#410 Salim Najjar: What Your HRV Score Is Really Telling You

meat mafia - rec 6-16-25
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[00:00:00] Silly and welcome to Awesome Brother. Oh man. Great to be back. Thank you so much for having me. We were just joking that we only had 45 minutes to record our last podcast, so this is the extension of, I think you were on episode three 13 talking about HRV, and we just dove right in. We got into all the nitty gritty details about.

Heart rate variability and um, so excited to have you back on because I remember as soon as we left the studio that day, we were like, we just need to, we need to run that back. 'cause that didn't feel right. So excited to have you back in studio man. Man. So good to be back and yeah, I vividly remember walking out and being like, yeah, we need a round two of that because we talk about regulating a nervous system and we gave each other, you know, 45 minutes to try getting it all out.

So it was like a very intense, like tennis match. I feel like you would say something that was like, golden. And then I would be like, all right, I need another good question here. Just 'cause we're trying to get every ounce outta that conversation. So if anyone's listening and wants to go back and listen to that one, it's uh, three 13.

But, um, Celine, you are the [00:01:00] HRV guy, you. Are an expert in just the central nervous system and all things, uh, stress related or I guess not stress related, but, um, I'd love to know, I, I feel like we didn't really talk about this last time, but just how you got into all of this, like just your backstory and understanding kind of your lead in to this passion that you have for helping people mitigate and understand where their stress is coming from and how they can get over it.

Yeah, and, and just to clarify, I would say I am a student of regulating my nervous system expert is a, is a interesting word. And, and I think it's a forever everyday practice to regulate the nervous system, right? And I think if anyone is in a human body, there's still work to be done in regulating the nervous system.

So, um, I'm an everyday student and it's been a passion of mine to support. Allowing people or showing people the importance of prioritizing, regulating your nervous system. Right? [00:02:00] Yeah. And new findings. I'm sure like as you make progress, there's always new things that you're learning. Totally, totally. And the biggest thing that I have learned that HRV has so much helped me is that the biggest factor is your relationship to the thing, your relationship to the story, your relationship to your stress, your relationship to whatever you are saying in your head is actually what materializes it, right?

Mm-hmm. And so it's a constant auditing and reflecting on how you're relating to things that really support the management of your stress or perceived stress. Mm-hmm. Right. It's so interesting thinking about how perception leads into all of this, like unpeeling the onion on what perception actually is.

It starts with just what we're seeing, hearing, feeling on a conscious and subconscious level. Then our thoughts that are interacting with those feelings that we're feeling, some of that's in our control, [00:03:00] some of it's not. Would you agree with that? Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a, that's a deep onion. Uh, that is, that is, uh, that's gonna take us off track of the question you asked, but we, we could definitely go, go.

Let's put a, let's put a pin in that one. Okay. We'll come back your story. I think that's a great one to come back to. Yeah. Um, and we can weave that in. Yeah. My story. Now we've got all the listeners on the edge of their seats. That's right. They're gonna, they're gonna wanna know. Um, yeah. So I, uh, I was born and raised in upstate New York and I'm first generation Lebanese.

Um, and I went to school for engineering and graduated and worked at a nuclear power plant for five and a half years. And it was during that time, right after I graduated that my, I say wellness journey really began. Uh, I lost my father when I was seven to cancer and never really processed it at that age.

And that is very much the formative age, right? And when I graduated college, my grandma got breast cancer and she was my second mom. And that's when it was like, whoa, what is going on in the world? Right? Everybody I know [00:04:00] has been impacted by this thing called cancer. And so I was like, let me just do some research because I have a very curious engineering mind.

And I came across this Dr. Tulio Elli, who has supported so many cancer patients with baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, because he believes that cancer cannot thrive in an oxygen-rich alkaline environment. And most people, especially in the west, have very acidic. Bodies due to the processed food and the bad oils and all the junk that gets consumed and sodium bicarbonate supports alkalizing the body.

And I was so mind blown at how there's these YouTube testimonials of him supporting people in their cancer journey with baking soda. Yet he's been ridiculed, licensed, revoked, and imprisoned. Right? Hmm. And for me, it was the first time that I really saw and realized that we see what people want us to see.

[00:05:00] And there's so much more out there if you just. Do some research, right? And look into it yourself. And that took me down rabbit holes of all sorts of weird things, from baking soda to hydrogen peroxide, to iodine, to colloidal. So all the, you know, the woowoo things and the engineer in me, like it's if someone says something, I don't believe it.

I want to go actually understand, learn, experience it myself to see how it works, right? Mm-hmm. And so that started out with diet and all different kinds of diet, which led me to really, this was maybe 13, 14 years ago, coming across ketosis, um, before I say the industry had ruined that. And, uh, and cutting out sugar completely.

And the number one consumption of sugar in America is beverages. And so I would only drink water and unsweetened tea. And a colleague of mine at the nuclear power plant was very health conscious. His name was Tommy and loved, we drink our yba mate unsweetened tea together, but he loved bubbles. And so he bought a soda stream, brewed up the tea, cooled it.

Carbonated the mate [00:06:00] and came up with the first sparkling tea and brought it in for me to try. And it was love at first sip. And uh, I knew that the nuclear power plant cubicle engineering, uh, life was not for me. And I was seeking something. I was getting my MBA in corporate finance at the time as well, um, to get out of that field.

And when I took that first sip, it was like love at first sip. And so about 11 years ago now, 10, 11 years ago, we launched sound, which is, uh, the first unsweetened sparkling tea company. So sparkling water flavored with organic tea, herb, and botanical extracts. Wow. Um, and it was at that time that the biohacking movement started.

So Dave Asbury, Ben Greenfield, um, you know. Had their books and just all started talking about this thing called biohacking. And I had quit the nuclear power plant job, moved to New York City to launch this beverage company and became obsessed with biohacking. Hmm. Read all the books. Tried all the things.

Same thing I did on the health side. Went down rabbit [00:07:00] holes of the technology to the point where I was showing off. I was living in New York City, uh, sleeping five hours, hacking my way to five hours of sleep, running 10 miles every other day and listening to, on average, five to six audio books a week.

Right. Not stopping. Yeah. Go, go, go. Winning, raising money, all the things. And I did that for about five years. Mm-hmm. So regimented. And all the hacks I did and everything. And then my body so beautifully broke down and my knee gave out from running so much. And that's when I say the inward journey started, which first was, uh, Bikram yoga because I was so addicted to the endorphin release of sweating and I couldn't run.

And, and so I came across Bikram and it was the first time my mind was forced to shut the up for 90 minutes. And it was like, oh, this is interesting. What's this? A lot of people struggle with Bikram yoga. Oh yeah. Just because of the, the silence. Oh, man. And, and holding. But I look around and it's a room full of like [00:08:00] 50, 60 plus people that are doing it, and I'm like, what the hell if they're here doing this, there is no way I can't sit here and hold this posture for two minutes in silent.

And it is such a mental challenge and beautiful. It's so challenging. Oh. Um, and it was actually a series of books that I read, and it was Dr. Joe Dispenza's Becoming Supernatural was. The first time that I saw HRV relating to stress, and this was our ring had just come out, maybe there was six months. This was, uh, six years ago, and I was obsessed with the data, like everybody readiness score, sleep score, all these things.

HRV was on it and nobody was talking about it. Right? And not many people are talking about it. Now, it's starting to be talked about, but when I read and Dr. Joe Depen is becoming supernatural, that HIV relates to stress, that engineering light bulb went off in my head because of all my research in the biohacking technologies, specifically one called NewCom and U-C-A-L-M, which is an incredible, it's an app on your phone and it's a [00:09:00] technology that's patented to get your body in a parasympathetic state through the use of ural beats.

Have you heard of bin Beats? So, yeah. So it's just a sound that gets you into like a rem, almost like a REM sleep or, so it gets you into this one, a theta state. Okay. And theta is when your brain is oscillating between four and eight hertz. Mm-hmm. And it's very much, um, a meditative between conscious and unconscious relaxing state.

Right. Gotcha. Super important state to be in. And what Ural beats do is they entrap your, your mind by sending two different frequencies in an ear. So they'll send, for example, 16 hertz in one ear, 10 hertz in the other ear. Mm-hmm. And your brain gets confused and it chases the delta, so it'll go to six hertz.

Right. So it's a beautiful way to get your brain into a desired, relaxed state, especially for people who are running a business and too much in their monkey mind. Right. And how quickly can that. Flip you into the theta state very quickly at first. But the thing with most ural beats is if you like, 'cause you could [00:10:00] YouTube them, Spotify them, um, it'll work 1, 2, 3, 4 times.

But then your monkey mind becomes so smart Yeah. That it picks up the pattern and it doesn't work. Why NewCom has a patent and why I am one of their biggest fans, and Tony Robbins has them at all their events, like they've been around for a while. Wow. Because they take 12 minutes to slowly guide your brain from the beta that you're normally oscillating in through alpha into theta.

And then when they get there, they, they keep oscillating. It's not just like 16 and 10 hertz. Right. Mm. So incredible patent to do that. But it was through my understanding of their technology that I realized science has very much proven in this dimension. We all age get disease and eventually die from inflammation on a cellular level.

A hundred percent root cause of any aging disease and death on a cellular level is inflammation. Hmm. Right. The number one cause of inflammation to our cells, [00:11:00] chronic stress. Hmm. And so if I'm a biohacker, if I'm into longevity, if I'm into supporting extending my life and I know the number one cause of all aging disease and death is inflammation on a cellular level, and I know the number one cause of that inflammation is chronic stress, then it's probably super important for me to be aware of when I'm in a stressful state and not stay in that.

Mm-hmm. And so when I realized HIV is measuring that exact thing, I was like, why is nobody talking about this? And this is the only thing I care about then. And so for the past six years, it has been a journey of understanding this biomarker. And really seeing what I can do to improve it. And at first it was trying to hack it like I, which is where I was, and it really didn't move.

And then it was when I started, um, prioritizing recovery, when I started listening to my body, when I started bringing in the eastern practices, when I started bringing in [00:12:00] meditation, cold, these different things that take your body into a parasympathetic state. Mm-hmm. Right? Because HRV heart rate variability, which is measuring that gap or variance between each of your heartbeats, it indicates how your heart manages its perceived changing environment, right?

Mm-hmm. So essentially your relationship to your perceived stress and a direct reflection of the health of your autonomic nervous system and its agility to go from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state. Hmm. And if we know chronic stress is the number one cause of inflammation to our cells. Then if we have the ability to see if we're in a stressful state and get out of it, it's one of the best things we can do for longevity.

Right. Yeah, just being aware of it too. Like, I think it's incredibly easy to just go about your day and not even be thinking about, you know, how your body is reacting to the different stresses that are happening throughout the day. You know, whether it's a, an email [00:13:00] that you got or, uh, you know, you hurt yourself or you eat something that caused you to be inflamed.

Like, there's so many little triggers. So just having that, that in your back pocket, knowing that there's one thing to kind of turn back to is, is super impactful. Uh, I'm curious with the bio biohacking stuff, when you started going down the rabbit hole, it sounds like your engineering mind took over. And I'm curious, were there anything else that you were doing from a biohacking perspective that you realized, all right, there's.

Like that you would put on the same level of, of HRV and meditation? Was there anything there that you look back on? You're like, man, I'm glad that I kind of went through that period of testing out all these things that maybe made you feel a bit neurotic or robotic and it got you to this place of understanding and being able to live outside of the realm of, you know, the, the hacking and, and uh, you know, almost like the robotic [00:14:00] nature of biohacking.

Totally. And and my answer is every single one of them, every single one of 'em, because I. I love all the technologies out there. And what I have come to realize through this journey is the most important thing is my relationship to them and why I am using them. Mm. Right. And so I would say the first five years I was very much using them to hack.

I was using them to optimize to, to be able to do more. Right. And now, sometimes if I need to, I'll use them for that, but other times I'll use them to recover, to get me in a parasympathetic state, um, for that part of the journey. Right. And so they're all in incre and I still use them, right. I still use them, but I don't let them control me.

Right. I use them for my intention and, and with the number one focus being, you know, HRV and prioritizing regulating my nervous system, because the thing that really, uh, the, the, the big epiphany and per perspective shift I had is that like, actually I. [00:15:00] If I am regulated, I'm more sustainably productive, right?

Mm. Because people think, oh, if, if I do an NSDR nap, right? Or if I, if I meditate, or if I, if I'm not doing something that isn't like productive on the external world, then I'm not being productive. Mm-hmm. And the reality is it that if you regulate, if you give your body that time, you are more efficient in the time that you are doing the material thing, right?

Mm-hmm. And I was very conditioned to thinking like, no, if I am not moving and doing and producing, then what am I doing? Right? Yeah. It's so interesting. We had, uh, we had Ben Greenfield on the podcast a few weeks ago talking about biohacking. And I opened up, I was just like, I feel like I had this misconception around biohacking, where I think when people first get into biohacking, they do it for.

The control aspect of wanting to control every biomarker, and they over-optimize to certain things. [00:16:00] And it becomes a bit of a, uh, self-regulating thing. Like they become trapped by the biohacking world. And the way he was describing it was, is the way that you're describing it, where it, it is this tool to work on like certain aspects.

It's not necessarily, you know, focusing everything on the output and everything on, you know, squeezing that last drop out of, um, your productivity, but more so like, how can you live in this modern world and apply these new technologies to help you feel at your absolute best. And um, yeah, it was just like, I think I had this like light bulb moment where I was like, I think I've kind of just like chalked up biohacking as kind of, uh, just an industry that's like maybe, um, you know, a little bit toxic around how they approach health.

Like. I think there's, um, some, some truth to that, but I think the people like yourself and Ben who are doing it the right way, it's really interesting and I think that there's a lot of applications that people can use [00:17:00] to, to really thrive in a world that is in a lot of ways, making you a lot less healthy, a lot more stressed out, a lot more, um, inflamed through all of the different modern, modern modalities.

Man, you, you hit the nail on the head and I think the best analogy I can give to sum up what you just said so beautifully is, you know, um, I've been traveling a lot and I kind of. Uh, you know, for months at a time. And when I traveled, I didn't have, you know, I used to have a hyperbaric aana coal plunge, all these things at my home that I would do consistently.

And when I traveled, I had none of those yet. My HRV was higher than it was when I was at home. Right. And I was, you know, in Bali, in nature, you know, present and happy and not, you know, all the other stresses when I was living in Venice, California. Right. And so what I, what I realized was, you know, like you said, these technologies are great to support us living in these cities and these high-paced lives with all the toxicity [00:18:00] around that to help mitigate that and center us.

But if we were living in the jungle and life was simpler, we wouldn't need any of these. Right? Yeah. And so we're not, and there's nothing wrong with either you live wherever you wanna live and then use these technologies to support recentering and grounding yourself because they're incredible allies for doing that.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's almost like resiliency should be. What underpins our health. That is 1000% true. And that is what, that's your nervous system is a measure. The health of your nervous system is a measure of your resiliency. And HRV is measuring how resilient you are to managing the perceived stress around you.

'cause the reality is, we have no control over what is happening in what I call this educational simulation. We only have control over how we react to what is happening, right? Mm-hmm. Our resilience to it. Mm-hmm. So you have this sort of light bulb moment around HRV [00:19:00] and you've been on this journey for the last six years.

Yep. Learning, discovering new ways to build that resiliency into like what your own experience is with HRV. Tell me some of the, the different things that you've done that have helped kind of gain a new understanding around what HRV actually is measuring and how it's actually playing out in real life.

Yeah. Because it can so easily just be a number on the screen where you're, you're over opt or you know, you're too fixated on the number and you're not like living it out, which I said this the first time we met, I was like, you might be the most relaxed, chill guy I've ever been. And it's, and it's like supernatural.

Um, so, uh, I appreciate that. And, and I think the biggest thing before answering that question, which will be a part of it, is just how I talk about HRV is a language in which your nervous system is communicating with you, right? Through that gap between each of your heartbeats. And I think especially in the [00:20:00] biohacking world or in the west world, it's super important to really solidify this understanding of it as a language.

Because when you think of a language, you don't think English is better than, French is better than Spanish, right? The whole intent of a language is for an ecosystem within a community to communicate. The entire intent of your HRV score is for your nervous system to communicate with you and your body, which means you cannot compare it.

To anybody else's. Hmm. Which is the hardest thing. It was very hard for me, very hard for biohackers. It's very hard for people too, because we love competition. We love wanting to be the best. Right? And the reality is you cannot do that with this metric because your score of. 50 could be better than someone's score of one 20 for your body, right?

Mm-hmm. That's so interesting. Very interesting and very hard for people, nuance people to actually grasp because if you see a number, you're always trying to compare it. The [00:21:00] only thing you should ever compare is your number to yourself. And how I look at HRV is I, I say understanding what your HRV baseline is, which I define as your average HRV score over the last 30 days.

Hmm. Now, before even, I guess diving into that, how you measure HRV for the audience, right? It's mostly through wearables is is the way people do it now, ordering Apple Watch, whoop, right? And what these wearables give you is your average nightly HRV score, meaning the average gap between every heartbeat throughout the entire night's sleep, right?

Mm-hmm. It's not your realtime HRV, 'cause your realtime HRV score changes 40 to 60 times a minute. Really. Right? It's that it's constantly, it's that gap between each heartbeat and your heart is beating 40 to 60 times a minute, right? Right. So it's meant to change. It's meant to fluctuate. And especially during the daytime, when your eyes are open, it's gonna change a lot.

Hmm. So those wearables give you the average nightly, which I think is a great indicator of [00:22:00] the health of your nervous system and whatever you did the day before. Right. And so your HRV baseline is the average of your last 30 days. And what's that giving you is a good snapshot of where your nervous system been the last month.

And so when you wake up, let's say you have a baseline score of 40 and you wake up and your morning score is 30, all that is is simply your nervous system communicating to you that whatever you did the day before. Was more of a load than it's been used to the last 30 days. That's not a good or bad thing.

It's simply data. It's information. It's a biofeedback loop. How you respond to it is what matters. If you respond to it saying, shoot, I have a low score and this is bad, and what am I gonna do? Then you're mentally putting out there, right. How your heart is managing its reality is not a good thing. Hmm.

Right. If you instead say, oh, I'm gonna listen to you and I'm gonna honor you, I'm gonna maybe prioritize recovery, prioritize relaxing, maybe do a leisurely walk [00:23:00] today instead of a run. Right. That is listening to this language of your body, and that is how you over time improve it. Mm-hmm. Right? So when you really utilize it as data versus trying to get somewhere right, that's how you improve it.

Because the reality is if HRV measures how your heart perceives its environment. We perceive our environment through our senses. Mm-hmm. Right through our touch, through our taste, through our sight, through our ears. But most of all, through our thought, Hmm. Our thought and our mental state very much dictate and actually materialize our environment.

hrv banger
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Right. And so if you're thinking you have a bad score, if you're thinking that person has 120, and if I don't get there, then I'm not healthy. You're actually leaving, keeping yourself in this loop of a low HRV score. Mm-hmm. It's such a, it's such an incredibly interesting and complex problem, right? 'cause you're basically taking the course of time that you've been on [00:24:00] earth, your body has been measuring all the different stresses that you've been under your entire life, and keeping a score that maybe you aren't even fully real realizing.

And all of a sudden there's a moment where you're looking at a number on a screen that's telling you. You know, just how well your body is handling or not. You, you, you probably would disagree with the way I just said that, like, not well, but how is your body handling the stress that it's given in any given moment?

And, um, it's interesting because, you know, you probably have a sub cohort of people who are, you know, maybe prone to not react to certain things in a, a stress inducing way. They're more relaxed, they, um, can see a bad score and, you know, float through it. And, you know, uh, they don't, they don't get stressed out about it.

But then you have people who maybe they're, they don't have a regulated nervous system. Their nervous system is dysregulated. They have childhood trauma that they haven't processed, and they see that number and [00:25:00] it freaks 'em out. So I'm curious, just knowing that thoughts are one of the key turning points here.

How do you go about unworking and unraveling some of that? To improve your HRV score. It seems like almost an impossible question to fully answer, but there's a lot of complexities there and a lot of deep work that needs to get done. Um, just given purely the, the fact that it's like such a reactionary thing, it's like you've been programming yourself to react to things your entire life.

Yeah, man, in certain ways. I hear such a beautiful question and it's kind of the, the foundation of the work I do to myself, the work I do with clients and, um, what I'm really trying to, um, bring to light in the course that will be launching soon. And it's, um, what you said, like anytime I've seen my score drastically take a incremental step change or any of my clients score, take an incre an incremental step change.

It's always been [00:26:00] around, um, a processing and an awareness of what I call a core wound or a master program, which usually has to do with parents or partner. Or siblings. Right. Something that's stuck in you from a prior time. Right. Um, because that is the number one thing that impacts the HRV. Right? Uh, 'cause the reality is, and this is kind of winding back to the thing we put a pin in, and this will be the first, the first surface.

Beautiful of it. Beautiful. Yeah. Um, if you were to map out your body anytime that you have a perceived challenge, a perceived trigger, a perceived stress, right beneath that, there is always an emotion or multiple emotions associated with whatever you are perceiving and directly connected to that emotion is a physical sensation that is stuck in the body.

And if you peel the onion one layer deeper on a quantum level, 'cause I engineering, I need to understand this. On a quantum level, an emotion is just [00:27:00] a scalar wave of energy. It is just frequency. There is no such thing as a good or bad emotion. We are meant to feel. Every emotion on the spectrum, and I believe Dr.

Joe Dispenza says, feel it for about 90 seconds. That's all it actually takes to feel. And then that wave moves through you. Right. However, if the nervous system cannot process that scalor wave of an emotion in that moment, or more often than not, we're in our formative years between the ages of two and seven, when our brain is oscillating in that theta state, meaning we are hypno, we're, um, suggestible, we're very, we absorb information easily, and we don't have a frontal cortex to discern reality for ourselves.

So we accept it as it is. And even if a parent unwillingly like, yells or screams at something that they don't mean to like cause a trauma, but the kid doesn't know how to process it. That scalor wave of an emotion that's supposed to move through you freezes inform a shape in the [00:28:00] fascia in your skin.

Mm-hmm. Do we understand why it freezes? Because it does not have the awareness. Mm. All an emotion ever want an emotion is energy in motion. That wave just wants to move through you. It does not want to be judged. It does not want to be put in a box. It just wants to be free. However, if it is judged or labeled or perceived as bad, if there's a yelling, if there's a traumatic thing that the nervous system is like, oh, this is, I should not be feeling angry.

I should not be feeling grief, I should not be feelings. If it is labeled or shamed, that wave doesn't go through you. It freezes and gets stuck. Mm-hmm. Right. Are are those often, would you categorize those as like, shame, fear, guilt? Are those kind of like the emotions that are most commonly trapped or. You know, ones that aren't, aren't easily processed.

Uh, anger in there, I mean, there's all, all different kinds of emotions can, can be stuck and, [00:29:00] and it depends on, you know, um, depends on the upbringing, depends on the situation. But the, the, the, the, the biggest key is the fact that they, they don't move through you. They, they freeze and they get stuck. And, and there's an incredible book the Body Keeps Scored that talks about how we're essentially grownups living in an adult meat suit with all our stuck frozen emotions, right?

Mm-hmm. And I think a great analogy to share that maybe, um, would paint this picture of an emotion better is animals, right? We learn, we could learn so much from animals, and there's this YouTube video of a deer eating grass on the side of a road and it gets clipped by a car. And the video, the camera stays on the deer, which looks like, you know, it's dead.

It lies there for maybe a minute or two minutes, and then all of a sudden the deer gets up and does this like, kind of, you know. Twerk. Like, you know, tremor. It's called tremor. And you'd think it would run because it literally is on the road that it just got hit and it almost died and now [00:30:00] it's up and it would run, it goes right back to eating grass in the same spot as if it never happened.

Dang. Now, if we look on a quantum level, what happened there was there was a traumatic experience. The deer gets hit, it goes down. When it gets up, that tremor that it did is actually moving that stuck energy out of its body. And then there's no more story. Hmm. It's like it never happened. Hmm. Humans, we don't do that.

We create a whole story, a whole world around this stuck emotion in us that we end up projecting in every flavor of our life. And so we think what we're seeing is causing this feeling in our body. And the best analogy I could give for that. The number one fear in humans, this is known, is public speaking over death.

Crazy. I was very guilty of that myself. Yeah. I think everyone can relate to that. Yeah. And so if I was gonna get on a stage or talk in front of people, I'd get these knots in my stomach. [00:31:00] And I used to think that that knot, that discomfort came from being in front of people. The reality is I co-created this scene in my life to be in front of people, to feel what I am projecting as an uncomfortable knot in my stomach, which is really just a stuck emotion that wants to be felt.

Right. Dang. Yeah. So can you public speak now, like without getting nervous? Or do you still I, I definitely can and it's a lot easier and there'll still be, at times I get the little sensation. But no, it's, you know how to process through it, know how to, know how to feel it. Yeah. Know how to feel it. And that's really, it's become the foundation of, of my work personally.

And my work with clients is really, um, you know, training to drop in the body and feel, because another way to think of HRV is it's how much are you listening to your body? How much are you feeling your body versus thinking in your mind? Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, [00:32:00] we were just talking about how you're at the Health optimization Summit and you were speaking here in Austin just about a month ago, the Biohacking conference.

Yeah. They've asked me. Bio hacking conference. Yep. Uh, biohacking conference. Yep. Yep. And, um, what a rewarding feeling. It must, must feel like to go up on stage, maybe feel some of those little inklings of nerves or whatever it is, but knowing that you have a process or knowing that you're equipped and your body is able to actually process those emotions and feelings and then step into.

You know, being on stage and, and, um, overcoming some of, you know, that, that, uh, the nerves that come with that, it's, it's a, a really, I think, empowering thing to hear for a lot of people. 'cause most people do struggle with just getting up on stage. And I think once you kind of have that moment where it's like, all right, this isn't as bad as I remember it as a kid, or whatever it was.

You can kind of like ease into it. But yeah, I say, um, training to be an emotional athlete, [00:33:00] right? And, and that's what I do. I try to do, that's what I try doing with my clients. That's actually a big part of the course. And at the end of the course, the last module in it is, uh, is my, I call it HRV Reset or somatic Awareness Practice, which guides you through, you know, when you're in a safe place.

Um, and getting the body in a parasympathetic state then intentionally eliciting the perceived trigger or perceived stress or visualizing being on the stage right. And then dropping into the body to just somatically feel what you are perceiving as this not in your stomach. And if you do that on your couch or in your morning practice, right?

Then when it comes time for real life, when you're on the stage, that energetic charge of the emotion that's in you has dissipated or may be totally gone. Mm. Which then gives you access to your frontal cortex and all of your memory and intuition and everything that you're actually supposed to be speaking on.

Mm-hmm. Right? And I think this is a good thing. [00:34:00] Um, people. Love to, to understand the importance of regulating your nervous system in terms of performance. Right. I got approached by, um, a, a, a professional athlete agency because they realize that, you know, they're top tier athletes that are playing on the professional scale.

The difference between like the hall of Fame ones, the Michael Jordans of the world versus the regular, they all had consistently high HRVs and they were trying to understand why. And I explained it to 'em that well, it makes total sense. Michael Jordan, when he's approaching that game seven free throw, you know, everything's on the line.

He is not stressed. He is not, yeah. He's like cooking eggs in his kitchen. He, he's calm as cool, which means. Physiologically internally, what's happening is he's not in his limbic back brain, right? Mm-hmm. Because the limbic back brain, your reptilian brain is the sympathetic fight or flight state. Mm-hmm.

The frontal cortex, which is your [00:35:00] intuition, your creativity, your muscle memory is the parasympathetic, right? Mm-hmm. And if you are in your sympathetic limbic stressed brain, you have no access to your frontal cortex. Mm-hmm. Meaning even if you took a thousand free throws a day, your whole entire life, and you know your muscle knows how to do this, if you are stressed and back here.

Your body does not have access to here. Right. The best analogy I've experienced that for sure. We, we, we all have. Yeah. And, and even if it's like an, we look back at, let's even say an argument when we were stressed with someone. How did I act like that? That was so silly. It's because you have no control, because you're actually running on a prior program that was installed to protect you, that your mind does not know the difference.

Hmm. And the best analogy I have for that is hospitals in Florida, they have a fail switch where if a hurricane or tornado's coming, you hit a button and all the metal shutters come down. So no glass comes in. Hmm. Brilliant program put in place to protect people. Right. What happens if a shooter's in the building and someone hits that button?[00:36:00]

That is literally what is happening to us in our day-to-day when our amygdala fires because our mind perceives we're in a stressful state. Mm. And then we go back in the limbic brain and we have no access to our frontal cortex. Mm-hmm. And a, the athlete example is a great analogy to just show on a bigger picture what is actually happening.

Mm-hmm. Which is why it's so important to train and become aware of when you are in that state mm-hmm. When you are in a stress state and utilize tools to get your body back in a parasympathetic, relaxed state. Mm-hmm. I wanna camp out here for a little bit 'cause I'm, so, I've just, I feel like I'm wrestling with some of the stuff that you're saying 'cause it's, so, it's, it, it can feel a little bit, um, just like intangible, like we're talking about stress, which is obviously seen.

I. To some degree, but then there's this unseen component to it, and like there's this balance [00:37:00] where, you know, you're internalizing different stressors. Um, you know, I've seen people who are under immense amount of stress, like you're talking about Michael Jordan shooting a free throw and they, they don't look phased at all.

And I'm curious, just like when you're looking at somebody, can you get like a good read on just like, like quickly, like okay, their HRV is here, or, or lower, just based on those things that you're seeing. Yeah. What I would say is I can get a good read on, um, their stress level, not on if their HRV is high or low, because again, an HRV score for dim, that like a 50 could be better than mine of like one 50, right?

Mm. But, but I could, I could get a pulse on just the overall health of their nervous system. And the one thing I just wanna, um. I want to not correct, but offer a different perspective. When you said, you know, like how someone like Jordan could be so calm and cool in that stressful [00:38:00] situation. Well, stress is all perception.

Right? And the reality is that was not a stressful situation for him. The millions of people that watch him, to them, in our minds, that's a stressful situation to him mind. To his mind. It's like he's cooking eggs, like you said, right? Yeah, totally. And so we're projecting our perception onto him, and that's at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is your relationship to the thing.

And his relationship to that free throw was not one of stress. That's hard to get to that point and train to that point, but he did. Mm-hmm. Right? And so that's really why the best thing anybody can do to support regulating their nervous system is just continue bringing awareness to around how you're relating to your things.

And if something actually does stress you. Bring curiosity to it. Contemplate why? Why is that causing me to react like this? Right? Mm-hmm. I say my, my two biggest allies in my journey [00:39:00] have been curiosity and levity, laughter, because the reality is it usually comes from an old program, from a younger version of you that again, was put in place to protect you from whatever the thing is.

But we're not young kids anymore, right? And so that program does not need to be running the hardware anymore. And the only way that stops is by bringing awareness and curiosity to it. And so I guess your understanding of stress, how would you really define like why we feel stress like in today's world?

I think our biological design, like we, we are intended to get stressed out as a protection mechanism, mechanism. As you just said, I. Against death. And I feel like now in today's world, there's, you know, obviously a lot of things stressful going on, but it's almost like it's shifted. Like there's, you know, the absence of death, like in our world today, [00:40:00] like in, especially in the West, like, you know, pretty safe life, uh, lives compared to what they were a hundred, 200 years ago.

So it's interesting just even thinking of that, like, you know, stress is a survival instinct, but at the end of the day now it's, it's like kind of just like wrapped into, you know, uh, emotionally charged text that you receive from somebody or, you know, and like you're getting that fight or flight response just based on like things that maybe, you know, our ancestors have been like, why, why would you get stressed out about that?

Man, you, you so well said. And I think, uh, one way I want to answer that is just talk about. Um, to, to really emphasize the point you just made is to talk about the evolution of our autonomic nervous system. Mm. Right. Because I, you know, the engineer in me always, uh, when I like looked at something, I was like, okay, well we've been around for hundreds of thousands of years.

Like, let's look how we got here because evolution doesn't make mistakes. Right. We evolved for us always. Right? Right. And [00:41:00] so how we evolved as humans to create this sympathetic fight or flight state was. Exactly like you said for survival because for most of our evolution, we were living in the jungle, not in safe homes with food and water, right?

And so in the middle of the night, if a tiger was coming, we needed to quickly turn on to actually survive in this physical form, which means internally your amygdala fires off, your eyes dilate so you could focus your heartbeats faster. All of the vital oxygen in your visceral organs, in your digestion, in your reproduction, in your glands, go to your extremities so it could fight or freeze or survive, right?

That is incredible to protect you for that hour or two when we were running from the tiger, and then you drop back into a relaxed state, right? Fast forward to today, we wake up from our deepest parasympathetic state of Delta. We look at the phone and we get that emotionally texting and then, oh, we think we're stressed.

So what is happening [00:42:00] internally is the same thing that happened hundreds of thousands of years ago. All of that vital oxygen tiger's chasing you goes to our extremities 'cause we think we need to survive and we usually don't. Drop back into a parasympathetic state until we go to sleep. So that's 8, 10, 12, 14 hours in this state.

And this is the reason why inflammation begins on a cellular level. Mm-hmm. Because instead of all of our reproduction, our digestion, all of the vital, visceral organs doing their functions, they don't have the oxygen and the good blood to do that. And over time, that leads to inflammation. Mm-hmm. Because the body is the most miraculous temple and vessel that can heal itself if it's just doing the things it needs to be doing.

Mm-hmm. But if the mind is projecting that it is in a stressful state, then it's not able to prioritize all those things, and that's where inflammation begins. Mm mm Right. And so for me to understand that was so crucial to know internally what's happening when I get that text and it's like, do I [00:43:00] really want to be doing this if I'm just getting a text?

Yeah. Right. So super important to understand that. And then the second thing is you, you hit the nail on the head. Stress is your best friend. Stress is your ally. How you improve the resilience of your nervous system and increase your HRV is through hermetic stress. Hmm. Right. And hermetic stress is the process of literally pushing your body to that 101, 103% and then recovering.

Right. And the best analogy I have for that is like if you're in the gym and you're lifting, you're building your bicep muscle, right? You are lifting, lifting, and you're going, you're literally ripping your muscles past what it can. Right. And then you actually tear your muscle and what do you do the next day?

Rest You rest it. Yeah. So that it could heal so that the next time you go, yeah, you can lift more. You can do more. Exactly. And so I want to double down on what I said the number one cause of inflammation on a cellular level. Was chronic stress. Mm, not stress. Two [00:44:00] very different things. Mm. Chronic stress is when you wake up, you look at that text from the cell phone and you don't drop back into a parasympathetic state till you go to sleep.

Mm-hmm. That is keeping your body in an 8, 10, 12 hour stressful period. Mm-hmm. Stress is the best friend in building that resilience. Mm. Cold plunging. You get in the cold plunge, your body's like, oh my God, oh my God. Cortisol firing. You're stressed. If you can sit and breathe into that parasympathetic state, that is hermetic stress at its finest.

You are training your heart and nervous system, Hey, I'm actually okay in this cold water. Yeah. So next time it's even easier. Mm-hmm. Right. Yep. And so. Stress has gotten such a bad rep, and the reality is it is our best friend. Hmm. And learning to listen and maneuver it and bring agency and awareness to it is how you start to improve it.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, I'm thinking about just the past few years, like things that would've stressed me out four years ago that I've experienced in the last, [00:45:00] you know, year or two from a business standpoint. Just, you know, I, um, started out my career in a corporate environment afraid to kind of get into the entrepreneurial realm 'cause of all the X, y, and Z risks that might happen.

Financial stress, you know, what if, what if you, you know, don't have enough money to pay a bill or if you know you're stressed out about, um, you know, just business and, you know, not knowing where your next paycheck is gonna come from and now. Like the thought of being stressed about that is, is, has totally changed.

And I, I feel like it's, it's an interesting thing to, to deal with as, as an entrepreneur is like, you have to get better at handling stress like month over month. Like it needs to become something, your relationship with stress and risk has to change. And, um, I just, I, I say that because I, I do just remember even almost just [00:46:00] being, you know, four years ago, like thinking into the future and being like, I'm not gonna make these decisions that I know I want to make because I'm like afraid of future stress, which is such a bad limiting belief.

And um, you know, I think if I, if I had been more equipped from just handling stress, which I've, I've learned through the process, uh, but if I had been more equipped to handling stress, that decision would've just been like, oh yeah, like, I'm gonna go. Like, start the business right now and get it going. But it, it like takes some time to unpack, but Totally.

Yeah. And then what you just said is so profound because that's how I improved my HRV from when I first found out about HRV, which was, you know, six years ago. My baseline was 32 and over. What's a, what's a range that people can like just, um, benchmark for? Like what's, what's kind of considered a healthy HRV versus, you know, maybe again, uh, my favorite thing about HRV is there is no range.

Mm. Because you [00:47:00] cannot compare. Mm. And because there actually is no ceiling, meaning you could continue improving your HRV because it's a measure of how you are relating to your reality, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, I know Whoop has published, you know, what their average range is, you know, um, based on age, because age does impact it as you age.

Mm. You, your body is seen more stress, so it solely starts to decline. Right. And aura too. But the thing with those is that's just. Based on anybody who has an aura or whoop. Right? And so again, just really doubling down. There is no range because just like there's no two fingerprints that are the same, there's no two heartbeats actually in the world that are the same.

Mm-hmm. That being said, again, a higher HRV score, meaning a wider gap between each heartbeat indicates a more malleable and resilient nervous system to handle more stress. Mm. In a lower gap or variance between each heartbeat indicates a more rigid nervous system. And the best example is, you know, if you've ever watched a movie with someone connected to a heart monitor on a deathbed, [00:48:00] what do you hear right before they die?

Right. Because that which is rigid eventually breaks. Right. If there's no variability or rigidity, then it's a very stressed, nervous system. Mm-hmm. So ideally you want to see your HRV baseline over time, ideally go up or at least maintain right. Which I've seen people as they age increase their HIV even though it's supposed to be the opposite.

Hmm. So there really is no range. And the thing, like I've worked with some of the healthiest, you know, wellness influencers who had an HIV of 18 when I started. Right. So I just wanna share that because it really, the scale can change. And when I'm about to share my score and what I got to, again, you don't compare.

And, and it's really truly about listening to yours and continuing day data proof. Because again, someone's 30 HIV score can be better than someone's 180 looking at them. And you could tell, oh, they're a very regulated, nervous, nervous system regulated, healthy person, right? Mm-hmm. So [00:49:00] truly, just listen to your own.

And so when I started, my baseline was 32. Over about a three and a half, four year period. I took my baseline up to one 50 plus. Right. But I did so by doing exactly what you just described, I was still running the beverage company every single day, raising money from 170 people in one of the most challenging industries to be in.

And would consciously, multiple times throughout the day, use the biohacking technologies to get my body in a parasympathetic state. Mm. So what am I doing? I'm going from a sympathetic fight or flight, parasympathetic, sym. I'm literally training in the arena of hermetic stress to be an emotional athlete, to build up that resilience in my nervous system so that I could handle more of the stress.

Mm. Right. Yeah. And so it's really your relationship to it. So I tell people all the time when you talk about improving HRV, if hermetic stress, how you improve it. Great news, most of us are doing half that battle. Most of us are stressed all the time throughout the day. We don't need to worry [00:50:00] about getting something that stresses us.

What we need to start doing is prioritizing the recovery and getting in a parasympathetic state, which is what we've been so conditioned not to do in the West in terms of what success is. Right? Yeah, totally. So what, what, um, what have been some of the, the benefits that you've seen in terms of improving your score from 32 to one 50?

Was it improved cognition? Obviously the ability to handle more stress is maybe, or maybe not like a, a benefit, but I, I think it's obviously a benefit, but, um, yeah. What other things have you, did you notice during that period that were a benefit to you? Yeah, I mean, just how I would handle and go about, um, running the beverage company and holding all of that and the ability to hold it all.

Um, I attest to. The consistency of those practices in regulating. But the irony of the entire thing was, [00:51:00] you know, um, two years ago my body had had enough of doing that and I wasn't listening and it spoke loud enough for me to listen when I dislocated my shoulder. I don't know if we talked about that on the left.

I don't think so. Yeah. No, I don't. 'cause I think it was right after we happened. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's, it's a great story. Two, almost two years ago to today, um, it was my birthday and it was year nine in the beverage business sound, and it was doing a amazing, in terms of like number two beverage and Whole Foods on the east coast.

It's great on Thrive, we're about to open up in 2000 retailers. All these great things happening. And with that you need a lot of money. People don't realize. How much is needed in the beverage space, specifically in retail, especially when you're in Whole Foods and all these other big box retailers.

Totally, totally. And so again, I had raised money from a lot of people, but um, we didn't have a big fund in. It was a lot of smaller checks and um, [00:52:00] and I was having difficulty keeping up with the volume and the demand of how much the product was going and was getting myself in that. And so on my birthday in front of all of my friends in the community, I asked to step into less doing more, being right, which is a sentiment I often hear echoed in the entrepreneurial space, um, from founders who are approaching burnout and are just like, oh my god.

Less doing more, being like it's, I've had a lot, right? Mm-hmm. And I got gifted from all of my friends. A super 73 electronic bike actually from Allie. She, she like orchestrated the whole thing. The one who originally introduced us, my best friend. And I take, said bike for its first spin on the Venice boardwalk in my backyard and the sun is setting.

And I'm like, wow, what is life? This is amazing. And I get in the silliest accident that anteriorly dislocates my right shoulder, tears my labrum and fractures, 30% of my shoulder socket [00:53:00] off. Dang. Oh my gosh. Furious. I had to rush to the ER for them to dislocate, to relocate it. I wake up the next morning literally like, how can I raise money with no right shoulder?

And how did this happen? And of all the times and mind is just furious, stressed. And my HIV score was 33. At the time, the baseline was like one 60, right? So clearly my body and my nervous system jacked up. Rightfully so. Yeah. I get on a call with my coach that day and I tell him the story and he laughs and I go, what the fuck is so funny?

And he goes, let's break down the body. Spiritually, the arms represent the doing the body, the torso represents the being. The shoulder connects, the doing to the being. What did you ask for on your birthday? Less doing, more being. What did you get exactly what you asked for from the gift in front of everybody that you asked for it.

How can you not [00:54:00] laugh at this comedy? Right. It's like an actual divine comedy. And that's actually what life always is if you bring awareness to it. And so I instantly was like, oh my God. Wow, okay. I get it. Enough of pushing this nine year baby up and getting myself and everything in so much, it's time to let go and it's time to step into the next chapter.

And I was, you know, I love traveling. And for those nine and a half years, you know, I was so committed to giving every ounce of my energy to this beverage, especially from raising money from all the people. I did that. I didn't do that. And I was like, okay, gonna let it go. Gonna trust and I'm gonna go travel to Bali, right?

And 24 hours later, same torn shoulder mission, 30% of my socket, all the things, my HRV was 97, it tripled in 24 hours simply from me changing my relationship. To the [00:55:00] accident happening for me. Mm. Which really just highlights how much your HRV is dictated by what's happening up here. Wow. Wow. Does it, um, I guess like going through some of the entrepreneurial trials that you went through and just building that business, do you have a heart for entrepreneurs when you're talking about teaching these practices and, and raising awareness around just like how powerful, being aware of what your HRV is?

Absolutely. And, and not only HIV, but just the importance of regulating your nervous system and reminding yourself why you are even doing this. Because for me, I got so caught up in the external and the, you know, this attachment to how this is gonna unfold. And I was not listening to what my body was saying.

It had enough of doing. Eventually, if you don't listen, the body speaks louder and louder and [00:56:00] louder until it slaps you. Right? Yeah, totally. So you were talking about how now you've shifted into more of a nomadic life and uh, you made a really incredibly profound and interesting comment where you said, you know, your friends were commenting on, you know, how are you gonna be rooted while you're traveling and, and living more nomadically?

And you're, you talked about your morning practice being your home. Yeah. And I thought it was, it was very powerful. And I'm just curious, like, what does that morning practice look like and why, why do you consider that kind of your home, your safe space where your, your place of dwelling? Yeah. So I truly believe, and we've talked about it a little bit, this is an educational simulation, right?

Mm-hmm. And. Um, quantum science has very much proven via the double slit experiment in the observer effect. Have you heard or seen those? No. Oh man. They're both in the course that, uh, that I'll be launching. [00:57:00] But, you know, back to Thomas Young in the 18 hundreds, and Albert Einstein and Dr. Joe Dispenza scientist, quantum physicist, has proven that literally an electron appears when you put your attention to it, and then it vanishes when you remove your attention into the unknown, right?

Mm-hmm. And so that's, it's coined the observer effect and there's YouTube videos that like very much showed us. So essentially this is a simulation that we are co-creating at all time based on our perception. Hmm. And so what I believe we see in the educational simulation are all things to educate us, to get us to feel and listen to whatever is going on internally.

And if you don't take the time to pause and reflect on what you are seeing. If you're gonna keep seeing the same thing, right? Like most people, myself, very much guilty of, if I would be stressed about something or get in an argument, or like there would be a frictional experience I'm having, [00:58:00] after that experience, I wouldn't go back and look at it and review it and see what the reason for it was, and then it would happen again.

And I have the same reaction. So how crazy is it that I'm like, why do I keep reacting like this when I'm not changing anything, when I'm not bringing awareness to it? And so the foundation of my practice and any client I bring on is a mourning ritual. Now that could look like so many different things for so many different people, but the foundation of it is to just bring awareness to the educational simulation that you are creating and decide if you want to keep doing it that way, or if you want to change, or if it's in resonance with your purpose of what you're for, right?

And so. I, you know, I've been semi nomadic since that injury happened two years ago. And I was traveling like, you know, six to eight months a year, and then based in, in California. But this year, back in January when I came back, and especially after, you know, the fires and everything that happened, I just sat and listened to my body and [00:59:00] my body was like, oh, you know what?

It's time to go fully nomadic. And I was like, okay. And then I was like, I'll put all my things in storage. 'cause I had a lot of, a lot of toys that I accumulated over 10 years, including a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, sauna, coal plunge, hydrogen, all these different machines, all this stuff. I was like, okay, I'll put them in storage.

And my body said no. And I'm like, what do you mean? And it's literally said to sell everything. Mm. And and I even, I, I asked it a couple times, including the hyperbaric, and he was like, yep. And so I was like, okay, I trust and. So I sold everything back in February and have been fully nomadic and one of my, um, one of my clients is based out in Australia.

Um, and actually it's hilarious 'cause his other coaches Ben Greenfield, so we Oh, no way. We both, we shared that and we've talked about it a lot. And he was actually just on Ben's podcast and talked about me a little bit. So it's great that you had Ben on here. Yeah. And actually Ben Greenfield just announced a national partnership with his, um, incredible wellness facilities out in [01:00:00] Melbourne that he created called St.

Haven. And it's like a luxury bathhouse meets Equinox, meets Soho house. Right? Well done membership. And he, uh, you know, when I decided to go nomadic, he was like, mate, I'll fly you out here. We'd love to see you, we'd love for you to do workshops and masterminds at, uh, you know, at St. Havens. And, and so I end up going out there and just, he treated me beyond incredible.

And every morning I find myself. In a hyperbaric with a sun and a cold plunge. Right. And laughing at, you know, the, the hilarity of me not wanting to sell. 'cause I'm so, you know, uh, attached my mind was so attached to these things. But then the second I trusted and I did, I find myself still having access to all those things, you know?

And just, again, the comedy of this simulation, when you actually, uh, trust and listen. And that's what my morning practice is. It's a place to go and reflect on the prior day and what's happened, and peel the onion back and, and really listen to, [01:01:00] uh, what my, what my body is, is asking and, and, and feeling and resonating with.

Hmm. I'm so curious how you, um, how you think about just the spiritual component of everything that you're talking about. 'cause it, there, it does seem like this is, um, a deeply spiritual thing that we're talking about, being able to, you know, move through grief and process emotions that are. Potentially generational.

Um, and so I'm curious, like, you know, what is a spiritual component of your life or, you know, how do you kind of think about spirituality as it relates to HRV? Yeah. Um, massively and, and I believe HRV is a technology and a bridge between, you know, the west and the east between biohacking and spirituality.

Because HRV is measuring how much are you feeling, how much are you listening to your body, which is spirit for me, spirituality or form of spirituality, right? Because I believe [01:02:00] our body is the most intuitive instrument. It is our intuition. Um, the heart is governed by a different law of physics than the mind.

And, uh, have you heard of kinesiology? Oh, yes. Muscle testing, right? Yes. Um, Dr. David Hawkins wrote Power verse four, which literally goes into the science behind kinesiology and muscle testing. And so the heart knows, the heart always knows it operates in binary. Yes. No, right? Mm-hmm. And the mind is governed by a different law of physics, and its sole purpose is to protect its identity, to protect the ego.

Mm. And it will lie not only to others, but to yourself more than anybody, to protect this prior programming. Right. And if you, if you, I, I think of it as the body being the hardware, the mind being the software. Mm. Right? And if you think of your iPhone or your laptop, if a new software comes out, you need to update it.

And if you don't update it, you start getting glitches. Same thing with our bodies. Our body, our heart is always evolving as we grow [01:03:00] the mind. If you do not update the software, you start getting the glitches of a dislocated shoulder of a cancer, of whatever. Is manifesting in this physical form because there's a misalignment in where your, what your heart wants, what your body wants versus what your mind is still protecting in its identity.

Mm, right. And so, um, HRV to me is an extremely spiritual biomarker as well as a science data back proven health of your nervous system. And that's why I love it so much, and that's why I'm so passionate, um, to bring awareness around it because it plays in both worlds and has the science to prove that, in my opinion, it is the number one metric for longevity if it's measuring.

Your relationship to stress. And we know chronic stress is the number one cause of inflammation, which is the number one cause of aging, disease, and death. Mm-hmm. So yes to all that, but also on the other side, it very much ties with how much are you listening Yeah. To your body. And if we can all listen to [01:04:00] our bodies, which, which has an intelligence of its own Right.

Kinesiology has proven that. Yeah. Then the world would be a lot more of a conscious, happier place. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's funny as you're talking, I was just thinking about a few experiences that I've had with just friends who maybe haven't developed some of these practices, like haven't done sonic cold plunge, for instance, and they get in the cold plunge and they're, they're not able to really handle the stress and they're, they're just not necessarily aware, I guess, that there's modalities out there to help you, you know, get more calm and, um, I just think like.

Your role in raising awareness around, you know, the stressors in our life and, you know, these different practices to actually, you know, develop some level of like a, a protocol around it is so important because I have so many friends out there who care about their health. Everyone cares about their health.

Like, raise your hand, everyone cares about their health. But at the end of the day, [01:05:00] you know, I, I think that stress is, is one of those things that it, it's probably the first thing that people should think about from, you know, getting better sleep, getting in the sun more, walking, more, uh, eating a, a cleaner diet.

Like those, those things can. Astronomically improve your awareness around your health. Um, so I think it's just, it's super important. And in those moments I was talking about like just friends who have kind of experienced it for the first time and the light bulb going off, I'm like, this is such a powerful experience for me.

Yep. Because I'm seeing you actually realize that there's more here, there's more to this understanding of your body and your health and what you're experiencing, man. Yeah, so true. And thank you for saying that. And, and that's why I'm so excited to specifically bring awareness to HRV because I utilize it as a biofeedback loop to get data, to listen, to become aware of what stresses me.

[01:06:00] Because what stresses me is very different than what stresses you and what stresses every other human. Because again, it's all how we perceive and we perceive based on our conditioning, our upbringing, our epigenetics, our ancestors, our dn, all these other factors go into how we perceive this moment. So.

We are so inundated with so much technology and information in this diet and this protocol and this cold plunge. All these things are coming at us that people are like, are good for your health. Yes, that's true. They all are for. People, but maybe not for everybody, and only your body knows what's good for it and what's not, and not even good, what's dissonant or what's resonant for it.

And HRV is a biomarker that is telling you what is dissonant and resonant for your body. So it's a way to filter through all of that noise and listen to what your body wants, not what somebody else is telling you your body wants, right? Mm-hmm. And so if you, you use it like that, it is transformative. And, and that's really the focus of the course that I'm launching, is [01:07:00] to utilize it as a guiding compass, right?

Mm-hmm. And a language that your body is navigating towards you. And so if you don't like to meditate or if you, if, if spirituality and that stuff isn't for you, that that's fine. I'm not saying you need to go do that, but this is a biomarker that is guiding you towards what your body wants. And if you care about health, I.

Raise your hand, then listening to your body is the number one thing you should be doing. Yeah. Because your body knows what is good for it. Mm. Your mind knows what's good for its identity. Your body knows what is good for it. Mm. Yeah. I'm always trying to put myself in the person who's listening to this maybe as like, you know, this is the first time they're hearing about this.

Or, you know, they're, they're kind of just getting off the couch trying to figure out what to do with their health. And I think for me, like one of the first things that I did where I felt like there was momentum being built around, just thinking more deeply around my health, was a ketogenic diet. Like you were [01:08:00] talking about the mental clarity that happened on the other side of just starting that diet for, you know, one, two weeks was so profound.

I can think back to the, the weeks where I was like just in that state of clear mindedness and having turned the corner around just really eating clean and what that did for me. And the like, that just being the initial spark. And I think for this conversation it's like what is, what are some of those initial sparks for people to go from?

Okay. I resonate with what Sali is saying around stress versus, okay, I just got in a cold plunge and realize that, you know, going in and catching my breath after a few deep breaths 'cause I was stressed out and learning how to calmly sit in that. And then what that has done for me over, you know, a month of getting in the cold plunge every day.

It can be profound. So, uh, you know, I think for people who are listening to this, like just getting off the couch and trying to understand what is HRV and what are some of these practices, you know, I think that [01:09:00] there's um, you know, a lot of things that I think would block people potentially from getting in the game and getting started.

Um, how would you, you know, maybe. Pro program, something for somebody who's just getting started with trying to figure out how to put like a, just a little program together for managing some of the stresses. Yeah. So again, why I, I love HRV so much is, um, there's not like one shoe fits all because it's all how you perceive it.

Mm-hmm. So, uh, that being said, in general, there are some buckets that if practiced in your own way can support improving your HIV and regulating your nervous system. Right. And the first is sleep. 'cause sleep is when you're in your deepest delta state, parasympathetic state of delta. And if HRV is measuring your agility to go from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state, then to hit that.

Deepest state is super important, and it's the only thing evolution hasn't gotten rid of in any species. So again, evolution doesn't make [01:10:00] mistakes. Yeah. So first and foremost, really look at your sleep and prioritizing your sleep, which, um, you know, some quick, simple, uh, tools to support that journey would be, you know, one, um, consistency.

'cause sleep is really your circadian rhythm, which is a 24 hour internal clock. And the body loves habit and routine. So a, a consistent sleep is very supportive of getting a deep sleep. Two is just your exposure to blue light. And if you just think again, of evolution for most of the human form, there was only light from the sun and then fire.

Right. And now we actually get more light from everything else. And more so after the sun sets, and the way the circadian rhythm of our body works is when the sun sets, we begin the production of melatonin, which is something that relaxes the body, gives it that feeling of drowsiness and sleep. And now that usually is delayed because we're on our phones, [01:11:00] TVs until almost up into bed, right?

So Right. Just be cognizant of your blue light exposure, especially after the sunsets. Hmm. Um, and, and then the third thing I'll just say would be a, um, some sort of bedtime routine or ritual, whether it's brushing teeth, reading a book, um, you know, uh, a breathwork, a yin yoga, a stretching, just something that again, you do consistently, that your body then is like, oh, I'm getting ready to go to bed.

I'm, I'm building that habit. Right? So those are all good things for the bucket of sleep. Okay. The next why are, why are morning and night? It's so important for just, uh, dialing in kind of those, um, habits and, and, um, I just feel like, you know, morning and night, there's always, there's, it's just like an, an easing, a crescendo into like a period where we're supposed to be resting.

Is that, is that really, it just kind of programming that, that like slow ease [01:12:00] into sleep and rest so nighttime? Absolutely. That, that is why, and, and, and because we need to sleep every day. Right. And so it's, it's something that you can't miss and, and the, the habit in telling the body and getting it used to that, oh, I'm about to go to sleep, just supports the whole internal process of the melatonin and all the things the body's producing.

But the morning routine, because you mentioned that too. Why I found for me and my clients usually is the best time is because. It's a consistent time, right? If you say, oh, I'm gonna do it every day at noon, right? How often or how consistent can you at noon every day go and sit down versus, right, like your morning is that time where you just get up before you do anything in the world.

You can go and give yourself that time. It's really the ability to form that habit to do it as wide a morning. Mm. I found for myself to be important. Some people though, can do it in the afternoon or, but, um, that's the, the biggest reason. [01:13:00] Mm. Yeah. Um, the next thing with, with HRV and really improving it, and the takeaways would be that thing that we talked about, which is hermetic stress, right?

Mm. Mm-hmm. Um, so essentially putting yourself in perceived stressful situations and then bringing awareness. And dropping your body in a parasympathetic state. So a cold plunge is a great example of that. But what I used to do while I was, you know, running the beverage company was between calls. If I had a minute, I'd do one minute of box breathing, right?

Because breath is such a free, powerful, the most powerful ally in dropping your body in a parasympathetic state. Even if you're just taking a conscious couple of breaths, it doesn't even need to be box breathing. Mm. But the process of just focusing on the breath and specifically a longer exhale because the exhale simulates the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic state will quickly calm down the body and get it out of that perceived stressful state.

And again, if you can do that, then you're increasing the resilience of your nervous system to [01:14:00] handle more stress, right? Mm-hmm. And then the third and and final that I'll leave, which is also probably the most, one of the most important and fun ones is just. Community. Right. And, and really your relationships.

You know, I, I gave a, uh, I co-facilitated a retreat in Okinawa, Japan, which is the largest blue zone in the world. Wow. And has the most centenarians people living over a hundred. And the studies in all the blue zones have shown, it's really the communal aspect, the community aspect. Right. That is such a, a centerfold because community shapes how you perceive the reality and feel like you're a part of something greater, which, again, HRV is measuring how you perceive, so ensuring that you're enjoying.

Your life, you're enjoying your story. And if you aren't, then bringing curiosity to why. And maybe changing that is what will get your HIV to improve more than anything. Mm. Tell me about the, the trip to Japan. What was that like? Oh man. It was, it was my first time in Okinawa is [01:15:00] such a beautiful island in Southern Japan, and it was so cool to, to be in the energy, to see how to eat.

Um, and it was wild, actually, I'll share this, this blew my mind that these a hundred plus year old Japanese would be smoking cigarettes. Really? And my judgmental mind is like, how can they smoke that cancer stick? But the reality, again, if all of this is just a simulation, all that matters, I believe in this educational simulation is our relationship to it.

And how they perceive that cigarette is very different than how my mind perceives it. They perceive it as communal, enjoyable, and not just them, their parents and their parents'. Parents, right. So they aren't judging it. The way that I'm judging it, hence they can enjoy it and live to be over a hundred.

Right? Yeah. Now, by no means am I saying go out and smoke cigarettes, and I know I can't do that. And I guarantee you my kids and future kids can't do that because of what's imprinted in my mind around this program of it being, you know, a cancer stick. Right. Right. But [01:16:00] they clearly have a different relationship with it and it's not impacting them.

Hmm. Was there anything that you learned about their practices that, you know, you saw in, in some of the stuff that you're learning around HIV that you, you know, outside of community aspect, you know, the way they were eating other lifestyle things? Oh, so many things in terms of the food, um. They eat until they're 80% full, which is fascinating and, and challenging for a Western American.

And they have small portions of all different things and a variety of different, um, you know, uh, tastes and sensations. Huh. Um, and so, so that was really, and, and food is such a, a big, a big part of, of the, the blue zones in terms of longevity. Um, also just nature and how much they're out in nature, unified with nature, harmonizing with nature.

Um, was, was another, yeah. That seems like one that [01:17:00] we in the west maybe take for granted or, or think of it in a more binary way where it's like we're either working in the city, um, or we're out in nature. There's no kind of like integration to it being like, just like. Layered into our lifestyle on a more regular basis.

Yeah. And that's what actually, I, I visited Kyoto after Okinawa, and that is one of my favorite cities in the world. And the reason is 'cause of what you just said. They somehow, it, it, the city is so in harmony with nature. So it's a modern city, but the nature is everywhere and so present and the way they built it is just mind blowing, truly, truly mind blowing.

Such as what city is this? Kyoto. Kyoto, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And so, yeah, I just, I, I feel like there, you've brought up a few things around rhythm and light that speak to this topic that I think that, you know, a lot of people overlook and we've had a few people on who've talked about grounding and EMF exposures and things like that.

How much of that [01:18:00] are you thinking about when it comes to HRV? Is that, you know, something you're trying to control for. All of it all the time because HRV is how you perceive your reality. So every one of those things impacted and you know, I, I had a grounding mat would always sleep on it. I actually just recorded a video I'll be posting about, um, you know, I, I lived on Venice Beach, so I'd go walk and obviously sand earth is very grounding from the negative ions, but it's actually even more grounding when you walk on the wet sand because water is conductive and if the water is mineralized water, then it's even more conductive.

Right. Which would be like the ocean. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, so grounding. Absolutely important. EMF exposure, you know, absolutely important. I have the protector on the phone. All the, all that is is all plays a role into, um. How you are perceiving your reality, which is a measure of HRV. But the thing that I would just say is just ensure that you have a healthy relationship with all that and you don't, if you're [01:19:00] not doing it, then you're upset at yourself.

Right. And if you think you need to do it a certain way and you need to do every 'cause I was very guilty of I need every single thing and if I'm not, then I'm not healthy. Yeah. That's not gonna be healthy for your HRV. Yeah. It's kind that long end of the, uh, biohacking world that we're talking about.

Yeah. The the potential toxics end of it. Yeah. That you were saying. How far do you go? You start to miss it and then you're like, okay, now, now you're actually stressed out 'cause you're not doing the thing that's, you know. Exactly. Exactly. So that's a delicate balance that I've swung the pendulum very much on, on one side.

I've also swung it on the other side and it's all, um, you know, the way of the dao, the middle way and, and really, uh, ensuring your relationship with it is what matters more than anything. Hmm. Do you have any advice for people? You mentioned community, and I feel like this is one that really brings home for me because I, I, I think it's incredibly true and I think it's easy to overlook the fact that community is actually a, an underpinning major factor for health outcomes.

[01:20:00] And, um, do, do you, do you have any, because I, I've seen your socials, it seems like in California you have like a rich community there that's aligned and doing similar things. Just any advice for people on building those, that type of community that's cares about their health and, you know, is trying to get the most out of life and live in a way that's intentional and mindful and aware.

Any, just recommendations on how to build that out? Yeah, man, such a beautiful question that my sister asked me a couple years ago after I had moved to Venice and, you know, manifested and, and been fortunate enough to, um, co-create this beautiful, you know, group that, that you mentioned. And my answer to her, uh, and my, my, my advice to anybody would be really, um.

Be the thing that you want in community, right? Embody what you want and what you seek in a community, because again, I believe this is an educational simulation and you end up magnetizing and bringing in a [01:21:00] frequency of the same, um, vibration as yours. And so, um, it's really about doing the work internally yourself and, and, and visualizing and feeling what you are seeking for.

Because the reality that I believe is that everything is a mirror, right? And so if you internally build that, then it ends up manifesting and coming to you, right? Mm-hmm. And, and the second thing that I'll just add in terms of doubling down on the importance of community on the health front that you said is my favorite.

Ted Talk in the World is the longest study in human history. Have you heard about this? No. It's a 75 year Harvard study. Really Longest study. It's one of my favorite Ted talk. That it's Ted Talk. Yeah. Highly. If you just look Longest study in human history at TED Talk, you'll see it. It's that good. I cry every time.

I watch it. Really? Because they took, they took I think like 20 18-year-old, kind of like, um, upper, um, upper class [01:22:00] boys outside of Boston and then 20 lower class, 18-year-old boys, and followed every aspect of their life for 75 years. From medical records to spouses, to jobs, to you name it, interview every single piece of data.

Three generations of scientists, thousands of jars of information, all trying to find what led to a longer, healthier, happier life. So the longest study in human history Wow. And the end result came down to one factor and it was. Relationships and not quantity of relationships. I get truth bumps when I say it, but quality, that's what led to the longer, healthier, happier life.

Whether it's one spouse that they just felt so in love with, whether it was a church, whether it was a community, but just feeling like they had a relationship with something outside of them is what led to the longer, healthier, happier life. Mm. Which is exactly what we see in the blue zones and exactly what we're talking about.

So truly important to feel that. [01:23:00] And what I have found for myself, the best way to cultivate that is first, ensure that you have it cultivated internally with yourself and what you want. Mm. And how do you kind of measure the quality of, of relationships? Um, I, in Austin I've seen, you know, lots of people as kind of a transient city, right?

Like people have come here for a few years and leave. And so I've seen a lot of people have a lot of friends, but, um, you know, I think it's more rare to see. Really quality relationships, deep, meaningful, where you're truly invested in, um, you know, what the other person is doing and there for, you know, the good, the bad, and all the in between.

So how do you kind of measure that? Yeah, I, I don't know if there's a, a single way to measure that. And I think, I mean, my answer to that would be just my body and like what my body feels resonant with and, um, and the, and the truth that I am seeing and, you know, [01:24:00] um, it's really, yeah. Ha. Does it feel like a, like a fuck yes.

Resonant with you and do you want to give it the time, energy, and effort? And are you seeing an equal INEA reciprocity in the energetic exchange? Right. Uh, 'cause I've been very guilty of, you know, uh, opening and, and just giving and, and, you know, I, the, the, the little boyo in me, um, very much has a story of needing to like sacrifice and support and, you know, people pleaser and all that.

Mm-hmm. And so, um, I think it's super important to, uh, to really listen to what your heart, what your body wants, and that, that would be my answer to that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's cool hearing you talk about that long study because I'm like, relationships are so, so fundamentally, you know, there's all the biohacking technology, all the things that you can do, but the human to human connection is kind of the underpinning factor that drive, like it's in a lot of these studies, it's in the blue zone studies and.[01:25:00]

I think for me, like personally, I think we all have like these anecdotes of, you know, finding those relationships that give you that sense of peace, that give you that feeling of trust and comfort and those, I don't think there's any technology that's coming to replace that. No. And I would say also give you that discomfort as well, because that's where the growth happens, right?

Mm. And there's no better mirror or teacher than another human who is reflecting yes, all the love, but also like the things that are gonna push you for you to grow and hold the space so that you grow together. And that's really, you know, what a partner or a soulmate is, is like literally your other half so that you can see all the shadow and you guys can reflect and that's, that's what growth is, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well man, this has been a great conversation. It has. Um, where can people learn more about what you're doing? You've mentioned the course. Um. I'm sure there are people who are interested in that. So if you wouldn't mind just Yeah. Sharing where people can come into contact with you.

Absolutely. Yeah. Appreciate it. Um, so all [01:26:00] of my information, all of my social media is that HRV guy, T-H-A-T-H-R-V Guy. Brilliant name. Thank you Ali. For, for she's, she nailed it. She nailed it. I was at the biohacking conference, we were like, oh my God, you're dad HRV guy. And I'm like, oh, wow. Very clever. So she nailed it.

So that's all the social media handles website, www.hrvguy.com. Currently on the website, there's a link to, uh, sign up for, um, early access in the email to the course that will be launching, uh, I believe before the end of summer. That is the plan. So we will see. And um, and that course will be, uh, you know, it's five modules.

Each module is four to seven videos. Each video is like two to five minutes. So it's a total of an hour and a half worth of like. Digestible content that kind of goes deeper into autonomic nervous system, HRV, everything we've been talking about. And then the last module is the somatic reset, the practice that I do every day that my clients do every day to really, um, [01:27:00] feel the perceived stress or emotion before it actually happens to support, you know, being that Michael Jordan and getting to the free throw line and not worrying or thinking that this is a stressful situation.

So, um, yeah, that's, that's, those would be the, the avenues to find me. Dude, that's awesome. And I just really appreciate the work that you're doing and, uh, just how important this conversation is just around, I just think in, in the world today, there's so many things that we can attach ourselves to that cause stress that we have poor relationships with.

And I think that what you're putting out there in terms of your course, but also just, you know, this conversation, the, the basics of just having the awareness around. Our relationship to stress is so important. Mm-hmm. So I just appreciate you coming on, sharing your wisdom and uh, yeah, again, this conversation was amazing.

We also had three 13 episode three 13, so go listen to both those and yeah, appreciate you coming on brother. Man, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for creating a platform to allow people to share. And I think [01:28:00] the, the last, uh, antidote, I'll leave for the listeners that if there's one takeaway to, to leave with this, it's, it's really, um, one of my goals in, in bringing awareness to HRV and sharing this is to just bring back, um, the power.

To yourself, bring back the sovereignty to yourself and realize that you have all the answers inside. You are your own healer. You have the ability to maneuver or manage your stress. It's all inside. We get so much information from the outside, and I'm not saying that information is bad, but you have the ability to discern and feel what your body resonates with the most.

And once you do that, then life becomes just so much more easeful because your body actually knows what it wants. Right? Mm. And, and, and so that is, uh, what has changed my life so much from being so passionate about this biomarker and, and what I hope other people start to see so that [01:29:00] they can find out what that looks like for them, right?

Mm-hmm. And it doesn't look like my story. It doesn't look like your story, but we all have the ability to have our own story and listen to what our body wants. Hmm. Well, I hope you get a bunch of dms from this conversation, like. A year or two down the road from people who said, Hey, I listened to that podcast.

I started implementing some of the things and now I understand, you know, the depth of what you're talking about. Mm-hmm. So appreciate you, son. Thank you brother. Appreciate you too, brother. Thank you.