Dr. Andy Galpin

If you look at a totally different system, another personal experience I had many years ago, I had an athlete who was struggling a lot with low back pain. I called a colleague of mine, a physical therapist, Dr. Quinn Hennock.

Quinn was fantastic and he basically said, hey, you're dealing with low back pain, take her all the way up to the point of low back pain, go right below that line and then train a bunch. Don't hurt her. Don't exaggerate it, right? Don't give my daughter a bunch of cashews and cause a huge reaction that makes the system worse, more sensitive, right? It's on high alert. No, no, no.

Quinn was fantastic and he basically said, hey, you're dealing with low back pain, take her all the way up to the point of low back pain, go right below that line and then train a bunch. Don't hurt her. Don't exaggerate it, right? Don't give my daughter a bunch of cashews and cause a huge reaction that makes the system worse, more sensitive, right? It's on high alert. No, no, no.

Small doses and then build those doses up and desensitize the back pain. Worked perfectly well. The athlete has, it's been years that athlete not had back pain, chronic low back pain ever since. Completely different. And again, I'm showing you wildly different examples here because I want you to understand, in my opinion, this is a ubiquitous physiological thing.

Small doses and then build those doses up and desensitize the back pain. Worked perfectly well. The athlete has, it's been years that athlete not had back pain, chronic low back pain ever since. Completely different. And again, I'm showing you wildly different examples here because I want you to understand, in my opinion, this is a ubiquitous physiological thing.

This is not specific to HRV, specific to the nervous system. It seems to be just a renowned physiological principle. So it carries a ton of weight. This looks a lot of different ways. I'm just going to give you some samples. The research is going to show you Most of the time, practices in this area, you're going to start to see changes in three to four weeks.

This is not specific to HRV, specific to the nervous system. It seems to be just a renowned physiological principle. So it carries a ton of weight. This looks a lot of different ways. I'm just going to give you some samples. The research is going to show you Most of the time, practices in this area, you're going to start to see changes in three to four weeks.

You should feel noticeable changes, but it won't be a week. It won't be a day. Three to four weeks seems to be the number. The biggest impact seems to come around the six to eight week mark. consistently dosing for that long. Past eight weeks, you don't see as much continued progress.

You should feel noticeable changes, but it won't be a week. It won't be a day. Three to four weeks seems to be the number. The biggest impact seems to come around the six to eight week mark. consistently dosing for that long. Past eight weeks, you don't see as much continued progress.

And so what oftentimes happens is you can, whatever you're doing, you can kind of back it down from doing it once or twice every day to maybe two or three times a week. So you're kind of at a maintenance dosage from there. That's what my daughter is with her cashews. She has a little bit of cashews a couple of times a week, and that keeps her immune system totally at bay.

And so what oftentimes happens is you can, whatever you're doing, you can kind of back it down from doing it once or twice every day to maybe two or three times a week. So you're kind of at a maintenance dosage from there. That's what my daughter is with her cashews. She has a little bit of cashews a couple of times a week, and that keeps her immune system totally at bay.

As far as we understand it, if we were to do that, pull the cashews away for a couple of months, she might actually regress all the way back to the beginning. Again, some analogy that helps out there. If you were to think about this from a growing muscle perspective, nobody in their right mind would go do one workout and then go to bed that night and go, my biceps aren't any bigger.

As far as we understand it, if we were to do that, pull the cashews away for a couple of months, she might actually regress all the way back to the beginning. Again, some analogy that helps out there. If you were to think about this from a growing muscle perspective, nobody in their right mind would go do one workout and then go to bed that night and go, my biceps aren't any bigger.

This stuff sucks. It doesn't work. Strength training is a joke. It's fake. Woke up the next day, my arms aren't any bigger. Like you just know that doesn't work, right? But yet we expect the same thing to happen when we do breath work. Ah, I've been doing it for two days. Nothing happened. My HRV score is the same. Sure, of course it is. This is a system approach. This is a desensitization.

This stuff sucks. It doesn't work. Strength training is a joke. It's fake. Woke up the next day, my arms aren't any bigger. Like you just know that doesn't work, right? But yet we expect the same thing to happen when we do breath work. Ah, I've been doing it for two days. Nothing happened. My HRV score is the same. Sure, of course it is. This is a system approach. This is a desensitization.

You're reframing, you're building a new road here. It's going to take several weeks. That's where the benefit comes. If you feel better right now when you do it, great. That was an acute thing. But we're trying to get to chronic changes, right? So we want to be active now so that it can be passive later. What that means is during these first four to eight weeks, it's work. It's a lot.

You're reframing, you're building a new road here. It's going to take several weeks. That's where the benefit comes. If you feel better right now when you do it, great. That was an acute thing. But we're trying to get to chronic changes, right? So we want to be active now so that it can be passive later. What that means is during these first four to eight weeks, it's work. It's a lot.

You're going to have to dedicate 10 to 15 minutes a day of doing something that you're not going to necessarily feel that much better in doing. But if you do this appropriately, we reset this baseline, then you can be on to maintenance dosage and not have to actively do this so much. So there's a bunch of examples for you. I'm going to go through a handful right now.

You're going to have to dedicate 10 to 15 minutes a day of doing something that you're not going to necessarily feel that much better in doing. But if you do this appropriately, we reset this baseline, then you can be on to maintenance dosage and not have to actively do this so much. So there's a bunch of examples for you. I'm going to go through a handful right now.

And again, I've intentionally tried to choose these from a wide variety of activities. So let's dive into them. Very first one we're going to start with is exercise. You know about the hormetic stressor effects of exercise, right? You break it down to build it up. Not exactly what happens, but... That's what hormesis is, right? Small insult, come back better. We saw this with cold.