Stress-Proof Your Life & Stay Relaxed Using Heart Rate Variability

Nick Urban [00:00:05]:
Perhaps you have a device that measures your heart rate variability or HRV for short. Wearables like the Apple Watch, the Oura Ring, the Ultrahuman Air, WHOOP, Biostrap, probably even Fitbit these days, they all measure HRV. But how do you actually take that number and adapt to your day or your lifestyle decisions based on that score? Many folks consider HRV to be the very best snapshot of your current health state. It’s a favorite metric of elite athletes, business people, and other high performers. But what do you actually do with that score? In this episode, we’ll break down all of the factors that increase and decrease your score, the different devices that capture it, the significance of working on your HR V, how to know if your current score is good or could use some work, the paradoxical response where a dramatic Peak, an increase of your HRV might actually be a bad sign, Common mistakes people make when tracking and utilizing their HRV data, how to use it to potentially discover food intolerances, how your current score might be influenced by alcoholic drinks you had more than a day ago, and a general landscape to help you better understand stress and recovery. Our guest this week is doctor Torkil Farrow. He’s a general practitioner and an emergency physician, documentary filmmaker, photographer, and author of a book called The Polskyr. This book has dominated the Norwegian bestsellers list for over a year and is the only book I’m aware of that thoroughly explores the significance of heart rate variability.

Nick Urban [00:01:58]:
Plus, he provides actionable and holistic tips to use HRV to improve your overall health. If you find this interview interesting, go ahead and check out his book called The Pulse Cure, which is available everywhere books are sold. And if you wanna go deeper into the whole concept of heart rate variability, check out episode number 72 I recorded with doctor Jay Wiles. If you don’t yet have a device that’s capable of capturing an accurate form of HRV, I recommend either the Oura ring, the WHOOP, or now the Ultrahuman ring, which I’ve been testing and just reviewed on the Outlier website. I’ll put a link to each of those in the show notes this episode as with everything else, and you can find that at mindbodypeak.com/ the number 158. Alright. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation with doctor Torkil Farrow. Torkil, welcome to the Body Peak Performance Podcast.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:03:00]:
Thank you. Thank you. So nice to be here. So I’ve been listening to more of your Podcast, and I’ve actually listened to one also before. I knew I was coming on the podcast, you know, when the one with the Jay Wiles and on HRV.

Nick Urban [00:03:13]:
So that would be a good primer on all the things we’re gonna discuss today so Peak can go back and check that out. And let’s set the stage. You wrote a book recently called The Pulse Cure. What was that about, and what led you to write that?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:03:28]:
Yeah. The Pulse Cure is about how to use your heart rate and heart rate variability measured by devices such as Garmin Watches Mind Oura rings and Urban bands and so on to to navigate in the in in your lives lifestyle, to do the right things, both for, wellness in the moment, but also for longevity. And so, I’ve been using that for for 5 years, different devices, and then tracking my health. So because I used to do everything wrong. I used to even as a doctor, I used to weigh, you know, £40 more than I do today. I used to not care about what I was eating or sleeping or I think we as doctors didn’t have the insight into how much lifestyle, how important it is for our health and longevity. So

Nick Urban [00:04:15]:
Yeah. About 5 years ago, if you said HR V, people would think a model of Honda car. And more recently, thanks to devices like Aura, Whoop, now Apple Watch, they’ve started to demystify this biomarker. And we’ll talk a lot about what this is and how it’s a window into your readiness, your recovery, your performance, all these things in a minute. But before we go on to that, what are the unusual nonnegotiables you’ve done so far today for your health, your performance, and your bioharmony?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:04:49]:
I’ve been taking care of sleeping Health. So, setting aside, 8 hours for sleep. I’ve been doing, cold shower for 2 minutes. Mind, also, in the course of the day, I often do, breath exercises, so I take care to slow my breath down. And, particularly, I just had a lecture here on the post code. And then I I do some breathing exercises before that to to calm calm the nerves. I’m not so nervous anymore. It’s now it’s probably the 100th lecture, you know, since the book came out fasting year in Norway.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:05:28]:
The book has been such a tremendous success. It’s been on the bestseller list now for Nick to 7 weeks. So it has been a a stressful year where I’ve been forced to use all the tricks in my own book to to to navigate my nervous system.

Nick Urban [00:05:44]:
Yeah. Well, like I was gonna say, you should be well equipped having written that book and doing a deep dive into the research and application of all of these, like, nervous system tips and tricks and biohacks, if you will. But let’s start with the primer. For people who haven’t heard of heart rate variability or even the nervous system, what is this Mind why does it matter?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:06:05]:
Yeah. First, I must say that it’s not so strange if they haven’t heard it because even me as a doctor hadn’t heard about it until 5 years ago, where I read the book, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, and understood the value of HRV and heart rate variability. And heart rate variability is a bit different from heart rate, that, you know, we are used to Biohacking about heart rate. Is it Nick beats per minute HRV 80 or a100 or or whatever? But heart rate variability is a more accurate measure of the state of our autonomic nervous system, and also our physiology in in general. And, it’s kind of looking at the heart rate with a magnifying glass. And what is more what makes it more accurate is that the variation between the heartbeats will vary across, according to the stress on our system. So if I’m in a relaxed state, then when I breathe in, the heart rate will go up a little bit measured in milliseconds, And when I breathe out Mind there’s less oxygen in the lungs, the heart, you know, relaxes just a little bit, but also measured in milliseconds. So it will go up and down like waves on the ocean.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:07:20]:
But if I’m stressed, for whatever reason, whether I’ve eaten the wrong kind of food HRV exercise too much or slept too little or or or lots of other reasons, then the heart will beat very steadily like a clock. And then it will be a low HRV, a low variability between the heartbeats. So a high HRV is good with a high variation. It see it will show that you have a good access to your vagus nerve and your restitution. And then if you HRV stressed, it will beat very steadily, and that is a low HRV. That is stressful on your system, which is not good or bad in itself, but it’s, it’s important to know this, the stress on your system.

Nick Urban [00:08:05]:
What are some of the factors, the common ones that people might already know about and the ones that fly under the radar of things that bring our heart rate variability down.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:08:15]:
Yes, sir. I think if you if you ask anybody on the street if you HRV stressed, they will, answer according to if they have been had a a life incident, if they have trouble at home, you know, they’re quarreling with their husband or wife or their kids have blood. Maybe it’s just not enough hours in the day to to make it, you know, there’s too much to do in the 24 hours. Or they may have they may be of the nature of being very, very active, you know, hyperactive ADHD kind of personalities. Mind that’s okay. It will show in the in the devices, but what gets under the radar is often nutrition, how much you eat the the wrong kind of foods. If you eat too late in the evening, it will affect your night. For me, for example, also, if I eat chili, it will kind of ruin my night.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:09:10]:
And alcohol, that is probably the most important stressor. And I think that people know that it’s stressful, but when you use the devices, you see how stressful it is. It’s, like a catastrophe for your nervous system. Other things, actually, altitude above Peak level will affect it. The menstrual cycle for women will be, the week before menstruation is kind of a heavy strain on your system. It’s not just a feeling or an or a blood, but it when you use the variables, you see that the week before menstruation is a is a heavy period, physiological on your system.

Nick Urban [00:09:51]:
And for me, I know that using a continuous heart rate variability monitor was really helpful because there’d be little periods throughout the day where I would say hold my breath while reading a stressful email that I wouldn’t necessarily pick up while using an Oura ring or a different wearable. You have to actually ask it to measure the HRV. But when I HRV this continuous device, it can say, oh, that’s weird. I had a drop. My heart rate variability dropped a lot at 12:30. What was I doing? Oh, I was checking email. Oh, I was responding to that angry email. Are there any ways that you recommend people can actually take this information, say, about diet? How do you use heart rate variability to find any potentially problematic foods?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:10:35]:
What is very common is to, have problems with flour, with the wheat, you know, with the gluten or with milk products, dairy products. And then you will see that if you have a meal that does not contain any of that Mind your stress level is lower, then you can think, that this is the source. So then you will just check out, you know, and find out that drinking milk, eating cheese, yeah, bread HRV whatever, that will stress your system. And particularly then if you eat it late at night, and it can stress you into the night. But, a lot of people find that their problems with the food intolerances are more complex than that. So if you find out that there is some stress on your system, you have done everything in the book, to try to mitigate that, but there’s still stress, then you should take, food intolerance test. And, a lot of people have done it, after they have seen that, there’s too much stress and found out that there are food intolerances they they would not have been able to detect by themselves. It’s just too complex.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:11:43]:
It may be 5 or 6 different food sources, and it would take forever to to, be a detective to find this out.

Nick Urban [00:11:51]:
Mind a food intolerance is very different than a food allergy. Just because you don’t go into anaphylactic shock and your throat doesn’t close doesn’t mean you don’t have any intolerances. Perhaps you don’t have an allergy, but you can still be intolerant to a whole range of foods, and that may or may not show up in on food sensitivity testing.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:12:10]:
That’s right. Mind, it may not even not give you any symptoms. It it does not give me any symptoms. I found out that I had gluten intolerance and lactose intolerance. But, for a lot of people, it will give them, muscle pain. It will give them joint pain. It will give them fatigue symptoms. So a lot of people will will react to this, this food.

Nick Urban [00:12:33]:
And some people, they don’t react to it initially, like, immediately after the meal. What makes it so complicated is it can be multiple hours or even in URBAN cases up to 72 hours after the meal that contain that food until you exhibit any Mind of symptoms.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:12:48]:
Absolutely. And that makes it very difficult if you get up in the morning and you feel a bit groggy Mind, then you would not think, or I did not think about this earlier before I had this device, I said, the meal you had maybe 5 o’clock the day before is the is the cause of this. And that is why it’s also important to note that the difference between Oura and Whoop and, Garmin is that the Garmin washes will show the results 24 hours. So you will see the exact point where the stress level went up. So that makes it so much more easy to to find out what is the source of the stress. Then I know you have a Garmin watch and aura, so you probably have found this out yourself as well.

Nick Urban [00:13:31]:
Yeah. For me, I find it hard to narrow exactly what it was that caused the spike in stress because, sure, it could be the timing I ate. It could be the food I ate. It could be what I did right before I ate, it could be the fact that I worked out 60 minutes before, it could be the fact that I jogged home after the meal. There’s, like, so many other confounding potential variables that’s really hard to isolate and say, okay. It was this food specifically, which is why I was curious if you can just, like, take a baseline HRV, like, on demand snapshot measurement, like, right before the Peak, and then again after 30 minutes or 60 minutes after the meal to see how the it changes. I’m not sure what HRV typically does after any Peak, but would you see would you expect to see, like, a slight decrease after the meal if it was, like, a normal Peak? And if you’re intolerant, you’d see a drastic decrease?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:14:25]:
Yes. Yes. I would say that. Yeah. That it is kinda difficult to find out because there’s so many factors that are affecting the HRV. But this is kind of a detective work, it’s kind of gamification of your own health. So for a lot of people, this is actually interesting and fun. So to to find out what is stressing me.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:14:45]:
So and then if you have a suspicion that there might be 2 different things affecting it, okay, then you the next day you try just to keep one of them and then not go jogging before, you know, if if that is what you may suspect have made the result the day before. So it’s kind of some detective work that is needed.

Nick Urban [00:15:03]:
Yeah. And what’s the relationship between heart rate, your normal heart rate measurement as every wearable tracker measures Mind heart rate variability? I’d assume that as heart rate goes up, heart rate variability goes down, so they’re inversely correlated.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:15:19]:
Yep. So, but but on the same heart rate, saves, you may have 7 day in your heart rate, but you may have a a very different HRV. So the the difference in HRV will be bigger than the the variation in the heartbeats in itself.

Nick Urban [00:15:36]:
But you could check after a meal to see what your HRV does. If your HRV tanks and your heart rate spikes, that could be another sign to give, like, additional verification that it is indeed potential problematic food. And and a simple way to test that is just to remove that food or the ingredient for a couple days, say, 3 days, and see how you feel. If you that nagging symptom goes away, then that could be a bad food or bad ingredient for your body. Exactly. You mentioned in Electra Watch of yours that alcohol affected you for much longer than I would previously have guessed. I would have thought that after 24 hours, it’d be out of your system, and you’d be fully recovered. Your HRV would would recover also, but that wasn’t what I believe I saw in your lecture.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:16:21]:
No. It actually and according to WHOOP, it, stays down for 5 days. So, you reduce your HRV by somewhere around 30% the first day, and then another 30% the second day, and then, like, 15% the 3rd day, and so on. But it will still affect your, recovery state for 5 days. Of course, if you drink twice a week, you know, like Saturday or Wednesday, you’re always not working at your best, you know, you saves not been working at a 100% of your capacity.

Nick Urban [00:16:51]:
Let me get this straight. So after you drink that night, your HRV drops, say, 30%, and then the next night, your HRV drops that same 30%.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:17:01]:
It’s 30% of the of the loss in recovery is the first day Mind then 30% of it the second day. So it it will it will be a bit better day by day, but, it will it will still be quite hard. But it will it will also be very individual. So I have friends that can tolerate alcohol much more than me. So this is also the advantage by the device that you will find out how you react to certain things and not how the the general population will react or or an average of the general population. So it’s this is individual medicine.

Nick Urban [00:17:36]:
Yeah. I’ve come across the notion. I’m not sure if it was in research HRV it’s definitely in in personal observation that some people are, like, parasympathetic dominant Mind some are sympathetic dominant, meaning there’s, like, 2 types of people, the ones who walk around everywhere relaxed with occasional deviations from that. And the other bulk of the population, I’d say, where they are in fight or flight stress mode, and they occasionally dip into relaxed mode. And when you look at HRV numbers, you’ll often see some people have very low numbers on average, and other people seem to be completely flipped. They have, like, scores over a 100 milliseconds, which is very high. So is it purely a genetic component, or are there other things involved in that?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:18:20]:
It’s supposed to be a 30% genetic component to it. So it will be a nutrition according to the genetics, but the most of it is, lifestyle. And, you can see it, because a lot of these high stressed, high strung people that has a big capacity for work, you know, and production, they are, you know, running at high speed all the time, and they often end up in a fatigue situation, unfortunately. So, this is maybe the most important, thing about these devices that they can prevent you from going into a fatigue situation because these devices would would warn you, you know, weeks months ahead that you you are you are overtaxing yourself. You are too much strain on your system. And these are the people that are most happy about the Pulse cure, about the book Mind the devices. Give some kind of a license to rest, because this is the these are the personalities that are used to feel guilty if they relax. So if they sit in the on the couch, you know, they feel guilty and and bad, but these watches will tell them that you should relax now.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:19:31]:
So so they are very happy that there’s some external source telling them that you deserve to relax now to to stay healthy.

Nick Urban [00:19:40]:
Okay. So let’s talk about actually using this in lifestyle because it’s one thing to get your score to see it after sleep know, that score and how you use it, whether it’s the day or it’s a longer term trend of weeks or months.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:20:01]:
For example, for for myself, it’s been so much pressure, you know, the the last, time because there HRV so many lectures, so many interviews, so many Podcast, so much happening. So then I can see on my system that the late night lecture, you know, maybe twice a Peak, And the whole Peak, it will be a lot of strain. So and then I know that, okay, next week, I have to relax more. I have to schedule times of rest or meditation or focus on sleep, and then I can see that my recovery improves so that I’m, I’m not burning out, you know, because, I also have to do my regular work as a doctor in between all this. So this is how I regulate the the system. And, I see a lot of people on on Instagram, you know, I have 25,000 followers on Instagram, so they often share their their images and tag me. Then I can see they they do the same. So so they find out that this day is stressful, and they they they say, okay.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:21:06]:
Tomorrow, I need to relax. So, this is how you can use the the readings in the morning to to make decisions about how to to relax or how to to put stress on yourself, the next day. So if it has been, you know, 3 or 4 quite easy days, okay, then you can put some more load on your system.

Nick Urban [00:21:28]:
For the readings themselves, do you prioritize the overnight reading from something like a Whoop, an Aura, a Apple Watch, or do you like a reading first thing in the morning before you get out of bed, before you move, just, like, keeping everything as constant as possible, just like the snapshot when you first wake up?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:21:45]:
Yeah. That that is if you don’t have a Garmin watch Mind you have these other devices, then that is the best option that you can before you get up of bed, then you can do a measurement and see, compared to the other days to see this measurement. And also Garmin will show you this, the overnight measurement. But more than that, I will use the measurement throughout the day with the with the Garmin watch. But if you if you don’t have that watch, this is as you explained it there, it’s it’s a good way to get an overview. But I compared a little bit of, like, if you go into the mall, go for shopping, big shopping, and that you only get the amount, the total amount at the end of it. You don’t know what the individual goods HRV. While Garmin, in another way, will show you that it was between 11 Mind 12 o’clock you were stressed.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:22:41]:
And when you had that power nap at 4 o’clock, it, it really worked. So, it will give you a a better overview of it than just just Nick it in the morning.

Nick Urban [00:22:52]:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And then so saves we have a low HRV, what are some of the things that you like to do? I know you’ve mentioned a couple in the introduction such as a breathing practice or a cold plunge. Side note, does a cold plunge increase or decrease HRV? And what are some of the other things you like to do?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:23:12]:
Yes. I would take a cold shower, 2 minutes, if I’m by the sea, I may take a cold lunch that is more effective, and that will improve the HRV. It will put you in a parasympathetic state for for a couple of hours at least. And, then I would do some breathing exercises. I may check my schedule, and if there’s something that I can, postpone to another day, I would do that. Maybe I HRV scheduled to go for a run, and then I would, you know, skip that and maybe do a meditation instead. So and generally also to slow down my speed to do things, do the same things, but at the slower rate, you know, like, yeah, I often think about that if I’m in the Caribbean and saves, like, a Caribbean tempo or Peak. So I can do these, different things to to mitigate the stress that I see in the morning.

Nick Urban [00:24:11]:
And even with something that might improve your HRV such as a cold plunge or cold shower, there’s a a sweet spot. If you do it too long, saves, 10 minutes and 32 degrees Fahrenheit, about 0 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. That’s gonna if you do it regularly, maybe even securely, tank your HRV, at least it has for me, like, a small amount can improve it. And when I extend it too much, then it can have a negative effect.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:24:38]:
Yeah. So then you can see the dose that you need of temperature and time. So the lower the temperature, the shorter the time. So if you’re at the freezing point temperature, then maybe 1 minute is enough, but you can also go out in that would be, like, 68 degrees Fahrenheit, but then you may need to be out in the water for, like, 10 or 20 minutes, and you will get exactly the same effect. And it will calm down the the pulse and improve the HRV for a long time, and it will dampen inflammation in your system. So a lot of people with joint pains and, arthritis will find out that if they do this cold therapy, it will relieve the symptoms from the from the joints, for example. And, if you stay in too long, as you say, you get too cold, that will stress the system. And I also found out that a lot of people who are in a fatigue situation that have had systems that have been stressed for a long time, they will not tolerate it.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:25:38]:
So what other people will tolerate and improve from, they will just, be stressed out worse. So this will all depend on the state of your physiology. What about saunas? Do those improve? They would improve, but it’s HRV. It’s like, going for a run. So being in the sauna, in the hot temperature, is very, very, hard for your body because your body is really working hard to keep your temperature down. So it the the heart beats very fast, very hard. The the vessels that your arteries will dilate in the skin to try to lose the heat to sweat, and this is really hard work. Even though you are just sitting in the heat, in the sauna, your body is working really HRV, and that may be good.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:26:29]:
If the rest of your life is, in balance, then this just could be like a hermetic exercise that will strengthen you if you have the possibility to relax and recuperate afterwards. But a lot of people that will have too much stress in their lives already, it will be too much for them. It will it can push them over the side. So you have to make sure that, this strain on your body that, trip to the sauna is in is compatible with the the rest of your lifestyle. But you could, if you go in and out of the sauna, into the cold water, you can regulate it with your watch. This is what I do. So I I make sure that I’m in the cold water long enough to keep the pulse, down, and then I can go back into the sauna.

Nick Urban [00:27:12]:
So contrast therapy of flipping between cold and hot is probably better than just using the sauna in terms of HRV, like, stability and modulation and improvement?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:27:23]:
Yes. And particularly if you have a stressed system from from beforehand.

Nick Urban [00:27:27]:
Are there any technologies or gadgets or devices you like for improving HRV? Yes.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:27:33]:
I actually use, for Optimization, I use a Mind, neurofeedback band called Muse 2, you may have heard of it. So they will read my brainwaves. So Torkil example, you can put it so that you will listen to nature sound that that you’re in the jungle or somewhere. And if you are have a calm mind, then the sounds from the jungle will be very low and and peaceful. And then if you get a lot of thoughts, you know, your your, your brainwaves, you know, get stressed, then it will be more noise and you will hear sound from water dripping on the saves and so on. Mind then actually I managed to calm myself down. And I noticed that when I can do this with this band, I can easier do it without it also. So even if I’m driving the car, I can find this mellow place in my mind, more easily than I did before.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:28:32]:
So so this is neurofeedback. So this this band will listen to your brainwaves and give you, it will alter what you hear in your in your headphones. So it’s fasting. So

Nick Urban [00:28:44]:
I’m a big fan of neurofeedback. I do it pretty much every single day. I have a device called the Sensei, and it has neurofeedback, and it also has transcranial photobiomodulation HRV basically uses, like, red light diodes and applies them through your head, and it can modulate your brain state that way. And it can be used for calming down over excitation nerve activity, which in turn can modulate HRV. I also have a device right here called Apollo Neuro. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Apollo, but it uses, like, haptics or nutrition, and it’s been clinically shown in a couple of studies to improve HRV by some, like, double digit percentage. Then other things that I’ll use and I found work well no. I haven’t found any supplements per se.

Nick Urban [00:29:29]:
I don’t know if you’ve experimented with, like, L thanine or something like that that can help, like, modulate brainwaves, specifically alpha brainwaves HRV GABA agonists to try and change HRV that way. But, basically, anything anytime I just slow down like you were saying earlier, that makes a big difference. Even, like, a short walk outside can

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:29:47]:
help my HRV. Yes. Absolutely. And also, you’re talking about supplements that I haven’t tested out whether supplements improve it, but, I’ve seen that lack of supplements, you know, like vitamin b 12 or d vitamin or URBAN will will worsen it so that you can see that there’s a deficiency. And then when you get the supplements, your heart rate variability goes back to normal. The interesting thing is that even with this technology and these devices, they show that the ancient lifestyle, you know, and you’re in India. So the ancient lifestyle, the way of living is what is best for us, and it will show in the heart rate variability. So if you go for a walk, if you go fasting, if you calm down, if you sleep well, breathe slowly, yeah, It will improve your HRV.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:30:38]:
If you live more closely to what our hunter gatherer ancestors lived, you know, if they live this way, you know, with the differences in temperature and so on, then it’s, it’s good for you, and it will show in the heart rate variability. Before we

Nick Urban [00:30:52]:
go onto that, on fasting specifically, the one supplement ingredient I found that actually improves HRV, there’s even a product that’s based on it called, I think it’s HRV Code, is, like, a full spectrum hemp product that has a whole range of cannabinoids in it. And I find that, like, my HRV spikes whenever I use that at night. I don’t like it during the daytime, but for me, a good, like, heavy dose of it at night, it’s non psychoactive, and it helps sleep and HRV.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:31:20]:
Okay. That would be interesting. I I would like to check that out. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:31:22]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. And then fasting, you said that fasting improves HRV. I know I’ve done it before. Maybe it was too long, too extreme of a fast, but my HRV declines when I fast for I think it’s, like, over 24 hours.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:31:37]:
For me, it’s the opposite. So, if I fasting, then my HRV will get better. So I’ve done some fasting mimicking diet. You know, for 5 days, you eat 700 calories to 1,000 calories, and then my HRV improves, and and my stress level is really low. And I found out this by accident, that it would affect the HRV because, I was skipping breakfast at some points, then I would Peak, you know, because it’s uncomfortable to see stress on my system. But when I checked the the the readings from the devices, and I saw that it was really calming down the system and, improving the HRV, which is probably why all religions, have had fasting as a way of, you know, sharpening their minds, you know, and improving their health. So the best way to get energy may not be to eat you know, something with energy, you know, like like the food industry would want us to to do, but it would actually be not eating Mind, fasting 1 or 2 days with very low calorie.

Nick Urban [00:32:42]:
Very interesting because when you fast, that’s when you create a surge of natural catecholamine release, such as cortisol Mind epinephrine and norepinephrine and everything. And so you would think since those are literally called the stress hormones that that would increase your biological stress and would decrease your HRE. The components were there, and I’m sure you’ve repeated that multiple times to figure out it was indeed the fasting.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:33:04]:
Yes. I’m sure it is the fasting. So I can see that it’ll be on the Garmin watch. I will see the difference between the fasting state until 12 o’clock and until I eat my lunch the first meal of the day. That there will be a clear difference. And if I eat something that I don’t tolerate, this difference will be a lot higher. I will see it in the stress levels, immediately. And the first time I saw this was one of my colleagues had a birthday or something at work, and I’m doing the same work, you know, before and after lunch.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:33:31]:
And then I saw that after eating 2 big, pieces of cake, the stress level really went through the roof, And I I could not believe my eyes because I had never thought of the the fact that food could stress you. You know? It was, an idea that I I did not saves, and I even asked my I have some nutritionist, friends, and I asked them, and they had never heard about it. And, obviously, in nutrition, they they don’t teach, HRV, according to food. It’s not the subject or something that they are aware of.

Nick Urban [00:34:06]:
Yeah. During my training, when I was learning about how blood sugar swings affect different organ systems and bodily processes, The way I learned it is that it caused, like, the blood sugar spike then crash, causes the body to use cortisol and glucagon and everything to liberate more energy. And when it does that, then that causes a a surge of the stress hormones, and that’s gonna cause a surge of stress, obviously. And then also it’s gonna acidify the blood. And when it acidifies the blood, then your respiratory rate goes up. When your respiratory rate goes up, then you’re putting yourself into a stressful situation, which is, like, the opposite of breath work, and that effect persists for a long time afterward, which is also the reason if you eat a lot of sugary food before sleep, it can seriously disrupt your sleep, and you will see it on your respiratory right rate on wearables like aura or ultra URBAN or probably Garmin too.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:34:58]:
Yeah. And particularly if it’s ultra processed food Mind not just sugar, but sugar in combination with the with different emulsifiers and so on in ultra processed blood, it’s even worse. And the problem is that this food will give us a dopamine Nick, so you will feel good, you know, it will kind of hijack your dopamine system. So you will feel better, but, they will still make your stress level worse, and then you will feel worse, and then you will feel the need to have this dopamine kick again. And this is why a lot of people, you know, get this roller coaster rides of a of a high and low blood sugar, which stresses them. Peak.

Nick Urban [00:35:36]:
One thing I also notice when I fast is that oftentimes, my HRV will be great until about the 24 hour mark, and then it’ll dip. And if I continue on, say, a 3 day water fast, at some point, my HRV rebounds, and it spikes way up, and it stays up for a while. And I know that also, like, when I overtrain, push myself really hard. I do, like, a grueling double workout in a day. And even sometimes if I don’t sleep well after a night, I’ll have, like, a paradoxical, like, hyper compensation where instead of my HRV dropping, it seems to spike way up, like, doubling what it usually is, not even tripling. Have you heard of that?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:36:13]:
Yes. I’ve done that. So this hybrid compensation often comes after I put a big load on your system, so it will compensate by being very Health, very good luck you experienced there. That could be after, you know, a trip to the mountains or after you had a alcohol for a couple of days, Mind then it can hypercompensate. Or if you had bad sleep for 2 or 3 days, it can also be a hypercompensation, in in the day after that. And, also, it’s important, with the fasting and and everything else that we do that there’s so much individuality. So how you react to a fast could be very different from another person. So, and this is what is so interesting because, usually as doctors, we we, relate to the averages of a big nerve, a research maybe of, you know, 1,000 Peak, and you get the average.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:37:07]:
But what you get here is how you would react and not just the average of, a lot of people because the nutrition is often so so big. So how how you and I would react to exactly the same fasting would be different.

Nick Urban [00:37:21]:
Yeah. And it makes me think that when you’re trying to actually interpret and use HRV data, some of the important things to note are, first of all, biological differences. Where your baseline is is gonna be very different than the next person. And so just because they’re at a 100 and they posted on social media doesn’t mean that you’re losing. You have a bad HRV if yours is Nick, and that’s your baseline. It’s actually, like, a 40, you’re above, and you’re at a 60. That could be the same as their 100, or it could even be better than their 100 because it’s all about, like, the individual score. And then also the trend is very important because if you see a 150 and you’re, like, oh, I’m doing everything right.

Nick Urban [00:37:59]:
And what did I just do? I just drank 3 nights in a row, got blacked out, and I’m at a 150. That’s probably not a behavior you wanna repeat. That’s probably a sign of your body say like, throwing in the towel and trying really hard to recover from that. So having, like, the the context there is really important to make sure that we’re doing the right thing.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:38:17]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And you should only compare your HRV with your own and not to others. So that is very important. You should find your baseline and see how good can you be, from this baseline. And also and this is, a bit harder for women because the baseline will be very, very different according to the menstrual cycle. So Torkil example, a fasting that would be no problem in Peak, 1 or 2 in the menstrual cycle would be a big problem in week 4, or or or an exercise or a race or whatever. And I don’t think that, many women are aware of this.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:38:54]:
And I know that the Norwegian soccer team, the national soccer team, they use Oura rings to be able to to dose their training according to the menstrual cycle. As I mentioned earlier, when I see the the heart rate variability over a month, you can get the curve, you know, that shows the development of heart rate variability over the last 4 Peak, and then you can see a really large dip the week before menstruation. So, and when you see that, it’s so much easier to to make adjustments in your lifestyle.

Nick Urban [00:39:24]:
Yeah. It’s interesting. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to adjust the lifestyle solely based on HRV, but I’d have I’ve imagined it wouldn’t just be HRV that’s changing. That might be the most obvious metric Mind the, like, the canary in the coal mine in terms of biometrics. But, like, in general, I’d be hesitant to change, like, an entire way of life based on 1 HRV one metric like HRV, but HRV is a good one to base it on, I think.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:39:48]:
Yeah. It’s probably the most important signal. I I compare it to driving a car. So the speed of your car. So the HR V is kind of the speedometer of your physiological load in the moment and over time. So you can see the speed. So it’s one thing, but you also have to compare it to, you know, the whatever happens outside your car, you know, so to speak. Yeah.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:40:12]:
So so it’s just one metric, but it’s it’s the most important metric, I think. And, it also shows activity of the incredibly important vagus nerve that we as doctors, have overlooked for so many years, even though it’s it seems to be one of the most important things that we can do for our health to have a blood connection to our vagus nerve.

Nick Urban [00:40:36]:
There’s a lot of different ways of stimulating the vagus nerve. I mean, the some of the classic ones are singing, humming, fasting. Vagus nerve stimulating devices that they have those now. What are some of the other ones? And what’s the role between vagus nerve and HRV? Because I’m not sure we’ve elucidated that link yet.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:40:54]:
The HRV is really a measurement of the strength of your vagus nerve, the vagal tone. So the more active Mind, how to say, healthy your vagus nerve is, the better your HRV. So this kind of a direct link here. I’ve read recently a book from a Nerve Habib, upgrade your vagus nerve. It’s very, very good and instructive on this subject. So if you’re in the sympathetic mode, you have the, again, we have the parasympathetic system, the recovery system, and you have the sympathetic system, the mobilizing system. The good HRV shows that your parasympathetic system, which is your vagus nerve, is healthy. And if you have a low HRV, it seems that you are sympathetically dominated, Mind you are stressful in a stressful state.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:41:47]:
So what you need to keep your mitochondria and your immune system optimal, that is a Health vagus nerve, and that is measurable in the in the HRV.

Nick Urban [00:41:59]:
How much can I move my HRV over the span of a day HRV maybe days too long, over the span of an hour if I pull out all the stops, I do all the things, can I move it 30%, or is that too much? Like, can I can I shift completely from sympathetic to all of a sudden doubling my HRV?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:42:16]:
Yes. You would be able to do that. But I think, once again, I think that the most important is the the measurement through the night. I don’t measure much in the daytime, actually. Through the night, if I had a really, really stressful day, my HRV would be down to below 30. And if I have a really good relaxed day, it may be 55. So I may be able to to double the HRV from a really low state into the really high state. And then my my average probably would be around 45.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:42:49]:
So anyone that has one

Nick Urban [00:42:50]:
of these wearable devices will see the graphs of the different biometrics, how they trend overnight because they all show them these days. HRV is one of those graphs, and you can see usually, like, about where the high point is, where the low point is, and, like, the average is a trend. How do you actually, like, use that graph when you look at it personally?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:43:12]:
What this variation means, is that it will be, during your deep sleep or during your REM REM sleep. So this will be, the differences, in those, phases of sleep. So then you can see that you had, like, 4 phases of deep Mind REM sleep throughout the night. So you can’t really use it for much than to acknowledge that, okay, this night I had a good variation between REM sleep and the light sleep.

Nick Urban [00:43:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I’m fasting about I don’t know if you can be able to see it on my phone right now. I have my Oura app open. If I just pull up a random day, my down here, my trend of HRV throughout the night, how do I use that? I know, like, depending on when it spikes and when it drops, you can figure out, like, if you’re recovered adequately, if you went to bed too early, too late, that Mind of stuff.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:44:02]:
Yeah. The one you showed me now was at the it was a low HRV in the start of the night, and it improved throughout the night. And that, will have meant that you had put too much load on your system in the evening. So it may be a late meal or a late stress, a late a late social meeting, or or whatever that kept your pulse rate high into the night. But this is a good stress. We we are and that is very important. We we have to stress. You know? We have to put loads in our system to grow stronger.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:44:35]:
So the biggest fear of writing the post cure was to that people would be scared of of stress, but, they shouldn’t be. They they should be be happy to stress and put those on their system. They just need to be aware to compensate for the stress by relaxing enough. And that is, of course, so much easier when you have these devices that can tell you whether you have relaxed enough or not.

Nick Urban [00:44:57]:
Exactly. So that was if it trends from down to up throughout the night. What if it goes the other way Mind it starts up and it trends down throughout the night?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:45:05]:
That that could mean that you have a sleep apnea blood, for example, that that you are yep.

Nick Urban [00:45:13]:
Because I know with resting heart rate, you can extrapolate a little more about, like, if your fasting heart rate is the very lowest right before you wake up, it means that your body wants a little more sleep because, like, that’s perhaps when your circadian rhythm is shifted towards recovering the best is when just when you’re waking up. And you can tell a little bit more about, I think, recovery status in different ways from that. I’m curious if there was any about HRV Mind when you see the max and

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:45:39]:
Mind. It could it could also have something to say with the the temperature in the room. So that, I I see that, for some people, you know, if you live like you’re in India, the the temperature may may go up or down throughout the night, Mind that can have an effect. Because what is really important for sleep is that you are it’s cold enough in the bedroom. So they say that between 60 65 degrees Fahrenheit would be ideal for a bedroom temperature. And if you’re, for some reason, the temperature would get up, you know, at some the, you know, the weather changes during the night, then this may affect your quality of sleep.

Nick Urban [00:46:22]:
That’s interesting. I find that that tends to hold true for men. I’m wondering if that research was done that included women too because the women I talked to almost categorically sleep to prefer slightly warmer temperatures. If my temp my nerve, she likes maybe 15 degrees warmer than I do, which I was surprised. So I was telling her, well, the research all the research all says 60 to 60 5 ish, and she’s like, no. No. Nerve. I can’t stand being that cold.

Nick Urban [00:46:47]:
It needs to be at least this warm. And sure enough, when she sleeps in warmer environments, her HRV and other biometrics improve.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:46:55]:
Yeah. And that is so interesting, you know, and Mind diet shows, you know, that you can see these things in the HRV. So for me as a doctor, you know, this this information for doctors is so important to be able to get information about how the patient is, not when he’s examined in the doctor’s office, but all the time in between. So, I often ask to see my patients. You know, so many people have these watches nowadays. So I often ask to see the results from their devices Mind it’s so, so instructive Mind I can tell so much about their lifestyle from seeing this, curves in HRV. And and they and they also, learn to control because they this is a way to become CEO of your own Health, you know, to take charge of your own health.

Nick Urban [00:47:45]:
One of the arguments against wearables and this type of technology in general is I hear pushback. People don’t wanna be tethered to their device to be able to live. They wanna be free and unencumbered by it. But the way I like to use it is if nothing else, if you get a wearable device that can measure this stuff, you start to build awareness, like, bodily awareness between these biomarkers, the the level of them currently, and what it actually feels like in your body. So you know, okay, this is how a high HRV feels. Okay. This is how a low resting heart rate feels. So that way, even if at some point you do decide to stop using them, you already learned how to correlate these feelings.

Nick Urban [00:48:23]:
So you can say, okay. Well, after a night of alcohol, that one’s obvious. After I work out late at night, I don’t recover as well. I don’t feel quite the same, and it’s actually working out within 2 hours of bedtime that caused me to feel that way. And it’s being able to discover those missing links and figure out the patterns in our ever evolving and changing lifestyles. That’s what I view as, like, the real value of wearables in general for the long term.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:48:52]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And because a lot of people, you know, say the critics say that can’t we just listen to our Body, but we cannot because we are not equipped to do that. We have senses, you know, very good senses for for outside enemies. You know? Because throughout our developmental history, all the threats have been coming from the Outliyr, from other animals, you know, from snakes, from enemies, and from food that is, you know, not good, you know, with bacterias Mind so in it. So our sense of sight and hearing and smell and taste and touch is so, so blood, but our sense for our inner state has never really been needed. And this is what we need now these days because now our threats comes from the inside, from an overloaded stress system with a chronic low grade inflammation. And, this sense, we don’t really have.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:49:44]:
So, and this is just as you say that once you start measuring it with these devices, you get to know your body more. You know. You get to feel these subtle changes that will pass you by if you don’t have these devices.

Nick Urban [00:49:58]:
I noticed that I could better manage my energy by paying attention to my sympathetic activation. I could notice the impact of stimulants on my physiology. And just by focusing on keeping my HRV within, like, a narrower band, I would be able to stay energetic throughout the entire day, not just at the beginning of the day Mind maybe a little quick spurt of energy after lunch, but I can keep it steady. What are some of the other common benefits people experience when they start working on keeping it, like, understanding their HRV Mind then also improving it?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:50:35]:
They won’t do as you said that you can because what’s also so nice about the Garmin washes, and I’m not sponsored by Garmin. No affiliation. But what what you can see that you can push a button and you can see the stress level in the moment. And then you can, find out that, okay, I can do the same work with less stress. I code do exactly the same as I do now, but if I breathe more slowly and take it more easy, I can do more during the day because the the stress will not wear me out, as fast. So one thing is to find more time to rest, but it’s also, another important thing to to do your work at the slower speed.

Nick Urban [00:51:13]:
Yeah. And it’s not just, like, your desk workers that benefit from this. It’s also your athletes, and it’s anyone looking to improve their longevity, like, learning to keep your HRV in an optimal range, it’s gonna translate to virtually every health and wellness goal.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:51:32]:
Absolutely. And these are devices that have been developed by athletes, but we can also use it in our everyday lives. So it’s like in the cars, you know, Performance 1 cars, they have the very latest technology, but they are used in every every vehicle also. You know? So it’s the same thing that, the athletes have been, been at the forefront of this development of these devices, but but we can use it because we have as much stress in our lives as the athletes. You know, the normal person has as much stressors as a as an athlete has. You know? So

Nick Urban [00:52:08]:
And when I work and I’m aware of my HRV, by keeping my HRV high, I’m able to focus for longer, and I don’t get the same tunnel vision that I get when I am in, like, a stimulant fuel, like, 3 cup of coffee Mind day. I’m more aware of, like, the the patterns and able to connect them than I can if I just, like, try and artificially increase my energy by ingesting more energizing substances.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:52:36]:
Yeah. And this is because that if you are in the stress system, if you are full of adrenaline and your stress is high, the connection to your prefrontal cortex is, is, worse. So you’re you’re you get the narrower focus, and you are not able to exploit your your prefrontal cortex and all the intellectual ideas and your creativity because you’re in the sympathetic stress mode. And this is also why a lot of mistakes are code. You know, if you’re in a threat situation like the police in the states, you know, they they they shoot the wrong people and so on. Because in the stressed state, your your field nutrition is more narrow, and you you make mistakes. And we can see that people with better HRV, will have more empathy. They will have more energy to put themselves in the in the minds of other people, and they make better decisions.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:53:29]:
So for businesses that it’s very important, you know, to have employees with a well balanced stress system.

Nick Urban [00:53:36]:
Well, Torkil, we can keep going on this for a long time because there’s a lot to cover, but we’ll start to wind this one down. If people wanna connect with you to pick up the Pulse code, how do they go about that? Where do they find you?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:53:48]:
Oh, the Blood cure, the book is released as a normal book in all the book stores in the US. You can get it at Barnes and Noble HRV Amazon or whatever. It’s also an ebook and an audiobook. So and this book is actually still amazingly enough, is still the only first book that will be as a guidebook on how to use heart rate variability to improve your lifestyle changes and to to track your lifestyle changes. And on Instagram, you can see me at doctor_torquill Torkil. One more thing, of course, we also have this social online community. It’s called thepulsecure.com. It’s a little bit like Facebook.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:54:29]:
You can post your your findings, what you find in your devices. There will be workshops. There’s a blog there. There’s so much information.

Nick Urban [00:54:38]:
Alright. If there was a worldwide burning of the books and all knowledge on Health is lost, but you get to save the works of 3 teachers. Who would you choose and why? I would,

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:54:48]:
of course, take, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, as one of them. Maybe Ralph Waldo Emerson and, David Health Thoreau would be, another couple of people. And then I would also do I I couple them up HRV. So I will also do, Eckhart Tolle with the power of now and Paulo Coelho with the alchemist, I think.

Nick Urban [00:55:14]:
I think that first set, not last set, would have stellar HRVs.

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:55:19]:
Yeah. Because, you can see that, you know, the people that can do good work over a long time saves a sense of calm, have a sense of balance. So you can produce a lot with a high speed, you know, for a short time, but to last a whole lifetime of production, then you need a a calm nervous system In in addition to being able to perform, but you need both.

Nick Urban [00:55:45]:
Awesome. What’s one thing that Pulse Code tribe does not know about you?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:55:51]:
No. They may not know that I have, sailed halfway around the world with my family. We were sailing in our own catamaran from, Greece to the French Polynesia, you know, before COVID, put a stop on the trip. So, that has been the the one the big adventures of our life Mind to be able to share, you know, the real world with my children, not just observing the world through screens, like, of course, we all do so much of the time, but to be out there, feel the wind, feel the waves, see Galapagos, you know, pass through the Panama Canal, see the the corals underwater, and, yep. So that’s something that they they don’t know, but now they know.

Nick Urban [00:56:38]:
Alright. We’ll wrap it up with this one. If people have made it this far, how would you like them to leave our episode today?

Dr. Torkil Færø [00:56:45]:
I would like to leave them with the knowledge that you can really change and take charge of your health. You don’t have to wait until you get sick and be in the hands of the doctor and the and the health care system. You can improve, the your chances of well-being in the moment and of longevity. And all the measurements Torkil the things you have to do, to achieve that are free. Nature, sleep, movement, water, pure food, whole foods, meditation, breathing exercises, cold water. All these things are free, and it’s enough to keep you healthy.

Nick Urban [00:57:33]:
Peak hear. Well, doctor Torkil Ferro, thank you for joining the podcast today. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you, discussing all things HRV, what we can do about it, stress, and so much more. And if you guys wanna learn more, I suggest you pick up his book, The Pulse Cure. It’s available everywhere books are sold. And check out his tribe online. All the links to the things we discussed will be in the show notes of this code. On and until Nick next time, be an outlier.

Nick Urban [00:58:02]:
I hope that this has been helpful for you. If you enjoyed it, subscribe Mind hit the thumbs up. I love knowing who’s in the 1 percent committed to reaching their full potential. Comment 1% below so that I know who you are. For all the resources and links, meet me on my website at mindbodypeak.com. I appreciate you Mind look forward to connecting with you.