Understanding HRV: The difference between heart rate and HRV
The implications of low HRV and its connection to age
Identifying a "good" HRV and personal baselines
Strategies for improving HRV: lifestyle changes and monitoring
HRV's role in understanding stress response physiology
Choosing accurate devices for measuring HRV
Balancing the Autonomic Nervous System for better health
Early illness detection through accurate HRV readings
Heart Rate Variability (HRV) has gained significant attention recently as a powerful tool for monitoring overall health and well-being. Understanding the nuances of HRV can help you unlock your body's full potential, improve your recovery, and manage stress more effectively.
When I first started teaching my clients about the importance of breathwork, it was a tough sell. While some immediately embraced the concept, others outright rejected it. After all, it's always there: whether awake or asleep, we take 20,000 per day, or 14 to 20 breaths every minute. Still, the pandemic has taught us that this is an opportune time to take every breath seriously.
“I am angry. It is illegal for me to be angry. Remember: Don't get angry. It is illegal to be a black man and be angry. Right. Got it. I will remember this next time.”
Kara Lee Corthron, “The Truth of Right Now”
On this day, the former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted by his peers of three charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Today, a rare thing happened when a white police officer was held accountable and will be punished for murdering a black man while a small group of people - young and old, white and black, man and woman - watched, frustrated by the hopelessness of it all.
"When we are saying this cannot be accomplished, this cannot be done, then we are short-changing ourselves. My brain, it cannot process failure. It will not process failure. Because if I have to sit there and face myself and tell myself, 'You are a failure,' I think that is almost worse than dying."
Kobe Bryant
Tell me what it’s like. You mean being black?
Over the recent weeks, that direct question naturally keeps being respectfully asked of me from well-meaning friends. And I’m appreciative for the genuine interest.
I must candidly confess my immediate thought is firstly an internal question: Is that the first time you’ve had that burning curiosity? You don’t have to satisfy me with an answer to that. Allow me to respond to your question, though.
We’ve been masking for a long time. All people of color have had to wear masks to conceal our authentic voices, faces, emotions and thoughts for much of our lives. And, the clever woman of color, her mask is her foundation. She carefully applies makeup atop her mask.
When I first started teaching my clients about the importance of breathwork, it was a tough sell. While some immediately embraced the concept, others outright rejected it. After all, it's always there: whether awake or asleep, we take 20,000 per day, or 14 to 20 breaths every minute. Still, the pandemic has taught us that this is an opportune time to take every breath seriously.
I want to thank everyone who took time on Wednesday, April 15th to meet with Dr. Elaine Chin, Dr. Jimmy Gutman, Dr. Eric Goodman, Donovan Bailey and I during our Coronavirus: Virtually Getting Through This Together town hall. It was encouraging to see so many individuals join in our serious discussions about important issues facing us all during these unusual times. We are also grateful for your thoughtful questions and hope we were able to resolve those queries and perhaps offer some new insight.
Whether an independent facility owner, Personal Trainer, client, Physiotherapist, customer, local partner, official supplier, attentive clinician or receptionist – we inseparably unite to naturally make people's lives better (our own and for those we serve). So, by now, we are agonizing over the potential loss of our economic livelihood, private studios, gyms, CrossFit boxes, clubs, weekly classes and people who drew us together – that ultimate reality might be frustrating, even disappointing. They were our THIRD SPACES. And if it was your source of earned income, the unwelcome interruption is scary.
There are probably too many of us who will take a long time to arrive at the obvious conclusions because they are firmly rooted in denial of what’s to come. They will be the ones who will say, “who knew it was going to be that bad?” It is going to be THAT bad. You can see it on the faces and hear it in the voices of the experts on tv as they sidestep around the questions asked by the media. They refuse to answer the most fundamental questions. Such as: “Do we have enough treatment facilities for the infected?” They are worried for us all.
The immune system is incredibly complex, but a major cornerstone relies on its ability to obtain a molecule called glutathione. Glutathione exists in every cell of your body and is essential for life and critical for health. This molecule is constantly being used up in dozens of your body's functions and is difficult to replace. Glutathione is your body's master antioxidant, its chief detoxification enzyme and is literally food for the immune system.
The word Coronavirus, acronyms like 2019-nCoV and CoViD-19, places such as Wuhan, China and Italy are all in the news lately. For good reason, the media is providing us case-by-case and death-by-death updates with each passing hour. The barrage of information is causing us to question and cancel planned trips, choose to work from home, cancel appointments to the gym, and grow concerned about how likely it is that you or a loved one will be attacked by it. And, understandably, we are all looking for ways to stay safe.
According to 3D4Medical, “a coronavirus is a type of virus that can infect the respiratory tract, through the eyes, nose, mouth, throat, sinuses, or lungs.” Historically, there have been and are many variations of coronaviruses. The majority cause only mild illness, such as the common cold.
The novel Coronavirus knows its victims. Across the world, public health officials have been trying to find out who the most at risk of infected and lethal illness people are. That kind of data would better inform the public of precautions to take, and give health workers the knowledge they’ll need to aggressive provide treatment.
The problem with the English language is that we have many words that can be conflated to imply the same thing, yet are quite different by definition. Add EXERCISING and TRAINING to that. You can go to the driving range to hit balls or you can go to practice your swing. There is only one small but significant difference: INTENT. And, that is the difference between TRAINING and EXERCISE. It is important to understand these differences and what benefits we can expect from both.
