Dr. Andy Galpin

You could drown yourself in data, whether you want to look at systematic reviews or meta-analyses, but you'll find them. Heart rate variability is associated with an enormous number of health implications. Everything from...

I'm being a little aggressive here, but basically every psychological or mental health metric, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and so forth, to things like cardiovascular disease, all cause mortality, inflammation, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, hypertension.

I'm being a little aggressive here, but basically every psychological or mental health metric, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and so forth, to things like cardiovascular disease, all cause mortality, inflammation, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, hypertension.

I mean, pick your metric and you will find the meta-analysis or systematic review that shows, man, a bad HRV is going to be associated with bad health outcomes. One example I can give you here is things like that hyperglycemia. Now, that's high blood sugar, right? So think type 2 diabetes. Well, just think about it this way. If you were in a state of fight or flight,

I mean, pick your metric and you will find the meta-analysis or systematic review that shows, man, a bad HRV is going to be associated with bad health outcomes. One example I can give you here is things like that hyperglycemia. Now, that's high blood sugar, right? So think type 2 diabetes. Well, just think about it this way. If you were in a state of fight or flight,

you were fighting for your life, your adrenaline would be up. When your adrenaline goes up, your body releases a bunch of glucose into the bloodstream. And it does that because glucose will then go to your skeletal muscle. It gives them short-term energy and it can prepare for combat in this particular case. It doesn't actually matter if you're fighting.

you were fighting for your life, your adrenaline would be up. When your adrenaline goes up, your body releases a bunch of glucose into the bloodstream. And it does that because glucose will then go to your skeletal muscle. It gives them short-term energy and it can prepare for combat in this particular case. It doesn't actually matter if you're fighting.

General point is this, stress goes up, adrenaline goes up, blood glucose goes up. Well, if this is happening consistently throughout the day, you're effectively giving yourself stress-induced diabetes because you're constantly smashing your insulin system, smashing the pancreas because you're throwing blood glucose up and down and you didn't do anything with food.

General point is this, stress goes up, adrenaline goes up, blood glucose goes up. Well, if this is happening consistently throughout the day, you're effectively giving yourself stress-induced diabetes because you're constantly smashing your insulin system, smashing the pancreas because you're throwing blood glucose up and down and you didn't do anything with food.

This is why high stress and chronic stress management, one of the many reasons at least, why these things are associated with obesity. They are associated with inflammation. They are associated with high blood pressure and so forth. There's a direct physical reaction that happens from your psychology in this case, all the way down to your molecular biology. and it has consequences across systems.

This is why high stress and chronic stress management, one of the many reasons at least, why these things are associated with obesity. They are associated with inflammation. They are associated with high blood pressure and so forth. There's a direct physical reaction that happens from your psychology in this case, all the way down to your molecular biology. and it has consequences across systems.

I can keep giving you examples, but I think you get the point by now. In fact, many of you may have already realized or known that bad HRV is associated with lots of bad health implications, and that's no good. What is less discussed and less understood in my experience is how it directly relates to resilience.

I can keep giving you examples, but I think you get the point by now. In fact, many of you may have already realized or known that bad HRV is associated with lots of bad health implications, and that's no good. What is less discussed and less understood in my experience is how it directly relates to resilience.

And there's a couple of interesting papers that highlight this point, and so I want to dive into them in just a little bit more detail now. But if you remember, Your heart rate variability is driven by your autonomic nervous system. And one of the main things within that is called your vagus nerve. Now, when we hear vagus, we often think it's downregulation. But it's not just that.

And there's a couple of interesting papers that highlight this point, and so I want to dive into them in just a little bit more detail now. But if you remember, Your heart rate variability is driven by your autonomic nervous system. And one of the main things within that is called your vagus nerve. Now, when we hear vagus, we often think it's downregulation. But it's not just that.

If you were to stimulate the vagus nerve, you could get arousal as well, upregulation, excitement, so on and so forth. It is this toggle, right? It's this ability to go back and forth between them. Well, we have evidence now, molecularly, of how the vagus nerve can directly activate and change the immune system. No surprise here. What happens when you are really cooked?

If you were to stimulate the vagus nerve, you could get arousal as well, upregulation, excitement, so on and so forth. It is this toggle, right? It's this ability to go back and forth between them. Well, we have evidence now, molecularly, of how the vagus nerve can directly activate and change the immune system. No surprise here. What happens when you are really cooked?

You're shot, overworked, overstressed. Your immune system gets compromised, right? Why? Well, in part because of this. Now I'm not saying HRV caused that, but HRV would provide you that signal and says, hey, this is why you're not as resilient right now as you used to be.

You're shot, overworked, overstressed. Your immune system gets compromised, right? Why? Well, in part because of this. Now I'm not saying HRV caused that, but HRV would provide you that signal and says, hey, this is why you're not as resilient right now as you used to be.

Vagus nerve, overused, altered immune system function, and now you got sick or got more sick than you should have got because of that overall stress response you were less resilient to. Now, another example of that is a really complicated study, but it was so beautiful. I wanted to point it out. What they looked at here was this resilience or what's called reactivity marker.