Have You Been Breathing Right? HRV Training with Dr. Jay Wiles

Tue Mar 09 2021 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

Master stress & optimize performance! Dr. Jay Wiles discusses HRV training & biofeedback. Discover how to breathe right, improve sleep & boost recovery with NuCalm

Dr. Jay Wiles is a clinical health psychologist specialized in psychophysiology, biofeedback, and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) training. He joins David to discuss all things HRV and share a whole lot of information and advice on how to better train your nervous system for peak performance stress reduction.

Tune in and get ready to take notes during this fast-paced, discussion on the importance of knowing how to use your HRV data properly.

Introduction quote

“Maybe we aren’t just these mechanistic, deterministic, robotic individuals. Maybe indeed we’re quite multi-faceted, consisting of a mind, body, and spirit, not just this body, which my feeble little adolescent brain just couldn’t comprehend at that time.” — Dr. Jay Wiles

Guest bio

Dr. Wiles has a passion for helping others reach their full potential from an integrative and holistic perspective. With a strong passion for integrative and holistic care, especially in nutrition and psychophysiology, he completed his doctorate of clinical psychology degree at Regent University with a specialized focus and concentration in health psychology.

Key Takeaways

[1:00] David welcomes today’s guest, Dr. Jay Wiles and invites him to share no less than his life’s journey, from the nursery to the boardroom. Dr. Jay explains how a fascination with biology led to consulting with large companies looking to improve organizational productivity through HRV and biofeedback.

[8:12] What is Heart Rate Variability (HRV)? Dr. Jay offers a reasonably simple explanation of what it is: the time differences between each successive heartbeat. This information is important in the broader context of nervous system responses:

Quick class!

The central nervous system branches into the peripheral nervous system.
The peripheral nervous system branches into the autonomic nervous system which controls unconscious body processes (heart rate, digestion, etc.)
The autonomic nervous system generates 2 distinct biological states:

Sympathetic (gas pedal: fight or flight)
Parasympathetic (brake pedal: rest and digest)

The markers that indicate which state we’re currently in can be tested for, but not as a spot check. However, HRV offers a window into autonomic nervous system function, IF we know how to analyze the diagnostic metric.

[12:30] Dr. Jay touches on the work participated in at the Veterans Integrative Pain Center (VIP) with patients whose sympathetic nervous system response was overly active, and how HRV became the gold standard tool to help them modulate nervous system response.

[14:50] How long will it take for someone to get results with biofeedback and HRV training? Two to five sessions will usually generate significant progress.

[16:20] So you have all this HRV data, what do you do with it? Dr. Jay breaks down the process they use from the initial stress profile to learning proper diaphragmatic breathing, proper biomechanics, proper cadence, mindfulness, exercise protocols.

[19:25] Dr. Jay offers his recommendation on breathing training programs (see links below) and explains why and how a hypercapnic state, where CO2 levels are slightly elevated, can be beneficial. He also shares his own breathing practice when doing NuCalm!

[22:00] HRV and biofeedback training for athletes and normal people is diametrically different, Dr. Jay breaks down what each class of client requires noting that regardless of the protocol, it’s all about training.

[23:50] Dr. Jay lists his clinical tools as well as the consumer devices he recommends to his patients and those he uses for other purposes than HRV (all links below).

[28:23] The usual protocols involve a morning five-minute HRV baseline, as well as HRV training multiple times a day — which you can integrate with NuCalm — for a minimum total of 15 minutes a day.

[31:55] Integrating NuCalm was a fun conversion from complete skeptic to adopter for Dr. Jay, he shares his experience testing the device and how it repeatedly modulated HRV even to the point of generating residual effects!

[40:53] Dr. Jay shares his one-word definition of NuCalm. David thanks Dr. Jay Wiles for coming on the podcast and invites listeners to tune into the next episode.

Continue on your journey and until next time, breathe deep, relax and keep looking forward.

Mentioned in this episode

NuCalm

Solace Lifesciences on LinkedIn

On breathing:

Buteyko Breathing

Wim Hof — Dr. Jay offers that this is more of a sympathetic driver — get pumped!

Clinical tools:

Consumer devices:

Books:

The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You Become Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter, by Patrick McKeown

More about your host

Connect with David Poole — Chief Client Officer at NuCalm on LinkedIn

More about NuCalm and the podcast

This is NuCalm, the show for those looking to improve sleep quality, manage stress, and boost recovery. Brought to you by Solace Lifesciences, the makes of NuCalm, the world’s only patented and proven neuroscience technology that works within minutes, without drugs, every time! In over 1 million medical sessions, NuCalm has helped men and women around the world.

NuCalm: stress relief for the way we live today, technology to help you disconnect.

Pull quotes

“A lot of people have heard of HRV but don’t truly understand what it is, its application, or how it can be utilized.” — Dr. Jay Wiles

“A lot of people think that holding their breath is a bad thing but actually, breath-holding can be really good.” — Dr. Jay Wiles

“A lot of these apps will only have you do it [HRV readings] for like one or two minutes and these are not going to be accurate readings for calculating the algorithms correctly.” — Dr. Jay Wiles

“You can’t overtrain your nervous system through biofeedback; … the more the merrier on this, you can’t really overdo it!” — Dr. Jay Wiles

“I’m all about data, and if you can’t show me the data, I’m going to write you off, I’m not going to listen to what you have to say so you have to prove it.” — Dr. Jay Wiles

“I don’t need any more data to be honest with you, I’ve tested it [NuCalm] enough to see that I’m going to get results every time.” — Dar. Jay Wiles

Tweet #1

Where is your advice coming from? When it comes to HRV, don’t compare yourself to others and leave online forum advice behind. NuCalm podcast guest @DrJayWiles is an HRV expert whose advice actually can be trusted!

Tweet #2

Are you breathing right? Most people, even when trying to relax, breathe way too fast and shallow, what this does is exacerbate the stress response. NuCalm podcast guest @DrJayWiles shares his go-to pros for learning proper breathing techniques.