sort, hey, it's consistency, it's it has precision because it's within its own device and for you. 00:27:30.840 --> 00:27:45.799 So the goal is just to journal and track info and journal your your your cause-effect correlations, if you will, and then personalize some kind of regimen stack behaviorally medication, supplements, sleep, whatever, to improve your, you know, what your goals are. 00:27:46.039 --> 00:27:46.440 Right. 00:27:46.680 --> 00:27:47.160 Fair? 00:27:47.319 --> 00:27:47.559 Right. 00:27:47.799 --> 00:27:48.519 Yeah, absolutely. 00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:49.400 Fair again. 00:27:49.559 --> 00:27:55.319 And and you know, the one way we would kind of communicate this is if if you're you're on a journey, right? 00:27:55.400 --> 00:27:59.640 Typically, when if you're trying to do this, there's some sort of goal or destination you have in mind. 00:27:59.720 --> 00:28:05.799 It could be athletic performance, could be recovery from some sort of chronic illness or managing chronic illness. 00:28:05.880 --> 00:28:10.120 It could be just general longevity and wellness and healthy habits, what's healthy, what's not. 00:28:10.279 --> 00:28:13.400 And so you're kind of developing this movie of yourself. 00:28:13.559 --> 00:28:15.640 I mean, you're watching this movie of yourself. 00:28:15.799 --> 00:28:41.480 And then the reason why is when you take measurements consistently over time, like you can with the wearable or with, you know, dedicated check-ins versus like doing a very deep, you know, in-lab, highly accurate kind of institutional measurement of something like HRV, when you're taking lots of little measurements, you're kind of putting a lot of movie stills together to see the picture as it's changing and the stories being told over time. 00:28:41.640 --> 00:28:46.920 Versus if you have this gorgeous 4K image of yourself, it's still just one snapshot, right? 00:28:47.079 --> 00:28:48.200 And so, you know what I mean? 00:28:48.279 --> 00:28:53.160 Like that has its uses, especially if you're comparing that one snapshot against other snapshots. 00:28:53.240 --> 00:29:01.799 And so then you could be like, oh, your whatever, your blood pressure, your heart rate, or your HRV or your lab marker is definitely out of range for your population. 00:29:01.880 --> 00:29:03.000 So you could do that stuff. 00:29:03.160 --> 00:29:09.000 But the accuracy and sensitivity of the instrument and the ch the wearables on your wrist aren't great. 00:29:09.160 --> 00:29:09.720 Let's be honest. 00:29:09.799 --> 00:29:27.880 It's a complicated place to get, you know, you've got tendons and joint, you've got all kinds of things going on in your wrist, and there's movement and noise, and all of that actually can be forgiven if you're taking it consistently, which, for example, could be in the middle of the night at a certain point after you've gone to sleep and you're you've you're looking at it over a long period of time. 00:29:28.039 --> 00:29:37.240 And so you can develop that movie and to give yourself some insight into, you know, is what you're doing working or not for the next day, week, et cetera. 00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:43.960 And so going back to your ESPN question, you know, I think as a as a talking head, I would say, yes, it's a buy. 00:29:44.120 --> 00:29:57.319 I it was a strong buy, I would say six, seven, eight years ago, because there was this explosion of technology that finally made it possible to do it, you know, on the wrist or the finger or, you know, elsewhere. 00:29:57.559 --> 00:30:05.960 And I do believe that that progression of technology is going to continue and make things more accurate, more inexpensive, more accessible. 00:30:06.200 --> 00:30:12.279 You know, we we pioneered and several companies do it, where you can take an HRV reading with your finger over the phone. 00:30:12.440 --> 00:30:18.200 And it's essentially a similar technology than what happens with the sensors on the wearable. 00:30:18.440 --> 00:30:22.120 I think it's gonna be a matter of time before it's you know embedded in a camera. 00:30:22.279 --> 00:30:30.920 And so there's for HRV and other biomarkers of that sort, I think there's definitely a a trend upwards to seeing more of it be available. 00:30:31.079 --> 00:30:44.360 And where success is gonna come from is not who can make the best sensor and make it easiest to use or cheapest to use, but who can help the person with the goal or the practitioner that might be having the kind of role where they're in

constant touch? 00:30:44.600 --> 00:30:49.240 Who can actually make sense of all this data and turn it into insights that actually make sense? 00:30:49.400 --> 00:30:51.160 Like what the heck does this recovery mean? 00:30:51.240 --> 00:30:52.440 How do I use this recovery? 00:30:52.519 --> 00:30:53.720 What is strain score? 00:30:53.799 --> 00:30:55.400 What is, you know, my daily readiness? 00:30:55.559 --> 00:30:59.400 What does all of this stuff really mean for my situation and my decision? 00:30:59.880 --> 00:31:00.759 Yeah, I I love that. 00:31:00.840 --> 00:31:01.319 Well said. 00:31:01.400 --> 00:31:20.360 I I that it's uh it sort of encapsulates how I'm I'm resonant with it because it feels like in this day and age with the AI, there's plenty of information gathering, but uh and I'm I'm sure it'll no doubt it'll evolve i even within AI, but the uh the interpretation of all that information I think is is where the it seems like it's that's what's on the horizon. 00:31:20.519 --> 00:31:21.720 It's it's it's hard right now, right? 00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:33.720 Really the question I was gonna just kind of move us into here as we kind of bring things to kind of like practical closure points is just you know, there's there's a point where too much inform uh um more and more information is too much information, right? 00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:38.279 So you talked about, and I I'm totally with you, you know, snap blood pressure is an easy example, right? 00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:46.840 I mean, commonly people will have blood pressure in the office, and then in a I think in a conventional setting where there's not much time or space to talk things out, I'm sure there's a lot of patients who are probably thinking, like, okay, but it's always high. 00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:49.960 I feel like I'm jacked up in the office, but they don't they don't take that into account. 00:31:50.120 --> 00:31:53.559 And I don't even get a chance to like talk about what my blood pressures are at home or whatever, right? 00:31:53.720 --> 00:32:00.440 So how valuable is that when you only have one check, I don't know, let's say twice a year, three times a year, whatever, in a given office and a blood pressure. 00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:08.680 But boy, if you were able to account for the blood pressures the person's doing at home or whatnot, on, you know, in totality, it could be it can be a pretty different picture, you know. 00:32:08.759 --> 00:32:10.039 And so same thing here. 00:32:10.200 --> 00:32:32.680 So at what point do you have any just overall advice about for practical applications for the lay person who has something that's checking HRV, regardless of the accuracy of that particular device and et cetera, like how often is a good frequency or too much information, or what kind of intervals of time might a person look at, you know, X number of points to say, okay, let's kind of stop and assess this? 00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:33.160 Right. 00:32:33.400 --> 00:32:33.960 Great question. 00:32:34.120 --> 00:32:35.079 Really, really great question. 00:32:35.240 --> 00:32:46.279 And you know, there's there's an answer for the individual or let's call them the consumer who has the device and is measuring themselves, and then there's an answer for a coach or practitioner or you know, somebody who's who's advising them. 00:32:46.519 --> 00:32:49.720 For the individual, you know, first of all, I totally agree. 00:32:49.880 --> 00:33:04.840 There are individuals that probably don't, shouldn't be looking at more data because it might be the wrong kind of psychological trigger, especially if they already know kind of what are the things that are there, they're you know, what it is that is causing them stress and inflammation and other things like that. 00:33:05.160 --> 00:33:10.759 So that population aside, and there's always going to be people that maybe it's best not to like have all this stuff thrown at you. 00:33:10.920 --> 00:33:18.840 When it comes to something like HRV, once you start to get a pretty good baseline, and I know the wearables kind of all have their different ways of doing this. 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:21.480 They don't surface the score right away, for example. 00:33:21.559 --> 00:33:27.880 They wait a few days until they kind of get a sense for your, we talked about it earlier, but kind of your personalized recovery patterns. 00:33:28.039 --> 00:33:40.920 Once you have that, I think it it makes sense if you if the collection of the data is easy and just kind of happens in the background and you don't have to sit down and take a reading and it just happens because you're wearing the thing, then it's fine to look at it every day. 00:33:41.160 --> 00:33:58.120 Certainly fine to look at it when something is changing in your life or that you're you're you know under duress or you're doing some sort of experiment to try to see, you know, you're changing your diet, you're perhaps, you know, doing a new workout routine, whatever it is. 00:33:58.279 --> 00:34:02.279 Maybe you bought yourself a fancy, you know, sleep mattress, whatever it is. 00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:10.840 If if you're curious about those things and you want the validation or you want to see if the money is worth it, I think it's great to check something like this every day. 00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:15.480 And all of these apps that go along with these devices now have tons of journaling. 00:34:15.639 --> 00:34:25.799 And I'm sure they're, you know, I'm a little bit removed now, but I'm sure they're trying to figure out how to use AI to make sense of all the journaling and stuff that you're putting in there and stuff that other people are putting in there. 00:34:25.960 --> 00:34:29.400 So you probably get some interesting information when you check it pretty frequently. 00:34:29.559 --> 00:34:32.440 I will say that you probably don't need to do this all the time. 00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:38.199 You know, I personally would go through periods where I

would use it and then I wouldn't use it because, you know, I'm okay. 00:34:38.360 --> 00:34:47.639 And our greatest success stories came from people who did it, and then they stopped doing it, and we asked, oh, you know, you had this like 300-day streak of HRV checking. 00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:48.920 What made you stop, right? 00:34:49.079 --> 00:34:50.039 And they said, you know what? 00:34:50.119 --> 00:34:52.920 I kind of it taught me how to listen to my body. 00:34:53.079 --> 00:34:54.119 I don't need it anymore. 00:34:54.280 --> 00:34:58.920 I I would know what my score was, what my recovery was before I even did the thing. 00:34:59.079 --> 00:35:04.119 And so for us, that's great because then you can apply that awareness of self going forward. 00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:04.519 Yeah. 00:35:04.760 --> 00:35:08.440 So, you know, and then this is more for like a, I guess more of like a consumer mindset. 00:35:08.519 --> 00:35:12.199 It's very different if you're a practitioner and your task is different. 00:35:12.360 --> 00:35:16.039 For for them, you know, it really depends on what the role is, right? 00:35:16.119 --> 00:35:21.159 It most are most practitioners are far too busy to be checking in that often. 00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:27.400 They're not looking at a roster of recovery scores and strains and this and that across a patient base. 00:35:27.559 --> 00:35:35.320 They probably not only do you maybe that's too much time and dedication task, but it probably there's a question of, you know, what is your duty? 00:35:35.480 --> 00:35:40.039 Are you supposed to be babysitting all of that stuff and trying to react to all that stuff all the time? 00:35:40.199 --> 00:35:40.440 Right. 00:35:40.599 --> 00:35:46.679 Maybe that's not the best, you know, arrangement of expectations between the practitioner and the client or patient. 00:35:46.840 --> 00:36:02.199 So from our experience, which is less than it was with coaches and athletes and consumers, is there are some practitioners that will use tools like this to bring in more data in kind of a standard intake process, right? 00:36:02.360 --> 00:36:11.960 So you're catching up with the person, you're looking at the labs, you're looking at what's going on, you know, social, emotional, you're looking at obviously the standard biomarkers. 00:36:12.119 --> 00:36:22.199 But then you might also be looking at like a generalized look at like, okay, what has been your near daily or weekly heart rate variability or your heart rate, dressing heart rate, and things like that. 00:36:22.360 --> 00:36:27.240 And there's even though that's very nonspecific, there's like a pattern there that might be more helpful to you. 00:36:27.320 --> 00:36:29.800 And you could look at it and be like, oh, what happened here? 00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:36.840 Well, that was when, you know, we decided to put our daughter in daycare and everything kind of plummeted for three months when we did that. 00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:39.240 No wonder you're falling sick, you know, now. 00:36:39.480 --> 00:36:48.360 So anyway, uh you can't redo a daily check-in as a practitioner, but if you're if you're looking for more information to help some of those decisions, then it can be useful. 00:36:48.440 --> 00:36:52.440 If somebody already has a wearable, is already gathering that data, it's easily accessible. 00:36:52.760 --> 00:36:59.480 I might, this is a good point where I might try to create some like uh take-home points as summary and uh get your feedback on them. 00:36:59.639 --> 00:37:02.519 So what I think what I've taken out of this is number one, start there. 00:37:02.679 --> 00:37:13.079 Yeah, so number one, the HRV is more about nervous the nerve, neurologic nervous system regulation necessarily than directly about cardiovascular system, right, organ system. 00:37:13.240 --> 00:37:16.039 So that might be old hat for a lot of people, but worth repeating. 00:37:16.119 --> 00:37:17.960 That's number perhaps uh point number one. 00:37:18.199 --> 00:37:25.400 Point number two, yeah, there's there's differences in accuracy and sensitivity of the different devices, but we don't need to get hung up over that. 00:37:25.559 --> 00:37:41.480 It's because it's more about the individualization, the individual, if you will, variability, day-to-day correlations versus really the take-home point is comparing your given person trying to compare their HRV scores to someone else's HRV scores is is complete crapshoot and chaos. 00:37:42.199 --> 00:37:44.679 Different devices, different technology, there's no standardization. 00:37:44.760 --> 00:37:49.400 Even if you're both runners and you run together five days a week, you're different people, there's there's too much variability. 00:37:49.480 --> 00:37:52.599 So comparing between people, you're kind of asking for trouble. 00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:57.079 Okay, especially if you're not even, you know, the more variabilities, the more trouble you're asking for. 00:37:57.240 --> 00:38:09.400 And then number three, the uh yeah, for some people, there's gonna be a point of too much information, but you've got to gather at the same time from the other side of the coin, uh the other side of the spectrum, you've got to gather enough data points to make something meaningful of it. 00:38:09.639 --> 00:38:19.079 So being able to, and this so that's it really what it is is really uh where I land with point number four, which is you the person using the device, they they've got to engage, they've got to do some work. 00:38:19.240 --> 00:38:21.480 They've they've got to do the the journaling, right? 00:38:21.559 --> 00:38:43.960 So going back to your comment about like a practitioner, you know, I hadn't really thought about it or experiences to this point, but if somebody brings me a bunch of points, then I'm left I could be left with, well, okay, how what what kind of variables did you introduce when, or were you controlling for quote unquote, or did you even check

this at the same time of the relatively same similar time of the day, you know, through through these different points, how much variability is there from day to day? 00:38:44.039 --> 00:38:45.320 What were you actually after? 00:38:45.559 --> 00:38:46.440 And so the same thing. 00:38:46.519 --> 00:38:55.559 I've had an order ring for a while, but you know, I I admittedly wasn't putting much effort into journaling cause-effect correlation, so I knew I wasn't really making the most out of it. 00:38:56.119 --> 00:38:56.280 Right. 00:38:56.440 --> 00:39:08.920 And so we have to the person with the device has to journal and do observation points to make it meaningful and then bringing it in support with a practitioner, health coach, uh whatever kind of practitioner makes it that much more meaningful. 00:39:09.079 --> 00:39:24.519 But they can't they can't do the they can't do the first heavy lift uh step if the device user isn't engaging and making the effort as well, which I think probably reflects back on how helpful can it be in com in mainstream America, you know, for the stereotypical just average individual, perhaps. 00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:38.360 If they're not I I'm not being negative, but you know, if you're not a health enthusiast and you're not in it, then you know if we're if we're just expecting the system or any given practitioner to kind of like do it for you, then kind of asking the expectations are kind of mismatched. 00:39:38.599 --> 00:39:39.240 I I agree. 00:39:39.400 --> 00:39:39.960 And that's great. 00:39:40.039 --> 00:39:44.119 That's a very uh clean summary of kind of the the key takeaways. 00:39:44.199 --> 00:39:48.360 I think, you know, it's a challenge that I think wearable companies are running into now, right? 00:39:48.599 --> 00:40:06.119 Is once you've got all those adopters that are keen to to you know, they're they're biohackers, they're highly, highly goal-driven, they're willing to to tag or journal or context or whatever, you know, they all have different terms for that process of adding information that so you understand what's going on with a number or a score. 00:40:06.280 --> 00:40:12.119 But once you get past all that population, how do you get more people to to use the technology, right? 00:40:12.199 --> 00:40:17.159 And so they're coming up with an interesting, unique, creative, kind of brand-driven ways to do that. 00:40:17.320 --> 00:40:23.079 But from my perspective, it's it's very similar to yours in that it's for the right people at the right time. 00:40:23.320 --> 00:40:27.639 And that changes for people, and it changes, you know, depending on their circumstances. 00:40:27.800 --> 00:40:33.960 And for some, well, fair number of people, it probably isn't the right thing to do for a variety of reasons we've covered, you know. 00:40:34.119 --> 00:40:53.480 And and yes, and the only other thing I'd add to that is even if practitioners have patients that are highly committed in their journaling and they're

they've got the aura ring or the other, you know, the wearables, and there may not be a place to use HRV compared to the other tools in in the practitioner toolkit and the other priorities that, you know, that might be. 00:40:53.639 --> 00:40:56.519 You only have so much time with each person, right? 00:40:56.679 --> 00:41:05.079 And you you only have so much bandwidth on their part and your part to ingest new information, and maybe this isn't it for that person or for your pride. 00:41:05.400 --> 00:41:07.000 So yeah, full disclosure, right? 00:41:07.079 --> 00:41:08.679 I think that's that's the reality of it. 00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:31.240 And and in and, you know, I think as more and more data comes out about human functioning, I think this question of what to do with all of this is really the key to, you know, what might make functional medicine more successful, or what might make, you know, athletic performance more successful, or what might empower consumers to take more charge of their own health and wellness journey more effectively. 00:41:31.320 --> 00:41:31.480 Aaron Powell, Jr. 00:41:31.559 --> 00:41:42.679 Well, maybe as a last question, then um do you you know, relatively straightforward, do you do you observe or are you familiar with there being a plateaued um static or uptrending or downtrending amount of research in the HRV world? 00:41:42.760 --> 00:41:43.960 Aaron Powell That's a really great question. 00:41:44.119 --> 00:41:45.400 I don't actually know that. 00:41:45.639 --> 00:41:59.960 I know that when we were uh in the thick of it, and that was probably you know right around the pandemic, and the pandemic actually spurred some additional research into heart rate variability because you had kind of long COVID dysautonomia kind of stuff going on. 00:42:00.039 --> 00:42:07.000 But at that time, there was a big jump in research because they actually used our platform and our tools because it was easy and cheap, right? 00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:15.800 And so I don't know if that momentum has continued like it did back then, but I do know that, you know, I don't think it's gonna go away. 00:42:15.960 --> 00:42:25.000 I think there's always gonna be this interest forever now in trying to understand the nervous system better because people have now understood how fundamental it is to our own functioning. 00:42:25.159 --> 00:42:26.920 So so yeah, it it'll stick around. 00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:35.559 And hopefully, you know, hopefully the the information that comes out of it is something that can be used in a, you know, more applicable way as we get better at it. 00:42:35.880 --> 00:42:38.039 Well, this has been really, really insightful for me personally. 00:42:38.199 --> 00:42:41.480 I know a lot of uh colleagues, a number of colleagues I know who do podcasting. 00:42:41.559 --> 00:42:45.159 What one of the things they like most about it is just their opportunity to learn from themselves. 00:42:45.400 --> 00:42:51.000 I don't that's not

a primary agenda for me, but this has been one of those for me. 00:42:51.159 --> 00:42:59.800 It certainly was born out of patient care, you know, intentions and purposes, but this has been really it's been a high level of insight and benefit for me. 00:42:59.880 --> 00:43:00.760 So I appreciate that from you. 00:43:01.079 --> 00:43:01.480 Well, thank you. 00:43:01.559 --> 00:43:02.440 I I hope it was helpful. 00:43:02.519 --> 00:43:11.400 And I hope it was I know we got into some of the weeds when it came to, you know, science and and tracking and all of that, but I hope I hope, you know, I hope it was useful for for them as well. 00:43:11.480 --> 00:43:16.760 And I think the good news now is if anybody's curious, it's easier than ever to to try it, see. 00:43:17.159 --> 00:43:18.119 So yeah. 00:43:18.280 --> 00:43:18.519 Yeah. 00:43:18.679 --> 00:43:19.000 Yeah. 00:43:19.240 --> 00:43:20.920 But uh yeah, I'm glad to hear that. 00:43:21.159 --> 00:43:23.559 Is there anything you want people to know about you coming up? 00:43:23.720 --> 00:43:29.400 I know you're writing a book, and is there anything else you would like us to anybody to know about you, about finding you, or just be on lookout for this or that? 00:43:29.480 --> 00:43:32.199 Or no, I don't actually, it's funny, I don't actually have anything right now. 00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:39.400 I think if if folks are interested in in kind of getting deeper into their own personal, you know, uh health, performance, wellness, they can check out Spren. 00:43:39.559 --> 00:43:47.880 We do HRV, but we also do things like body composition and other other ways to kind of assess where you are as a motivated individual. 00:43:48.119 --> 00:43:55.960 So we could start there and then Yeah, maybe maybe sometime later we can we can hop back on again and I can share some more stuff of what's in the works for the future. 00:43:56.199 --> 00:43:56.440 For sure. 00:43:56.599 --> 00:43:57.480 No, I appreciate your time. 00:43:57.559 --> 00:43:57.960 It's awesome. 00:43:58.039 --> 00:43:59.000 I it's been awesome for me. 00:43:59.159 --> 00:43:59.320 Yeah. 00:43:59.400 --> 00:44:09.400 And so as as usual, we just uh at the end just kind of remind people so the functional medicine reality podcast is effectively sponsored and extension of the Root Seek Health online virtual practice. 00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:25.320 So if you haven't worked with a a functional medicine practitioner before, and or you're in a place where you're looking for and needing, could use a a new direction, a different a different consultation consideration, it'd be our honor and privilege to to come alongside and support you. 00:44:25.559 --> 00:44:32.199 We are working in both the chronic and inflammatory arena as well as the longevity arena here at this point going forward. 00:44:32.280 --> 00:44:34.440 Um and you can find us at rootseekhealth.com. 00:44:34.599 --> 00:44:39.800 So that being said, um yeah, we'll wind this down and Uvika was my pleasure really. 00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:49.159 It's been a long time since we talked, so I really appreciated your time and ability to jump on and wishing the best of your family, the rest of your time before the uh school year gets re-reinitiated and all that. 00:44:49.240 --> 00:44:51.000 And but uh yeah, I appreciate you greatly. 00:44:51.079 --> 00:44:52.280 You're you're you're an awesome person. 00:44:52.360 --> 00:44:52.840 I really appreciate you. 00:44:53.079 --> 00:44:53.639 Thank you, Mark. 00:44:53.720 --> 00:45:03.480 I all all the same to you, and uh thank you for everything you do and all the best to your family all across the US and uh you know to to everything you're doing professionally as well. 00:45:03.639 --> 00:45:05.800 It's uh you're you're you're making a real difference. 00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:06.119 Thank you. 00:45:06.280 --> 00:45:07.000 Yeah, it's fun. 00:45:07.079 --> 00:45:08.360 It's our it's our calling. 00:45:11.159 --> 00:45:12.599 Just the way you like it.