CBP#11 Use Breathing to Be More Resilient to Stress and Raise HRV with Dr Jay Wiles

Learn how to become more resilient to stress by using breathing to increase your HRV with Dr Jay T Wiles. Dr Wiles is an expert and authority on the interconnection between the human stress response and health performance and optimization. Dr. Wiles is a clinical health and performance psychologist with board certification in heart rate variability biofeedback and peripheral biofeedback and works as a leading consultant in psychophysiology to health influencers, professional athletes and teams, executives, and high performers. He is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Hanu Health. He has pioneered new and innovative means of using heart rate variability (HRV) and respiratory training as both diagnostic indicators of the dynamic nature of the human stress response, alongside therapeutic tools for regulating and conditioning this response for peak human performance. Dr. Wiles has an extensive history of working with top-performing athletes in the PGA, LPGA, MLS, MLB, ATP, and WTA. His consulting firm, Thrive Wellness and Performance, has held contracts with leading biotechnology and health technology organizations where he has engaged in research, development of therapeutics, and development of behavioral retention programs. Dr. Wiles has operated as the cohost of the Ben Greenfield Podcast since 2019 and hosts the Hanu Health Podcast. 0:31 Introduction of Dr Jay Wiles 1:13 What is stress resiliency? 2:42 Our ability to adapt to stress 4:07 Why our ability to respond to stress decreased compared to the past? 4:13 Microtraumas 6:06 Hormetic stress 7:37 HRV is a good way to measure stress 7:49 What is HRV and why it is a non-invasive proxy to measure stress 10:20 Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) relationship to respiratory cycles 11:48 Why heart rate decreases when you exhale 12:18 Vagus nerve responsible for speeding and slowing of heart rate 12:48 Baroreflex mechanism (baroreceptors influence blood pressure regulation) 14:14 Difference between homeostasis and allostasis 16:26 How to influence HRV through breathing 18:08 Why baseline HRV doesn’t matter as much as how you can influence it through breathing 19:00 Does increasing HRV correlate to a reduction in stress? 21:13 How breathing creates nice symmetrical peaks and valleys 22:28 The association between heart rates being high or low and HRV 23:35 Relationship between blood pressure and HRV 24:01 How does HRV change through the sleep cycles 25:32 Is REM sleep associated with more stress? 26:18 Why a decrease in HRV is not always bad or indicate stress 27:28 HRV and depression 29:29 How Oura ring and Whoop measure HRV differently 33:47 Why you shouldn’t compare HRV to other people 34:23 Your ability to respond to stress is measured by your change in HRV 36:01 HRV decreases as we get older 38:06 Cardiovascular fitness improves HRV and our ability to handle stress 38:58 Increasing stress resilience with exercise 40:02 HIIT training vs low-intensity cardio: Which is best for improving HRV? 40:43 What are the zones in cardio training? 41:53 Why heart rate is a better proxy for the stress of exercise over HRV 43:56 How cortisol and adrenaline affect HRV 44:48 How diet affects HRV 45:10 Affect of cortisol on HRV 46:25 How fasting influences HRV 47:35 Using the Relaxator and Hana HRV device 48:24 How does Hana compare to Oura and Whoop 48:36 More on how the Hanu HRV device works throughout the day 50:55 Everyone who purchases HanuHealth.com gets a free Relaxator for the first 1,000 orders 52:02 Breathing exercises to help with stress and influence HRV 53:54 Jon Bischke, Hanu Co-Founder, found breathwork to be the most important thing to influence HRV 54:19 Resonance frequency breathing is Jay’s favorite breathing practice 55:17 Breathing exercises built into HanuHealth app 56:47 Affects of Wim Hof method of breathing on HRV 57:59 Mouth taping increases HRV while sleeping 58:47 Nasal breathing slows down breathing and i