June 4, 2025 • 21 mins
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Your heart rate metrics are valuable indicators of your nervous system health and overall performance capacity, revealing critical information about stress levels, inflammation, and recovery potential.
• Resting heart rate, sleeping heart rate, and heart rate variability act as a performance dashboard
• Long COVID (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) can devastate nervous system function
• Recovery requires systematic approach using the DE-STRESS protocol
• Optimal resting heart rate ranges from 50-65 beats per minute for most people
• Higher HRV generally indicates better adaptability, stress tolerance, and resilience
• Wearables like Whoop, Oura Ring, Garmin, and Apple Watch provide valuable tracking
• Never compare HRV between different devices or between different people
• Zone 2 training (100-120 bpm for most 45+ adults) builds endurance without spiking stress
• Minerals testing is the most cost-effective functional lab test for overall health assessment
Schedule a free optimized consult at JeffreyMort.com to review your metrics, labs, and customize your protocol for optimized performance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If your wearables are showing a high resting heart
rate, a low heart ratevariability or poor workout
recovery, you're not just tired,you are underperforming.
In today's episode, I'mbreaking down what your heart
rate metrics are really tellingyou about your nervous system,
your stress load and long-termperformance, and exactly how I
(00:24):
rebuilt mine after having longCOVID and it wrecked my health
in 2022.
At 52 years old, my numbers arebetter than most 30-year-olds,
and I'll show you how to do thesame.
Let's get into it.
Hello, I'm Jeffrey Mort.
If you're like mostentrepreneurs, you're busy
taking care of business, yetwho's taking care of you?
(00:45):
If you're ready to take yourenergy and performance to the
next level in your life and yourbusiness, then this podcast is
for you, because today you'regoing to start breaking
boundaries of your mind, bodyand business with integrative
health, and when you do that,your possibilities are limitless
.
I'm grateful you're here.
Yes, always grateful for youjoining me.
(01:09):
Welcome back to BreakingBoundaries.
I'm Jeffrey Mort, your personalcertified high-performance
health coach, and today we'recutting through the noise and
getting into the raw truthbehind one of your body's most
reliable performance indicators.
Behind one of your body's mostreliable performance indicators
your heart rate.
I'm talking about resting heartrate, your RHR, talking about
(01:31):
sleeping heart rate, talkingabout workout and recovery zones
and, yes, the big one, heartrate variability.
Most people treat these numbersas nice-to-know data, but high
performers, we treat them like adashboard and a race car,
because they are.
So.
I want to share a little bitabout my personal wake-up call,
(01:53):
the crash that I had back in2022.
Let me bring you behind thescenes, back to that date, when
it was actually for that date,when it was actually for, it
started in January.
Actually, it started inDecember of 2021.
It was actually New Year's Eveand then proceeded to last
(02:14):
throughout until about Septemberor October of 2022.
I was completely wrecked,that's right.
I had long COVID, which isactually a term that was
developed.
You know the term long COVIDreally didn't exist before COVID
happened, before the pandemic.
But what is it?
(02:34):
It's actually CIRS.
Chronic inflammatory responsesyndrome is the clinical term
for it, the technical name forthat, and you know that goes for
anything like chronic fatiguesyndrome or Epstein-Barr virus
or any of those symptoms,syndromes, things like that.
It's a chronic inflammatoryresponse.
(02:57):
It's an inflammation responseof the body and it hit me like a
freight train.
I'm talking about brain fog,brain fog so bad that and it was
worse in the afternoon, by theafternoon for most of 2022, I
could not even have aconversation.
I couldn't string together thethoughts to create a sentence.
(03:22):
If you can imagine what that'slike.
That's how bad the brain fogwas and it was frightening, like
imagine not being like beingable to I can't even say being
able to think, because I wasn't,I wasn't able to.
It was so confusing, soconfusing and so frightening.
And so that's that was thebrain fog.
Then the daily fatigue at forabout two of those months in
(03:45):
2022, like most of the days inthose two months, I wasn't even
able to walk, like if I couldget up and make my way to the
bathroom and make my way outinto the sunshine just to lay on
the grass.
I mean, I'm getting all chokedup here just talking about it,
like that daily fatigue, andwondering like, is this what the
(04:08):
rest of my life is going to belike?
It was horrible.
So the brain fog, the fatigue,the resting heart rate that
spiked into the 80s, you know,for a metric, into the 80s it
was.
You know, that was my body'stachometer.
That was just redlined, it wasmaxed out and my heart rate
variability was in the gutter.
(04:29):
My numbers were so lowconsistently.
And then my mindset I was insurvival mode.
I really was in survival mode.
It was frightening and I tried,I did my best to stay out of
fear and just understanding thatI needed to put my body in a
position to heal.
And I had the skills.
(04:50):
At that point I was a certifiedintegrative health practitioner.
I was not yet ahigh-performance health coach,
but I had the skills to be ableto revitalize my body.
And I remember thinking how thehell did I go from health
leader to barely making itthrough the day?
But I didn't guess my way out.
I used the same integrativehealth practitioner strategy,
(05:13):
the de-stress protocol that Icoach my clients with exercise
for stress reduction, for toxinremoval, for rest, for emotional
balance, science, backsupplementation and, like I want
to say, most importantly,keeping that success mindset.
To round out that de-stressprotocol, it you know, some of
(05:34):
the things that I did was justgetting into nature, like I said
, to go lay on the lawn andearth and ground myself and get
that sunshine, that naturalvitamin d um, keeping that
emotional balance, knowing theright supplements to take, being
able to do toxin removalstrategies like infrared sauna
and liver detoxes modified ofcourse, because I couldn't
(05:56):
handle that full detox protocoland graduated exercise program
and eating the right foods and Itracked my recovery using data.
Now fast forward to today, at 52years old, my heart rate
metrics reflect somebody 10 to20 years younger and that's no
(06:16):
fluke and you know, honestly,this.
My inspiration for doing thisepisode here was not only to
teach and inspire, but today Iwent on.
So today was a cardio day forme for exercise in the morning
and I went on a two and a halfthree mile run and when I looked
at my final metrics at the end,you know I looked at my peak
(06:39):
heart rate on that run, that runand you know it should have
been down around 120, but it waselevated, telling me that my
exercising heart rate, my zonetwo cardio heart rate, is higher
than what the average is for myage.
And then when I was done withthat cardio run, I checked my
(06:59):
heart rate about five minutesafter to see how quickly my
heart rate came down in the twominutes after I was done
exercising and it came back downto a resting heart rate very,
very quickly.
So you know that tells me thatyou know my heart rate metrics
are that of somebody, like Isaid, 10 to 20 years younger
(07:19):
than myself.
So what?
You might be wondering whatheart rate data really tells you
.
So let's break that down.
Your resting heart rate, yourRHR this is a benchmark of
cardiovascular fitness and PNSIf you hear me say PNS, that
stands for parasympatheticnervous system.
So that is the rest and relaxedtone of the nervous system, as
(07:43):
opposed to the sympatheticnervous system, which is the
fight or flight tone of thenervous system.
So optimal for your restingheart rate is somewhere between
50 and 65 beats per minute andit really depends on the
individual.
We're going to talk about somecaveats here as we go through
heart rate.
If you're measuring around 70for resting heart rate, you're
(08:05):
likely running hot with chronicstress or inflammation.
So that's a great indicator onhow stressed out your body is,
and you can measure this simplywith a wearable.
We're going to talk about somewearables in a few minutes, so
stay with me here.
Your sleeping heart rate next.
Sleeping heart rate tells youhow well you are recovering.
(08:26):
Very, very important tounderstand.
Ideally, dips lower than yourresting heart rate ideally.
If you're not, your body isstuck in fight or flight mode.
So sleeping heart rate very,very important and it's
different than resting heartrate.
Resting heart rate is whenyou're awake.
Sleeping heart rate is, as youmay have guessed, is when you're
(08:46):
sleeping.
Now, your workout heart rateand recovery your peak heart
rate shows cardio output.
So recovery heart rate, meaninghow quickly you return to
baseline this is what I wasmentioning earlier, that I
checked after my run today.
This equals adaptability andresilience.
Your recovery heart rate isvery important to understand
(09:09):
your adaptability and yourresilience.
And slow recovery means there'spoor vagal tone.
Your vagal tone is a referenceto the vagus nerve that runs
from your brainstem down intoyour abdomen and branches out
into all of your organs.
(09:30):
Your vagus nerve is very, veryimportant and there's something
that's called vagal tone and youhave poor vagal tone when your
recovery heart rate takes a longtime to come down.
Recovery heart rate takes along time to come down and this
is a represented representationof sns dominance, sympathetic
nervous system dominance, as Imentioned earlier, and last but
not least, heart ratevariability.
(09:51):
You know there's been a lot ofbuzz around hrv because this is
the gold standard for nervoussystem readiness.
This is like the stresstachometer your heart rate
variability so you can getinstantaneous data information
depending on the wearable.
We're going to talk aboutwearables in just a minute.
And higher heart ratevariability generally means more
(10:16):
adaptability, more stresstolerance and more resilience.
And lower consistent heart ratevariability means that you
could be challenged with moreinflammation, more fatigue and
slower recovery.
And optimal ranges vary fromperson to person and from device
(10:37):
to device, but greater than 60milliseconds is solid for most
people, for most people.
We're going to dive deeper intothat in just a minute.
So, best ways to measure we'lltalk a little bit about
wearables.
Uh, there's things like thewhoop strap, which is amazing,
the aura ring, which is amazing,the garmin watch or the apple
(10:57):
watch.
They're all solids.
But here's the caveat do notcompare data, heart rate
variability data from onetechnology to another.
So never compare your aura ringhrv to your whoop strap,
because you're you're looking attwo totally different uh ways
of measuring.
Um, the whoop strap, the garmin, the apple watch those are on
(11:19):
your wrist.
The aura ringa Ring goes onyour finger, as you may have
guessed, and there used to beanother device that was a chest
strap, and they have.
I think they're retooling andgoing.
I'm not even going to mentionwho it was.
But the closer to the heart thedevice is, the more accurate
the heart rate variability isgoing to be.
(11:40):
I'll just, I'll say that.
So never compare the HRV datafrom one device to the next.
And you really shouldn'tcompare your heart rate
variability to somebody else.
You shouldn't say, oh, thatother person's got a heart rate
variability of 100.
What are they doing that?
I'm not doing that's.
That's really bio-individual tothat person and so is yours to
(12:01):
you.
So two things don't compareApple Watch to Garmin, so apples
to oranges, and don't compareyour heart rate variability to
somebody else's.
And then get consistency.
You want to wear it at nightand track trends, not just daily
numbers.
You want to.
You know it's important tounderstand your heart rate
(12:21):
variability at night.
So there's manual tests forresting heart rate as well.
You want to do this first thingin the morning, especially
before coffee, because coffeecan spike your heart rate.
Because what's it doing?
Caffeine is causing your bodyto release norepinephrine and
adrenaline and that will affectyour resting heart rate.
(12:41):
So you want to measure firstthing in the morning.
Uh, before coffee or beforemovement, I get out of bed and I
go right for a morning walk.
You know I do a short morningroutine, do my hypnosis and then
, um, luna and I, my australianshepherd, we go for a quick
little walk.
So, um, another test forresting heart rate is you want a
(13:03):
pulse count?
Uh, for about 60 seconds at theradial radial artery.
So the radial artery runs fromyour elbow to your thumb, so you
can usually measure that aroundyour wrist.
But it's much easier with awearable device than manually
testing for your resting heartrate.
And then, of course, there'slab data.
This is advanced testing here.
This combines metrics withfunctional medicine lab tests,
(13:27):
and we're talking about at-homefunctional lab tests, so very
convenient that you could dothese on the go while you're
traveling.
You can do them at home.
There's no need to go to alaboratory.
No blood draw, no phlebotomist.
Things like the hair tissuemineral analysis this is our
minerals and metals test uses asimple hair sample, as you might
have guessed.
The Candida metabolic andvitamins test, which is a gold
(13:49):
standard in functional testingit's called the organic acids
test.
This is a urine test.
And then there's salvo salivarycortisol testing, which is done
through our stress, mood andmetabolism test, or our men's
and women's wellness tests.
These are very important aswell, and this gives a complete
picture of stress or medicmeasuring cortisol or measuring
(14:11):
inflammation.
We're measuring detox pathways.
We're also looking atneurotransmitters and you know,
if we wanted to go a little bitdeeper, I would add two more
labs to that stack and I wouldbe looking at the omega-3 levels
, omega-3 to omega-6 ratios.
That's a simple blood spot test, so a finger prick, and then a
(14:32):
food sensitivity test.
This is looking at a delayedreaction of food sensitivities
with the immune system, so it'san IgG test.
I could go deeper into that ona different episode and that's
also a finger prick or a bloodspot test.
So those are the five labs thatI would highly recommend for
anybody that wants that data,wants that dashboard on a point
(14:54):
in time of where you are at withall of these markers for stress
, inflammation, detox.
All of these markers for stress, inflammation, detox, brain
health, things like that.
Now you might be wondering whatdo I do with all this
information?
Well, let's get into how tooptimize and outperform and
before I do that, I want to sayI'm not providing any medical
(15:15):
advice.
I don't claim to treat,diagnose or cure any disease,
but what we do is we use thoselab tests to get to the root
cause of what's going on.
And if your numbers are off,here's what works.
So you want to train smart andyou want to recover even smarter
.
So using zone two training,zone two, cardiovascular
training.
And what is that?
(15:35):
Zone two?
That's a heart rate of, formost people that are over you
know, let's say, average 40, 45years old, 100 to 120 beats per
minute.
That would be zone two cardiotraining.
The younger you are, the higherthat number might be.
And that is used to buildendurance without spiking your
(15:56):
stress response, without spikingcortisol.
And then, of course, you couldadd breath work.
Infrared sauna, cold exposure Idon't recommend cold exposure
for everyone, unless they knowif their nervous system is more
SNS or PNS, dominant, meaningare they in fight or flight or
are they in rest and relax mostof the time.
(16:16):
Because cold exposure, althoughit's great for an
anti-inflammatory and forrecovery, if somebody's body is
completely stressed out, iftheir nervous system is redlined
, then cold exposure istypically not for them.
Infrared sauna everybody canbenefit from that.
Just low and slow with the heatand work your resilience, your
(16:36):
tolerance up in that sauna forhigher temperatures and longer
durations, and then, you know,do that post-workout to be able
to shift into theparasympathetic.
And you know I gave you acouple of caveats on that Very
important.
When I say breath work, the bestthing for reestablishing your
heart rate variability and yourresting heart rate is it's
called 7-11 breathing, so theexhale is longer than the inhale
(17:00):
.
So seven seconds in, 11 secondsout.
Do that for five minutes.
That's going to be great forendurance and resilience as well
.
You know the 3-2-1 method stopeating three hours before bed,
(17:23):
no screens two hours before bedand no liquids an hour before
bed.
And super, super important.
And then you know we use thingslike sleep support.
We use the sleep help protocolin our practice and that
incorporates targetedsupplementation.
This is all backed by science.
(17:49):
Magnes important.
What kind of magnesium?
Well, um, you know there'sseveral different kinds of
magnesium and some are moreabsorbable than others and some
are better before bedtime, um,so magnesium I'm drawing a blank
on it now.
I'll get back to that, uh,it'll come to me.
Gaba is another supplementationthat we use l-theanine,
melatonin, um, and so much moremagnesium.
(18:09):
Uh, chelate is one of them.
Um, magnesium threonate isreally good.
It's also good before bed, butmagnesium threonate is more for
brain health.
You certainly combine those umtogether and uh, yeah, those are
great before bed, especiallywith the micronized liquid.
Melatonin makes a hugedifference and you know.
(18:30):
So a lot of these terms aregeneralized like melatonin.
Like what kind of melatonin?
Well, micronized liquidmelatonin is much more effective
, uh, and doesn't leave you asgroggy and you can vary the
dosage.
You know what kind of magnesiumis it?
Magnesium oxide?
Well, that's more of a laxativeand you wouldn't want to use
that, especially before bed.
So the type of magnesium makesa huge difference and this is
(18:54):
why it's important to have acertified integrative health
practitioner on your side,because we know all these things
.
Next, manage inflammation at theroot.
So we're talking about guttesting, talking about removing
those hidden food sensitivities,not forever, just for a short
duration, until we can heal andseal that gut wall.
So we make sure that theproteins from the foods that
(19:15):
you're eating are not slippingthrough that leaky gut into the
bloodstream, causing thatdelayed immune reaction.
And then, of course, detoxquarterly, super, super
important, especially if HRV islow.
Next, mineral balance is king.
Things like sodium andpotassium and magnesium super
(19:37):
important.
And those need to be in balancewith each other, very, very
important.
That's why that minerals andmetals test that I mentioned
earlier with a simple hairsample, we can look at your
ratios between sodium andpotassium, calcium and magnesium
and all of the ones in between,and that can tell us what we
need more of.
(19:57):
You know these athletes that aregoing out and and just mega
dosing with electrolytes, youknow, before or after a workout.
They probably are not measuringwhat they need and that's why
the data is super important forunderstanding.
Do we need magnesium only?
Do we need magnesium withcalcium?
The minerals and metals testwill give you that information
(20:18):
and they drive the sodium andpotassium and magnesium, and
calcium plays a big role in thistoo.
They drive heart rhythm andrecovery.
That's why it's king.
And the minerals and metals test, as I said, it tells you where
you stand.
This is a non-negotiable.
This is like if you were tojust do one at-home functional
lab test.
Minerals and metals test givesyou the most information for a
(20:41):
single lab at that cost.
And then, of course, mindsetyou want to win that inner game,
you want to win that inner race.
Stop reacting, start responding, and that switch alone changes
heart rate variability.
So final word on today's episodedon't let your nervous system,
(21:01):
run your life.
Data is your ally and a safe,natural, proven system is your
plan.
Use it to calibrate, tooptimize and to dominate.
You're not just training forhealth, you're training for life
.
And if you want help dialing inyour numbers, you can schedule
a free, optimized consult withus.
We'd love to review yourmetrics, your labs and customize
(21:23):
your protocol for you to beable to optimize your
performance.
And, of course, the link isalways in the show notes or you
can find that at JeffreyMortcom.
This is Breaking Boundaries,where we trade burnout for
high-performance health.
This is your edge.
Let's get to work.
Bye-bye everybody.
If your wearables are showing a high resting heart
rate, a low heart ratevariability or poor workout
recovery, you're not just tired,you are underperforming.
In today's episode, I'mbreaking down what your heart
rate metrics are really tellingyou about your nervous system,
your stress load and long-termperformance, and exactly how I
(00:24):
rebuilt mine after having longCOVID and it wrecked my health
in 2022.
At 52 years old, my numbers arebetter than most 30-year-olds,
and I'll show you how to do thesame.
Let's get into it.
Hello, I'm Jeffrey Mort.
If you're like mostentrepreneurs, you're busy
taking care of business, yetwho's taking care of you?
(00:45):
If you're ready to take yourenergy and performance to the
next level in your life and yourbusiness, then this podcast is
for you, because today you'regoing to start breaking
boundaries of your mind, bodyand business with integrative
health, and when you do that,your possibilities are limitless
.
I'm grateful you're here.
Yes, always grateful for youjoining me.
(01:09):
Welcome back to BreakingBoundaries.
I'm Jeffrey Mort, your personalcertified high-performance
health coach, and today we'recutting through the noise and
getting into the raw truthbehind one of your body's most
reliable performance indicators.
Behind one of your body's mostreliable performance indicators
your heart rate.
I'm talking about resting heartrate, your RHR, talking about
(01:31):
sleeping heart rate, talkingabout workout and recovery zones
and, yes, the big one, heartrate variability.
Most people treat these numbersas nice-to-know data, but high
performers, we treat them like adashboard and a race car,
because they are.
So.
I want to share a little bitabout my personal wake-up call,
(01:53):
the crash that I had back in2022.
Let me bring you behind thescenes, back to that date, when
it was actually for that date,when it was actually for, it
started in January.
Actually, it started inDecember of 2021.
It was actually New Year's Eveand then proceeded to last
(02:14):
throughout until about Septemberor October of 2022.
I was completely wrecked,that's right.
I had long COVID, which isactually a term that was
developed.
You know the term long COVIDreally didn't exist before COVID
happened, before the pandemic.
But what is it?
(02:34):
It's actually CIRS.
Chronic inflammatory responsesyndrome is the clinical term
for it, the technical name forthat, and you know that goes for
anything like chronic fatiguesyndrome or Epstein-Barr virus
or any of those symptoms,syndromes, things like that.
It's a chronic inflammatoryresponse.
(02:57):
It's an inflammation responseof the body and it hit me like a
freight train.
I'm talking about brain fog,brain fog so bad that and it was
worse in the afternoon, by theafternoon for most of 2022, I
could not even have aconversation.
I couldn't string together thethoughts to create a sentence.
(03:22):
If you can imagine what that'slike.
That's how bad the brain fogwas and it was frightening, like
imagine not being like beingable to I can't even say being
able to think, because I wasn't,I wasn't able to.
It was so confusing, soconfusing and so frightening.
And so that's that was thebrain fog.
Then the daily fatigue at forabout two of those months in
(03:45):
2022, like most of the days inthose two months, I wasn't even
able to walk, like if I couldget up and make my way to the
bathroom and make my way outinto the sunshine just to lay on
the grass.
I mean, I'm getting all chokedup here just talking about it,
like that daily fatigue, andwondering like, is this what the
(04:08):
rest of my life is going to belike?
It was horrible.
So the brain fog, the fatigue,the resting heart rate that
spiked into the 80s, you know,for a metric, into the 80s it
was.
You know, that was my body'stachometer.
That was just redlined, it wasmaxed out and my heart rate
variability was in the gutter.
(04:29):
My numbers were so lowconsistently.
And then my mindset I was insurvival mode.
I really was in survival mode.
It was frightening and I tried,I did my best to stay out of
fear and just understanding thatI needed to put my body in a
position to heal.
And I had the skills.
(04:50):
At that point I was a certifiedintegrative health practitioner.
I was not yet ahigh-performance health coach,
but I had the skills to be ableto revitalize my body.
And I remember thinking how thehell did I go from health
leader to barely making itthrough the day?
But I didn't guess my way out.
I used the same integrativehealth practitioner strategy,
(05:13):
the de-stress protocol that Icoach my clients with exercise
for stress reduction, for toxinremoval, for rest, for emotional
balance, science, backsupplementation and, like I want
to say, most importantly,keeping that success mindset.
To round out that de-stressprotocol, it you know, some of
(05:34):
the things that I did was justgetting into nature, like I said
, to go lay on the lawn andearth and ground myself and get
that sunshine, that naturalvitamin d um, keeping that
emotional balance, knowing theright supplements to take, being
able to do toxin removalstrategies like infrared sauna
and liver detoxes modified ofcourse, because I couldn't
(05:56):
handle that full detox protocoland graduated exercise program
and eating the right foods and Itracked my recovery using data.
Now fast forward to today, at 52years old, my heart rate
metrics reflect somebody 10 to20 years younger and that's no
(06:16):
fluke and you know, honestly,this.
My inspiration for doing thisepisode here was not only to
teach and inspire, but today Iwent on.
So today was a cardio day forme for exercise in the morning
and I went on a two and a halfthree mile run and when I looked
at my final metrics at the end,you know I looked at my peak
(06:39):
heart rate on that run, that runand you know it should have
been down around 120, but it waselevated, telling me that my
exercising heart rate, my zonetwo cardio heart rate, is higher
than what the average is for myage.
And then when I was done withthat cardio run, I checked my
(06:59):
heart rate about five minutesafter to see how quickly my
heart rate came down in the twominutes after I was done
exercising and it came back downto a resting heart rate very,
very quickly.
So you know that tells me thatyou know my heart rate metrics
are that of somebody, like Isaid, 10 to 20 years younger
(07:19):
than myself.
So what?
You might be wondering whatheart rate data really tells you
.
So let's break that down.
Your resting heart rate, yourRHR this is a benchmark of
cardiovascular fitness and PNSIf you hear me say PNS, that
stands for parasympatheticnervous system.
So that is the rest and relaxedtone of the nervous system, as
(07:43):
opposed to the sympatheticnervous system, which is the
fight or flight tone of thenervous system.
So optimal for your restingheart rate is somewhere between
50 and 65 beats per minute andit really depends on the
individual.
We're going to talk about somecaveats here as we go through
heart rate.
If you're measuring around 70for resting heart rate, you're
(08:05):
likely running hot with chronicstress or inflammation.
So that's a great indicator onhow stressed out your body is,
and you can measure this simplywith a wearable.
We're going to talk about somewearables in a few minutes, so
stay with me here.
Your sleeping heart rate next.
Sleeping heart rate tells youhow well you are recovering.
(08:26):
Very, very important tounderstand.
Ideally, dips lower than yourresting heart rate ideally.
If you're not, your body isstuck in fight or flight mode.
So sleeping heart rate very,very important and it's
different than resting heartrate.
Resting heart rate is whenyou're awake.
Sleeping heart rate is, as youmay have guessed, is when you're
(08:46):
sleeping.
Now, your workout heart rateand recovery your peak heart
rate shows cardio output.
So recovery heart rate, meaninghow quickly you return to
baseline this is what I wasmentioning earlier, that I
checked after my run today.
This equals adaptability andresilience.
Your recovery heart rate isvery important to understand
(09:09):
your adaptability and yourresilience.
And slow recovery means there'spoor vagal tone.
Your vagal tone is a referenceto the vagus nerve that runs
from your brainstem down intoyour abdomen and branches out
into all of your organs.
(09:30):
Your vagus nerve is very, veryimportant and there's something
that's called vagal tone and youhave poor vagal tone when your
recovery heart rate takes a longtime to come down.
Recovery heart rate takes along time to come down and this
is a represented representationof sns dominance, sympathetic
nervous system dominance, as Imentioned earlier, and last but
not least, heart ratevariability.
(09:51):
You know there's been a lot ofbuzz around hrv because this is
the gold standard for nervoussystem readiness.
This is like the stresstachometer your heart rate
variability so you can getinstantaneous data information
depending on the wearable.
We're going to talk aboutwearables in just a minute.
And higher heart ratevariability generally means more
(10:16):
adaptability, more stresstolerance and more resilience.
And lower consistent heart ratevariability means that you
could be challenged with moreinflammation, more fatigue and
slower recovery.
And optimal ranges vary fromperson to person and from device
(10:37):
to device, but greater than 60milliseconds is solid for most
people, for most people.
We're going to dive deeper intothat in just a minute.
So, best ways to measure we'lltalk a little bit about
wearables.
Uh, there's things like thewhoop strap, which is amazing,
the aura ring, which is amazing,the garmin watch or the apple
(10:57):
watch.
They're all solids.
But here's the caveat do notcompare data, heart rate
variability data from onetechnology to another.
So never compare your aura ringhrv to your whoop strap,
because you're you're looking attwo totally different uh ways
of measuring.
Um, the whoop strap, the garmin, the apple watch those are on
(11:19):
your wrist.
The aura ringa Ring goes onyour finger, as you may have
guessed, and there used to beanother device that was a chest
strap, and they have.
I think they're retooling andgoing.
I'm not even going to mentionwho it was.
But the closer to the heart thedevice is, the more accurate
the heart rate variability isgoing to be.
(11:40):
I'll just, I'll say that.
So never compare the HRV datafrom one device to the next.
And you really shouldn'tcompare your heart rate
variability to somebody else.
You shouldn't say, oh, thatother person's got a heart rate
variability of 100.
What are they doing that?
I'm not doing that's.
That's really bio-individual tothat person and so is yours to
(12:01):
you.
So two things don't compareApple Watch to Garmin, so apples
to oranges, and don't compareyour heart rate variability to
somebody else's.
And then get consistency.
You want to wear it at nightand track trends, not just daily
numbers.
You want to.
You know it's important tounderstand your heart rate
(12:21):
variability at night.
So there's manual tests forresting heart rate as well.
You want to do this first thingin the morning, especially
before coffee, because coffeecan spike your heart rate.
Because what's it doing?
Caffeine is causing your bodyto release norepinephrine and
adrenaline and that will affectyour resting heart rate.
(12:41):
So you want to measure firstthing in the morning.
Uh, before coffee or beforemovement, I get out of bed and I
go right for a morning walk.
You know I do a short morningroutine, do my hypnosis and then
, um, luna and I, my australianshepherd, we go for a quick
little walk.
So, um, another test forresting heart rate is you want a
(13:03):
pulse count?
Uh, for about 60 seconds at theradial radial artery.
So the radial artery runs fromyour elbow to your thumb, so you
can usually measure that aroundyour wrist.
But it's much easier with awearable device than manually
testing for your resting heartrate.
And then, of course, there'slab data.
This is advanced testing here.
This combines metrics withfunctional medicine lab tests,
(13:27):
and we're talking about at-homefunctional lab tests, so very
convenient that you could dothese on the go while you're
traveling.
You can do them at home.
There's no need to go to alaboratory.
No blood draw, no phlebotomist.
Things like the hair tissuemineral analysis this is our
minerals and metals test uses asimple hair sample, as you might
have guessed.
The Candida metabolic andvitamins test, which is a gold
(13:49):
standard in functional testingit's called the organic acids
test.
This is a urine test.
And then there's salvo salivarycortisol testing, which is done
through our stress, mood andmetabolism test, or our men's
and women's wellness tests.
These are very important aswell, and this gives a complete
picture of stress or medicmeasuring cortisol or measuring
(14:11):
inflammation.
We're measuring detox pathways.
We're also looking atneurotransmitters and you know,
if we wanted to go a little bitdeeper, I would add two more
labs to that stack and I wouldbe looking at the omega-3 levels
, omega-3 to omega-6 ratios.
That's a simple blood spot test, so a finger prick, and then a
(14:32):
food sensitivity test.
This is looking at a delayedreaction of food sensitivities
with the immune system, so it'san IgG test.
I could go deeper into that ona different episode and that's
also a finger prick or a bloodspot test.
So those are the five labs thatI would highly recommend for
anybody that wants that data,wants that dashboard on a point
(14:54):
in time of where you are at withall of these markers for stress
, inflammation, detox.
All of these markers for stress, inflammation, detox, brain
health, things like that.
Now you might be wondering whatdo I do with all this
information?
Well, let's get into how tooptimize and outperform and
before I do that, I want to sayI'm not providing any medical
(15:15):
advice.
I don't claim to treat,diagnose or cure any disease,
but what we do is we use thoselab tests to get to the root
cause of what's going on.
And if your numbers are off,here's what works.
So you want to train smart andyou want to recover even smarter
.
So using zone two training,zone two, cardiovascular
training.
And what is that?
(15:35):
Zone two?
That's a heart rate of, formost people that are over you
know, let's say, average 40, 45years old, 100 to 120 beats per
minute.
That would be zone two cardiotraining.
The younger you are, the higherthat number might be.
And that is used to buildendurance without spiking your
(15:56):
stress response, without spikingcortisol.
And then, of course, you couldadd breath work.
Infrared sauna, cold exposure Idon't recommend cold exposure
for everyone, unless they knowif their nervous system is more
SNS or PNS, dominant, meaningare they in fight or flight or
are they in rest and relax mostof the time.
(16:16):
Because cold exposure, althoughit's great for an
anti-inflammatory and forrecovery, if somebody's body is
completely stressed out, iftheir nervous system is redlined
, then cold exposure istypically not for them.
Infrared sauna everybody canbenefit from that.
Just low and slow with the heatand work your resilience, your
(16:36):
tolerance up in that sauna forhigher temperatures and longer
durations, and then, you know,do that post-workout to be able
to shift into theparasympathetic.
And you know I gave you acouple of caveats on that Very
important.
When I say breath work, the bestthing for reestablishing your
heart rate variability and yourresting heart rate is it's
called 7-11 breathing, so theexhale is longer than the inhale
(17:00):
.
So seven seconds in, 11 secondsout.
Do that for five minutes.
That's going to be great forendurance and resilience as well
.
You know the 3-2-1 method stopeating three hours before bed,
(17:23):
no screens two hours before bedand no liquids an hour before
bed.
And super, super important.
And then you know we use thingslike sleep support.
We use the sleep help protocolin our practice and that
incorporates targetedsupplementation.
This is all backed by science.
(17:49):
Magnes important.
What kind of magnesium?
Well, um, you know there'sseveral different kinds of
magnesium and some are moreabsorbable than others and some
are better before bedtime, um,so magnesium I'm drawing a blank
on it now.
I'll get back to that, uh,it'll come to me.
Gaba is another supplementationthat we use l-theanine,
melatonin, um, and so much moremagnesium.
(18:09):
Uh, chelate is one of them.
Um, magnesium threonate isreally good.
It's also good before bed, butmagnesium threonate is more for
brain health.
You certainly combine those umtogether and uh, yeah, those are
great before bed, especiallywith the micronized liquid.
Melatonin makes a hugedifference and you know.
(18:30):
So a lot of these terms aregeneralized like melatonin.
Like what kind of melatonin?
Well, micronized liquidmelatonin is much more effective
, uh, and doesn't leave you asgroggy and you can vary the
dosage.
You know what kind of magnesiumis it?
Magnesium oxide?
Well, that's more of a laxativeand you wouldn't want to use
that, especially before bed.
So the type of magnesium makesa huge difference and this is
(18:54):
why it's important to have acertified integrative health
practitioner on your side,because we know all these things
.
Next, manage inflammation at theroot.
So we're talking about guttesting, talking about removing
those hidden food sensitivities,not forever, just for a short
duration, until we can heal andseal that gut wall.
So we make sure that theproteins from the foods that
(19:15):
you're eating are not slippingthrough that leaky gut into the
bloodstream, causing thatdelayed immune reaction.
And then, of course, detoxquarterly, super, super
important, especially if HRV islow.
Next, mineral balance is king.
Things like sodium andpotassium and magnesium super
(19:37):
important.
And those need to be in balancewith each other, very, very
important.
That's why that minerals andmetals test that I mentioned
earlier with a simple hairsample, we can look at your
ratios between sodium andpotassium, calcium and magnesium
and all of the ones in between,and that can tell us what we
need more of.
(19:57):
You know these athletes that aregoing out and and just mega
dosing with electrolytes, youknow, before or after a workout.
They probably are not measuringwhat they need and that's why
the data is super important forunderstanding.
Do we need magnesium only?
Do we need magnesium withcalcium?
The minerals and metals testwill give you that information
(20:18):
and they drive the sodium andpotassium and magnesium, and
calcium plays a big role in thistoo.
They drive heart rhythm andrecovery.
That's why it's king.
And the minerals and metals test, as I said, it tells you where
you stand.
This is a non-negotiable.
This is like if you were tojust do one at-home functional
lab test.
Minerals and metals test givesyou the most information for a
(20:41):
single lab at that cost.
And then, of course, mindsetyou want to win that inner game,
you want to win that inner race.
Stop reacting, start responding, and that switch alone changes
heart rate variability.
So final word on today's episodedon't let your nervous system,
(21:01):
run your life.
Data is your ally and a safe,natural, proven system is your
plan.
Use it to calibrate, tooptimize and to dominate.
You're not just training forhealth, you're training for life
.
And if you want help dialing inyour numbers, you can schedule
a free, optimized consult withus.
We'd love to review yourmetrics, your labs and customize
(21:23):
your protocol for you to beable to optimize your
performance.
And, of course, the link isalways in the show notes or you
can find that at JeffreyMortcom.
This is Breaking Boundaries,where we trade burnout for
high-performance health.
This is your edge.
Let's get to work.
Bye-bye everybody.
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