January 30, 2025 • 18 mins
Managing stress is crucial for improving heart health, and studies show it can significantly enhance heart rate variability (HRV), a key indicator of cardiovascular health. By using stress management techniques, individuals can tackle both immediate and long-term challenges related to heart conditions.
• Introduction to the connection between stress and heart health
• Definition and importance of heart rate variability (HRV)
• Evidence linking stress, psychological distress, and cardiovascular risks
• Overview of effective stress management techniques
• Discussion on personal mental responses to stressors
• The significance of addressing underlying causes of stress
• Summary of findings from the 2024 meta-analysis on stress interventions
• Final thoughts on the role of stress management in achieving long-term heart health
Disclaimer:
This podcast is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose, and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, prescription, or recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Innate
Ability and Health Podcast.
My name is Ryan, I'm your hostand today we're going to be
talking about stress and heartrate variability, specifically
how stress management canactually improve heart rate
variability.
So, as many of you may know ifyou've heard some of my recent
(00:24):
podcast episodes I'm workingwith Natural Heart Doctor to
help patients improve theirresults by managing stress, by
managing the mental aspect ofwhat goes on regarding heart
health.
So this is a really interestingtopic that I wanted to cover.
It's been gone over extensivelyin a study that was done and
(00:50):
the study was just done in 2024,and it was a meta-analysis, so
a lot of different informationwent into checking this out and
it was put out by the Journal ofBehavioral Medicine and it's
called Effects of StressManagement Interventions on
Heart Rate Variability in Adultswith Cardiovascular Disease
medicine and it's called effectsof stress management
interventions on heart ratevariability in adults with
cardiovascular disease.
So, as you can see, it's prettymuch right on the money for
(01:12):
what we want to learn about andbe able to help when assisting
people with heart health andeverything that goes into how
stress relates to that.
So, first of all, let's take alook at what is heart rate
variability.
Heart rate variability is a keyindicator of overall heart
(01:35):
health and what it's measuringbasically is the variation of
heartbeats, the intervalsbetween them.
Specifically, and just to giveyou a really good quote on this
that explains it a bit, this isfrom Harvard Health Publishing a
highly variable heartbeat meansthat interval between beats
(02:00):
fluctuate, although only by afraction of a second.
High HRV seems to signal ahealthy heart because it
reflects the heart's ability torespond quickly to rapid changes
occurring throughout the body.
Now, obviously, we all know, ifwe're in the alternative health
(02:21):
or holistic health field, thatbalance is everything in the
body and when your body is goingthrough different processes
whether it's digestion,exercising, experiencing
different stresses from toxinsin the environment or stress, or
whenever it is a lot of thingschange Hormones go up and down,
different levels of exertionchange your electrolyte balance,
(02:45):
et.
Etc.
Your heart has to respond andbe able to handle all of these
things and heart ratevariability measures the ability
of your heart to respond duringthose times and to help you
stay healthy and have the energyyou need and everything else
that goes along with a healthyheart.
Now that we've got heart ratevariability down.
What does it have to do withstress and how does stress
(03:07):
management influence it?
And this is really reallycritical to understand
specifically.
Most people think of handlingstress as an acute thing where
you are maybe de-stressing fromsome moment that has caused you
to be stressed, to have somelevel of emotional distress or
(03:29):
something going on in your lifethat causes that stress.
By regulating that down, you'reable to maybe not go into AFib
or to not have as hard areaction on your blood sugar or
your hypertension level orwhatever it is right.
All of these things affectheart health, so that's how
stress is usually addressed andthought of, even in the holistic
(03:52):
world.
However, what was found in thisstudy was that it goes beyond
that.
Stress management actuallyhelps improve longer term the
results of your HRV.
So improve your HRV.
I'm going to read directly fromthe study here so that you can
(04:13):
see what I'm talking about.
It says here, right in theintroduction cardiovascular
disease affects over 120 millionadults in the US and
significantly reducesdisability-free adjusted years.
So people get worse as they getolder or just in general.
Right.
And then later on it says here,next paragraph psychological
(04:36):
distress, depression, anxietyand stress in general increases
cardiovascular risks inindividuals with and without
established cardiovasculardisease.
So we know that, and this studyshowed that stress period
causes a worse result for peoplewho have cardiovascular disease
(04:59):
or who don't.
Right Psychological distresselicits physiological responses,
including sympatheticactivation.
So the fight or flightactivation right, which have
been implicated as possiblemechanisms linking psychological
distress and cardiovascularrisk?
(05:20):
Okay, this is the basis of whatthey were looking at in the
study and what they found intheir summarizing here.
Heart rate variability, hrv, isa non-invasive measure of the
autonomic nervous system.
Although the associationbetween various HRV components
are complex, the predominantview is that high, vagal,
(05:44):
mediated HRV reflects theability of the cardiovascular
heart rate variability basicallyis more able to deal with
(06:08):
physical or psychological stress.
So it's really important tounderstand how this relates to
each other and when you knowthat when you're working on
heart rate variability and whenyou're working on stress
improving both they go hand inhand you can handle a lot of
things all at once.
(06:28):
Okay, so let's take a look atthis.
If we can work on improvingyour heart rate variability by
doing stress management andhelping you understand how
stress works, we're not justhandling the immediate AFib
attack or increase in bloodpressure, we're handling your
long-term heart health.
So you're going to tick off alot of boxes here by just
(06:51):
working on stress management andstress management is a pretty
broad and wide open field, andthey used a lot of different
techniques in this study.
You could be doing things thathelp you stay calmer in
stressful situations or put youin a state that is less stressed
after you've experienced stress.
Either one of these thingswould be valid stress management
(07:12):
techniques, and learning how todo them in the moment is also
very important.
There's different ways of goingabout this.
One is you have day-to-dayactivities you do day in and day
out, that help you learn how tohandle stress, and it just put
you in a state of mind whereyou're not in the fight or
flight mode.
You're in that rest and repairmode.
(07:33):
You're not in the fight orflight mode.
You're in that rest and repairmode.
Parasympathetic system allowsyou to get into a state where
you're healing right and thosethings like daily yoga
activities, going for walks,doing things that you enjoy,
meditation, for those that findthat effective and helpful, and
(07:57):
also different physicalactivities that are strictly
dealing with a body, likestimulating the vagus nerve
through different essential oilsusing different tools that help
do the same thing.
All of these things are validand should be done.
Also, just training yourself inlife, in the moment, to react
more appropriately or in a waythat you feel is appropriate to
stress, is important.
(08:17):
I always say stress is how yourespond in life, because I've
seen by working with people overthe years that many times there
is one person who is in whatappears to be a very stressful
situation and they're completelyfreaked out by something and
their blood pressure goes outthe roof, their heart's racing,
(08:38):
they're definitely in fight orflight mode.
And then another person theymaybe appear to be not in a
stressful situation who has thesame reaction, and you wonder
why one person reacts one way inone situation.
One person reacts another way.
The person in a very highstress situation may not react
at all, or they may, and it'show they respond to the
stressful situation thatdetermines the level of stress
(09:00):
in their life.
Hopefully that makes sense.
So what this research found wasthat stress management
interventions, techniques tohelp with stress, like just
being mindful in the moment,being aware of your response and
doing something to alleviatethat stressful response on a
physical level, whether it'sgoing for a walk, getting away
from the situation or puttingsomething essential oils or
(09:23):
something on your body thathelped, or whatever it was for
that person also improved theirheart rate variability, and
remember this was donespecifically on people who had
cardiovascular disease.
So this, really, if you'reexperiencing something like AFib
or you're experiencing a highblood pressure or anything else
related to heart health, thenthis information was tested and
(09:47):
found to be applicable to peoplewho are in your situation.
So working on your stressmanagement is very, very
important, and I just bring thatup because it's not always
given the same level ofimportance as taking a
supplement daily or making sureyou exercise, and the truth is
they all need to be there.
You can't really omit one andexpect to get the results that
you want to get.
(10:08):
Okay, great.
Now I wanted to also bring up mytake on this and how I look at
this.
I wanted to also bring up mytake on this and how I look at
this because it's a littledifferent than even the
alternative holistic viewpointthat a lot of people who are
listening to this probablyalready have, which is that
stress management is needed andsomething should be done about
it.
You should be doing things likeyoga, tai Chi, breath work,
(10:31):
whatever it is to help yourself,either in the moment with
stress or as a practice that youdo that helps you become more
stress resilient.
These are all great, but stillmostly physical level things.
Breath work you're doingsomething with your body right.
Yoga you're doing somethingwith your body right.
Tai Chi something with yourbody.
Now.
These things have been shownthrough various other studies
(10:52):
and this study that they improvestress management.
And in this study it was alsofound that heart rate
variability improved, which isgreat for long-term heart health
.
And all of these things havebeen found.
These stress relief mechanismshave been found to stimulate
that parasympathetic nervoussystem, get you into that
healing state right.
However, what is sometimes notthought of and not looked at is
(11:16):
that there's a reason somepeople get stressed by certain
stressors in their life andothers don't, and you have to
find the mental reason behindthat in order to truly handle
why that person has anon-optimal physical reaction to
stress.
Otherwise, it's kind of likenot that it's exactly the same,
(11:37):
but it's like taking an aspirinfor a headache.
Obviously, yoga has a lot ofother therapeutic values.
Has this Tai Chi and breathwork, and I'm not equating them
to taking a drug, but it's liketaking an aspirin for a headache
.
Obviously, yoga has a lot ofother therapeutic values, as
does Tai Chi and breathwork, andI'm not equating them to taking
a drug at all.
But I'm just saying on a mentallevel, these physical
activities are not handlingwhat's going on with that person
mentally, and that's why I workas a mindset coach, that's why
(11:58):
I work at digging underneaththere.
Why does this trigger thatperson?
What has happened in their lifethat they need to look at and
readjust their thinking on orget rid of the emotional,
negative energy, trauma,whatever you want to call it
that is associated with thesethings, and then that stress
won't stress them out anymore.
It won't cause that reaction ona physical level.
(12:21):
So I want to make that veryclear.
A person is stressed out by,let's say, traffic.
They can't deal with traffic.
They always have road rageright and their handling has
been to do breath work whilethey're driving or to do yoga
every morning, because they haveto drive every morning as part
of their job and that helps themnot be as stressed out by
(12:44):
traffic.
But every time they do go intotraffic, no matter how much they
do these different things, theystill have elevated heartbeat,
or maybe they get AFib even, ortheir blood pressure goes up or
whatever it is that occurs forthem when they're under this
type of stress is happening.
It is that occurs for them whenthey're under this type of
(13:04):
stress is happening and, yes, itcan be mitigated by doing
breathwork when it comes up orby saying a mantra stay calm,
it's not bad, or whatever it isthat they say, or all these
things.
But there's another step youcould do that's even deeper than
that, and that's find out whathas happened in that person's
life.
What are the mentalcomputations that are going on
that cause them to feel stressedabout traffic, which then
(13:27):
results in those physicalchanges that then occur and
stress out their heart or causedifferent, irregular heartbeats
or whatever it is.
So you have to dig deeper.
Just having mitigationtechniques and things you do
that kind of make it not so badisn't the whole answer.
It definitely could be part ofit.
(13:48):
But one of the reasons theperson has stuck stress, so to
speak, stress that always causesthem an issue is because they
haven't gone and found outwhat's underneath that stress.
It would to make an analogy ona physical level, it would be
like a person has some sort oftoxic load, like maybe they have
a lot of mold in their body orthey're exposed to mold all the
(14:10):
time and they're experiencingthe negative effects of
mycotoxins and all those thingsthat that occurs with that Brain
fog, definitely, heart issuescould be a part of it, gut
trouble, all of these things.
Low energy can occur and justsaying we're going to give you
extra coffee in the morningbecause we know you get low
energy and we're going to beefup your B vitamins so that you
(14:34):
have more digestive power, butwe're not going to worry about
getting rid of the mold that'sin your house or that's grown in
your body and is affecting younegatively.
We're not going to worry aboutall the mycotoxins you're
exposed to.
She's going to keep doing thesethings to mitigate it and make
you more comfortable or moreable to handle the fact that you
have toxic mold.
So that's the same type ofconcept with stress.
(14:55):
Yes, we can do all these thingsthat help stress along and keep
you going and make you lesseffective at it, but what we
really want to do is dig in andfind the underlying reason that
that causes you to feel stressed.
And when you do that, then yourheart rate variability and a
lot of other things will improvetremendously because you have
(15:19):
handled stress, you've handledthe negative emotions related to
it and you've handled all thesedifferent things.
Realize, this study was justdone on mitigation techniques.
It was just done on doingthings that made the person feel
a little better.
Imagine if you actually got tothe root of why a person was
stressed.
Why you might be stressedbecause of financial situations,
why you might be stressedbecause of what's going on with
(15:41):
your body and inability to healsomething else.
That might be stressed becauseof what's going on with your
body and inability to healsomething else that might be
happening in your life thatstresses you out.
Instead of just having thingsthat kind of make it feel a
little better or help youthrough, we actually get rid of
it so that when you do theseother things that isn't to say
you would then stop doing yogaor you'd stop meditating or
you'd stop doing the things thatmake you feel better.
(16:02):
You could still do those, butyou get exponentially more
benefit from doing them ifyou've actually really handled
the underlying cause for stress.
So that is my take on this studyis that, yes, mitigate it and
improve your heart ratevariability.
This is something everybodyshould be doing, but really you
should work with somebody whocan actually dig in and find out
(16:24):
the underlying reason that thatstress is there and then
imagine the exponential resultswhen you continue to do things
that mitigate stress, becauselife is going to continue to
happen.
People say, okay, stress isgoing to happen.
That is true, but it puts youinto a little bit of a victim
mode.
I'm always going to be theeffect of stress, because stress
is just part of life.
Yes, it is, but you don'talways have to be the effect of.
(16:46):
It is actually what you shouldbe learning and figuring out.
You can use stress to improveyour life, believe it or not,
but that may be something thatis a little down the road for a
lot of us, but it's definitelyreal if you know how to approach
that and what to do.
(17:09):
In summary, handling stress andmitigating stress and doing
stress intervention techniquesimproves heart rate variability
in people who havecardiovascular disease period.
That's what the study found.
Now I want to take it a bitdeeper and find out why a person
has stress in the first placeand use mitigation techniques so
you get even more improvementon hurry variability and all the
(17:30):
other things that are improved,as we know, by having less
stress and having more positiveenergy and emotions in your life
and available for you to use,for you to use.
So if you have any questions,always feel free to reach out to
me on social media, ryan MarkKimball, anytime, and I'd be
happy to answer them, and youcan always reach out to me at my
email, which will be in theshow notes as well, or just keep
(17:53):
listening and learning andusing this the best you can in
your life, and I hope this wasvery helpful for you today.
Thank you, have a great rest ofyour day.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Innate
Ability and Health Podcast.
My name is Ryan, I'm your hostand today we're going to be
talking about stress and heartrate variability, specifically
how stress management canactually improve heart rate
variability.
So, as many of you may know ifyou've heard some of my recent
(00:24):
podcast episodes I'm workingwith Natural Heart Doctor to
help patients improve theirresults by managing stress, by
managing the mental aspect ofwhat goes on regarding heart
health.
So this is a really interestingtopic that I wanted to cover.
It's been gone over extensivelyin a study that was done and
(00:50):
the study was just done in 2024,and it was a meta-analysis, so
a lot of different informationwent into checking this out and
it was put out by the Journal ofBehavioral Medicine and it's
called Effects of StressManagement Interventions on
Heart Rate Variability in Adultswith Cardiovascular Disease
medicine and it's called effectsof stress management
interventions on heart ratevariability in adults with
cardiovascular disease.
So, as you can see, it's prettymuch right on the money for
(01:12):
what we want to learn about andbe able to help when assisting
people with heart health andeverything that goes into how
stress relates to that.
So, first of all, let's take alook at what is heart rate
variability.
Heart rate variability is a keyindicator of overall heart
(01:35):
health and what it's measuringbasically is the variation of
heartbeats, the intervalsbetween them.
Specifically, and just to giveyou a really good quote on this
that explains it a bit, this isfrom Harvard Health Publishing a
highly variable heartbeat meansthat interval between beats
(02:00):
fluctuate, although only by afraction of a second.
High HRV seems to signal ahealthy heart because it
reflects the heart's ability torespond quickly to rapid changes
occurring throughout the body.
Now, obviously, we all know, ifwe're in the alternative health
(02:21):
or holistic health field, thatbalance is everything in the
body and when your body is goingthrough different processes
whether it's digestion,exercising, experiencing
different stresses from toxinsin the environment or stress, or
whenever it is a lot of thingschange Hormones go up and down,
different levels of exertionchange your electrolyte balance,
(02:45):
et.
Etc.
Your heart has to respond andbe able to handle all of these
things and heart ratevariability measures the ability
of your heart to respond duringthose times and to help you
stay healthy and have the energyyou need and everything else
that goes along with a healthyheart.
Now that we've got heart ratevariability down.
What does it have to do withstress and how does stress
(03:07):
management influence it?
And this is really reallycritical to understand
specifically.
Most people think of handlingstress as an acute thing where
you are maybe de-stressing fromsome moment that has caused you
to be stressed, to have somelevel of emotional distress or
(03:29):
something going on in your lifethat causes that stress.
By regulating that down, you'reable to maybe not go into AFib
or to not have as hard areaction on your blood sugar or
your hypertension level orwhatever it is right.
All of these things affectheart health, so that's how
stress is usually addressed andthought of, even in the holistic
(03:52):
world.
However, what was found in thisstudy was that it goes beyond
that.
Stress management actuallyhelps improve longer term the
results of your HRV.
So improve your HRV.
I'm going to read directly fromthe study here so that you can
(04:13):
see what I'm talking about.
It says here, right in theintroduction cardiovascular
disease affects over 120 millionadults in the US and
significantly reducesdisability-free adjusted years.
So people get worse as they getolder or just in general.
Right.
And then later on it says here,next paragraph psychological
(04:36):
distress, depression, anxietyand stress in general increases
cardiovascular risks inindividuals with and without
established cardiovasculardisease.
So we know that, and this studyshowed that stress period
causes a worse result for peoplewho have cardiovascular disease
(04:59):
or who don't.
Right Psychological distresselicits physiological responses,
including sympatheticactivation.
So the fight or flightactivation right, which have
been implicated as possiblemechanisms linking psychological
distress and cardiovascularrisk?
(05:20):
Okay, this is the basis of whatthey were looking at in the
study and what they found intheir summarizing here.
Heart rate variability, hrv, isa non-invasive measure of the
autonomic nervous system.
Although the associationbetween various HRV components
are complex, the predominantview is that high, vagal,
(05:44):
mediated HRV reflects theability of the cardiovascular
heart rate variability basicallyis more able to deal with
(06:08):
physical or psychological stress.
So it's really important tounderstand how this relates to
each other and when you knowthat when you're working on
heart rate variability and whenyou're working on stress
improving both they go hand inhand you can handle a lot of
things all at once.
(06:28):
Okay, so let's take a look atthis.
If we can work on improvingyour heart rate variability by
doing stress management andhelping you understand how
stress works, we're not justhandling the immediate AFib
attack or increase in bloodpressure, we're handling your
long-term heart health.
So you're going to tick off alot of boxes here by just
(06:51):
working on stress management andstress management is a pretty
broad and wide open field, andthey used a lot of different
techniques in this study.
You could be doing things thathelp you stay calmer in
stressful situations or put youin a state that is less stressed
after you've experienced stress.
Either one of these thingswould be valid stress management
(07:12):
techniques, and learning how todo them in the moment is also
very important.
There's different ways of goingabout this.
One is you have day-to-dayactivities you do day in and day
out, that help you learn how tohandle stress, and it just put
you in a state of mind whereyou're not in the fight or
flight mode.
You're in that rest and repairmode.
(07:33):
You're not in the fight orflight mode.
You're in that rest and repairmode.
Parasympathetic system allowsyou to get into a state where
you're healing right and thosethings like daily yoga
activities, going for walks,doing things that you enjoy,
meditation, for those that findthat effective and helpful, and
(07:57):
also different physicalactivities that are strictly
dealing with a body, likestimulating the vagus nerve
through different essential oilsusing different tools that help
do the same thing.
All of these things are validand should be done.
Also, just training yourself inlife, in the moment, to react
more appropriately or in a waythat you feel is appropriate to
stress, is important.
(08:17):
I always say stress is how yourespond in life, because I've
seen by working with people overthe years that many times there
is one person who is in whatappears to be a very stressful
situation and they're completelyfreaked out by something and
their blood pressure goes outthe roof, their heart's racing,
(08:38):
they're definitely in fight orflight mode.
And then another person theymaybe appear to be not in a
stressful situation who has thesame reaction, and you wonder
why one person reacts one way inone situation.
One person reacts another way.
The person in a very highstress situation may not react
at all, or they may, and it'show they respond to the
stressful situation thatdetermines the level of stress
(09:00):
in their life.
Hopefully that makes sense.
So what this research found wasthat stress management
interventions, techniques tohelp with stress, like just
being mindful in the moment,being aware of your response and
doing something to alleviatethat stressful response on a
physical level, whether it'sgoing for a walk, getting away
from the situation or puttingsomething essential oils or
(09:23):
something on your body thathelped, or whatever it was for
that person also improved theirheart rate variability, and
remember this was donespecifically on people who had
cardiovascular disease.
So this, really, if you'reexperiencing something like AFib
or you're experiencing a highblood pressure or anything else
related to heart health, thenthis information was tested and
(09:47):
found to be applicable to peoplewho are in your situation.
So working on your stressmanagement is very, very
important, and I just bring thatup because it's not always
given the same level ofimportance as taking a
supplement daily or making sureyou exercise, and the truth is
they all need to be there.
You can't really omit one andexpect to get the results that
you want to get.
(10:08):
Okay, great.
Now I wanted to also bring up mytake on this and how I look at
this.
I wanted to also bring up mytake on this and how I look at
this because it's a littledifferent than even the
alternative holistic viewpointthat a lot of people who are
listening to this probablyalready have, which is that
stress management is needed andsomething should be done about
it.
You should be doing things likeyoga, tai Chi, breath work,
(10:31):
whatever it is to help yourself,either in the moment with
stress or as a practice that youdo that helps you become more
stress resilient.
These are all great, but stillmostly physical level things.
Breath work you're doingsomething with your body right.
Yoga you're doing somethingwith your body right.
Tai Chi something with yourbody.
Now.
These things have been shownthrough various other studies
(10:52):
and this study that they improvestress management.
And in this study it was alsofound that heart rate
variability improved, which isgreat for long-term heart health
.
And all of these things havebeen found.
These stress relief mechanismshave been found to stimulate
that parasympathetic nervoussystem, get you into that
healing state right.
However, what is sometimes notthought of and not looked at is
(11:16):
that there's a reason somepeople get stressed by certain
stressors in their life andothers don't, and you have to
find the mental reason behindthat in order to truly handle
why that person has anon-optimal physical reaction to
stress.
Otherwise, it's kind of likenot that it's exactly the same,
(11:37):
but it's like taking an aspirinfor a headache.
Obviously, yoga has a lot ofother therapeutic values.
Has this Tai Chi and breathwork, and I'm not equating them
to taking a drug, but it's liketaking an aspirin for a headache
.
Obviously, yoga has a lot ofother therapeutic values, as
does Tai Chi and breathwork, andI'm not equating them to taking
a drug at all.
But I'm just saying on a mentallevel, these physical
activities are not handlingwhat's going on with that person
mentally, and that's why I workas a mindset coach, that's why
(11:58):
I work at digging underneaththere.
Why does this trigger thatperson?
What has happened in their lifethat they need to look at and
readjust their thinking on orget rid of the emotional,
negative energy, trauma,whatever you want to call it
that is associated with thesethings, and then that stress
won't stress them out anymore.
It won't cause that reaction ona physical level.
(12:21):
So I want to make that veryclear.
A person is stressed out by,let's say, traffic.
They can't deal with traffic.
They always have road rageright and their handling has
been to do breath work whilethey're driving or to do yoga
every morning, because they haveto drive every morning as part
of their job and that helps themnot be as stressed out by
(12:44):
traffic.
But every time they do go intotraffic, no matter how much they
do these different things, theystill have elevated heartbeat,
or maybe they get AFib even, ortheir blood pressure goes up or
whatever it is that occurs forthem when they're under this
type of stress is happening.
It is that occurs for them whenthey're under this type of
(13:04):
stress is happening and, yes, itcan be mitigated by doing
breathwork when it comes up orby saying a mantra stay calm,
it's not bad, or whatever it isthat they say, or all these
things.
But there's another step youcould do that's even deeper than
that, and that's find out whathas happened in that person's
life.
What are the mentalcomputations that are going on
that cause them to feel stressedabout traffic, which then
(13:27):
results in those physicalchanges that then occur and
stress out their heart or causedifferent, irregular heartbeats
or whatever it is.
So you have to dig deeper.
Just having mitigationtechniques and things you do
that kind of make it not so badisn't the whole answer.
It definitely could be part ofit.
(13:48):
But one of the reasons theperson has stuck stress, so to
speak, stress that always causesthem an issue is because they
haven't gone and found outwhat's underneath that stress.
It would to make an analogy ona physical level, it would be
like a person has some sort oftoxic load, like maybe they have
a lot of mold in their body orthey're exposed to mold all the
(14:10):
time and they're experiencingthe negative effects of
mycotoxins and all those thingsthat that occurs with that Brain
fog, definitely, heart issuescould be a part of it, gut
trouble, all of these things.
Low energy can occur and justsaying we're going to give you
extra coffee in the morningbecause we know you get low
energy and we're going to beefup your B vitamins so that you
(14:34):
have more digestive power, butwe're not going to worry about
getting rid of the mold that'sin your house or that's grown in
your body and is affecting younegatively.
We're not going to worry aboutall the mycotoxins you're
exposed to.
She's going to keep doing thesethings to mitigate it and make
you more comfortable or moreable to handle the fact that you
have toxic mold.
So that's the same type ofconcept with stress.
(14:55):
Yes, we can do all these thingsthat help stress along and keep
you going and make you lesseffective at it, but what we
really want to do is dig in andfind the underlying reason that
that causes you to feel stressed.
And when you do that, then yourheart rate variability and a
lot of other things will improvetremendously because you have
(15:19):
handled stress, you've handledthe negative emotions related to
it and you've handled all thesedifferent things.
Realize, this study was justdone on mitigation techniques.
It was just done on doingthings that made the person feel
a little better.
Imagine if you actually got tothe root of why a person was
stressed.
Why you might be stressedbecause of financial situations,
why you might be stressedbecause of what's going on with
(15:41):
your body and inability to healsomething else.
That might be stressed becauseof what's going on with your
body and inability to healsomething else that might be
happening in your life thatstresses you out.
Instead of just having thingsthat kind of make it feel a
little better or help youthrough, we actually get rid of
it so that when you do theseother things that isn't to say
you would then stop doing yogaor you'd stop meditating or
you'd stop doing the things thatmake you feel better.
(16:02):
You could still do those, butyou get exponentially more
benefit from doing them ifyou've actually really handled
the underlying cause for stress.
So that is my take on this studyis that, yes, mitigate it and
improve your heart ratevariability.
This is something everybodyshould be doing, but really you
should work with somebody whocan actually dig in and find out
(16:24):
the underlying reason that thatstress is there and then
imagine the exponential resultswhen you continue to do things
that mitigate stress, becauselife is going to continue to
happen.
People say, okay, stress isgoing to happen.
That is true, but it puts youinto a little bit of a victim
mode.
I'm always going to be theeffect of stress, because stress
is just part of life.
Yes, it is, but you don'talways have to be the effect of.
(16:46):
It is actually what you shouldbe learning and figuring out.
You can use stress to improveyour life, believe it or not,
but that may be something thatis a little down the road for a
lot of us, but it's definitelyreal if you know how to approach
that and what to do.
(17:09):
In summary, handling stress andmitigating stress and doing
stress intervention techniquesimproves heart rate variability
in people who havecardiovascular disease period.
That's what the study found.
Now I want to take it a bitdeeper and find out why a person
has stress in the first placeand use mitigation techniques so
you get even more improvementon hurry variability and all the
(17:30):
other things that are improved,as we know, by having less
stress and having more positiveenergy and emotions in your life
and available for you to use,for you to use.
So if you have any questions,always feel free to reach out to
me on social media, ryan MarkKimball, anytime, and I'd be
happy to answer them, and youcan always reach out to me at my
email, which will be in theshow notes as well, or just keep
(17:53):
listening and learning andusing this the best you can in
your life, and I hope this wasvery helpful for you today.
Thank you, have a great rest ofyour day.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.