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Wearable Tech: Track And Transform Your Health with Dr. Torkil Færø - E31
43 Plays9 months ago
What if you could see what stress, a lack of sleep and unhealthy eating habits is really doing to you? What if you know where, what and how to change, in order to live a longer, more vital life?
In today's fast-paced world, gauging your own health and stress levels can be surprisingly difficult. You might believe your daily routines are adequate, yet without concrete data, it's impossible to understand the true impact on your well-being. Wearable technology offers a breakthrough, transforming the way we manage health by providing real-time insights into our physiological state. This episode delves into the power of wearables in bridging the gap between guesswork and precise health management. Learn how these devices can reveal hidden stressors, optimise sleep, and empower you to make informed lifestyle choices, ultimately leading to a more harmonious and healthier life.
Dr. Torkil Færø, a physician and author, is renowned for his best-selling book "The Pulse Cure," a first-of-its kind, to integrate lifestyle strategies with wearable technology. With a personal journey catapulted by his father's early passing and a mirror moment of self-reflection, Dr. Færø turned his professional expertise inward to overhaul his lifestyle, shedding 40 pounds and optimizing his own health. His pragmatic approach emphasises the 80/20 principle, advocating simple, effective habits for significant health gains. Known for his evidence-backed perspectives, Dr. Færø's work resonates with both his peers and a broader audience seeking real health solutions. As a physician slash author, he continues to inspire a proactive approach to health and longevity, underscoring the potential of wearable devices to monitor and enhance personal well-being.
“Every instrument is so much more than your own guesswork. Your own guesswork is really poor.” - Dr. Torkil Færø
In this episode you will learn:
- How Dr. Færø examined his ancestry and lifestyle to embark on his personal health journey, leading to a drastic shift in habits.
- The concept of healthspan and its significance for living a life free from health-related constraints.
- Insights into Dr. Færø's routine, including the impact of cutting out alcohol and integrating simple exercises to boost overall health.
- The role and benefits of wearables in monitoring health and stress levels, offering a modern approach to managing wellbeing.
- The crucial role of nutrition, including protein and fasting, in optimising health and lifespan according to Dr. Færø.
- Practical strategies for managing stress and improving sleep through techniques like controlled breathing and maintaining a consistent routine.
Resources
- Connect with Dr. Færo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.torkil
- Find out more about his bestseller, ‘The Pulse Cure’: https://thepulsecure.com/
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
https://www.zapods.com
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
https://alively.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Reflecting on Ancestry and Health Goals
00:00:00
Speaker
I took a look at my ancestry and saw that I'm getting nothing for free here. There's no people living a long life. So I need to do it myself. So I took a look at myself in the mirror and understood that I'm starting to look like my patients. You know, I wait.
00:00:16
Speaker
40 pounds more than I do today, did not exercise, did not care about sleep, drinking a couple of glasses of wine every day, doing everything wrong. As I started to read books on how to live longer and healthier, I understood that there was so much to gain.
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:36
Speaker
This is the Home of Health Span podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:50
Speaker
Torkel, it is great to be here with you on the Home of Health Span, and you have quite an interesting and impressive background.
Who is Torkel?
00:00:57
Speaker
But before we jump into that, how would you define yourself?
00:01:01
Speaker
ah Hi, Andrew. Nice to be here and how to define myself. and I'm an explorer of life. i Enjoyer of life. That is my main goal to be in a position to yeah get as much out of this hopefully 80 plus years that I would be allowed to live here on this planet and see as much as possible of it understand as much as possible of it. And yeah, just have a have a great time here on Earth, and that's ahs so what I'm about. And in that, right to truly be able to enjoy it, to experience it, to see it, health becomes a big part of that, no doubt, for you as a physician, as someone who's literally written a book on the space. What would you say your goal with all this is? And we'll get into your story and your own personal journey
00:01:56
Speaker
and maybe the goal was different 10 years ago than it was today, or is today, or maybe it's been the same and and you've had the same goal. But what would you say your own healthspan goal is?
Medical Insights and Health Strategies
00:02:07
Speaker
My own healthspan goal is that my health is not in the way of me exploring life, enjoying life. And of course, as a doctor, this is what I see every day.
00:02:19
Speaker
people that are inhibited in their life by different kinds of health ah situations. And I don't want to be in that situation. And what I now know as a doctor is that we can do so much to avoid it. What we learned during medical school, you know, in the last century, last millennium, you know, and it feels that way too, was that we we thought that it wasn't so much you could do.
00:02:48
Speaker
if you did, you know, live a good lifestyle strategies, maybe you live for like two or three years longer. But why bother? It would take you two or three years to
From Personal Health Challenges to Authoring 'Pulse Cure'
00:02:59
Speaker
achieve that. So so you know, my brother, now we know that we're talking decades of a gained health span and lifespan, doing the right thing, which is what I described in my book, the pulse cure, of course, that is what is important to me, both to live it,
00:03:16
Speaker
Like that, i was I was not a writer and author originally. I was just interested in this for my own sake. It is powerful. i This is the third conversation I've had in the past two hours with people in this space that it's the common story of how they got into this space of, hey, I had my own issue. I addressed it. I found these things and I thought, wow, it would be really selfish of me not to share this to the benefit of others.
00:03:43
Speaker
And so i that resonates more than you may realize, ah just back to back conversations.
Understanding Health Levels: Obstructive to Balanced
00:03:50
Speaker
I would go back to the distinction you made before the call, but then also just now on maybe there are these three tiers of health. there's Hey, your health is getting in the way of you living the life you want.
00:04:04
Speaker
at one extreme. There's another of the fully optimized squeezing all the juice out of it. And then what you're talking about is somewhere in between saying, hey, it's not getting in my way. And I think of with another podcast guest, JJ Virgin, I was at a conference with her and she was talking about these exercise snacks and said, hey, did you know that moving your body vigorously for just 10 minutes a day reduces all-cause mortality by 50%, and 4.5 minutes does it by 28%. Who doesn't have 4.5 minutes to do some jumping jacks, push-ups, and air squats? and What I think is often missed is
00:04:44
Speaker
The 90% of the effort is to get that last 10%.
Health Transformation and Lifestyle Changes
00:04:48
Speaker
But if you just to put 10% of the effort, like just the little bare minimum, you unlock so much value to stop your health getting in your way. and i mean You're certainly trained as a physician. You see a lot of patients on this. But you had a your own personal journey into this. right like Physicians, a lot of times,
00:05:07
Speaker
their health comes second cuz they're working so hard so can you talk a little bit about your own aha moment on your personal health and journey there. Yeah my own aha moment was not really my own it was my father ah ten years ago he got cancer and and died in the course of like three months.
00:05:27
Speaker
I took a look at my ancestry and this tree and saw that I'm getting nothing for free here. There's no people living a long life, so I need to do it myself. So I took a look at myself in the mirror and understood that I'm starting to look like my patients. You know, I weighed 40 pounds more than I do today, did not exercise, did not care about sleep, drinking a couple of glasses of wine every day, doing everything wrong.
00:05:55
Speaker
And I realized that i as I started to read books on how to live longer and healthier, I understood that there was so much to gain. So um that is how I, it was kind of changed by and by proxy, so to speak. And and luckily, I was 45 at that time. And that I think is just enough to that you haven't lost too much on living a suboptimal life. and i'm I totally agree with you that I also mentioned in the book that 80-20 principle that from the 20% of effort, you get 80% of the result. And if you want that last 20%, you have to put in the 80% of effort.
Balancing Health and Enjoyment in Life
00:06:40
Speaker
And I just want to do as little as I can every day to stay healthy and spend the rest of the day living my life. I don't want to fill my whole day trying to live healthier or longer and doing all sorts of things because you could you could lose yourself you know in in health optimization, obviously. Yeah, for sure. I mean, that there are extremes of this, right? So you have the Brian Johnsons of the world that really go into it. and And there's a place for that. And there are people that they push more for that. And then there's the minimum effective dose approach of saying, hey,
00:07:15
Speaker
I'm here to live this good life. And so I just want to get that 80-20 on it. When you first looked in that mirror and condolences on the last of your father and saw your heritage and everything going on, what was the first step for you? right Because it can sometimes be overwhelming for people. What did you decide? Hey, here's the thing, now that I'm seeing this, that I'm going to change
Impact of Alcohol on Health
00:07:40
Speaker
to tomorrow. Was it here's how I'm going to eat differently? Here's how I'm going to now work out a certain number of times a week or add strength training. and like What was that first thing for you? I think the first thing was just becoming aware of it. And then the first thing I did was kept alcohol. Because that was, I understood that it was so detrimental to my health, I could see it, you know, on the heart rate monitor said this is such a huge factor, stuffing me of my forces. I used to think,
00:08:11
Speaker
you know, two glasses of wine was recommended by doctors, you know, probably just 15 years ago that two glasses of wine for men and one glass of wine for women. And of course, I said that great, you know, and then in the evening, I would feel calmer and falling asleep and then thinking everything is okay, until I started tracking my health and saw that it's horrible with alcohol and and whoop you know the band that you also
Effective Exercise Routines
00:08:39
Speaker
use. um ah When they track their customers, they can see that alcohol is the by far the worst stressor of all. And I didn't know that until I started tracking. So that was the first one. And I started to do a little bit on all the different factors. I started to train a little bit. I started to work out two minutes a day.
00:09:00
Speaker
doing squats, push-ups and sit-ups, and that's it. Would this be in the morning when you first woke up? like how How would you fit this into your day, that first two minutes? Yeah, I would do the sit-ups in the morning and I will do the squats and push-ups around five o'clock. It's kind of a routine yeah in the at the end of the day. And that was enough because I used to be an athlete. I used to be on the national team in kayaking, paddling. And of course, suddenly I could see my own body and face that I hadn't seen like in 20 years.
00:09:38
Speaker
You know after losing the weight and getting the muscles back and it didn't take more than two minutes today as long as i didn't everyday and i had not exercise for many years you know thinking that okay either you do one hour of heavy weight lifting or nothing at all.
00:09:57
Speaker
and Just doing that every day ah made all the difference. yeah and I've been running. I was running New York Marathon last week. Congratulations. I hear it's a perfect perfect the situation for it. The weather was beautiful. and It was fantastic. yeah yeah It was a blast. and I wasn't a runner earlier, but I started to run ah maybe two times a week for half an hour in zone two, maybe zone three.
00:10:24
Speaker
And that was um just to see if I was able to run the marathon. i didn my My time will not impress anyone. It was five hours and 24 minutes. But but the just to do that little amount of training will make it possible for you to to run a marathon. That was what I wanted to to test. It's amazing.
00:10:46
Speaker
And so now, are you still just doing the two minutes every day plus two days a week
Enhancing Exercise with Equipment
00:10:52
Speaker
of running? Or have you added anything over time? Yeah, I usually maybe every other week, or every week, if I had the time, being a best selling author is not a good thing for your stress levels. And so I will probably do um some extra workout that I do as I'm writing as i'm doing office work i will do i have the you know the equipment in my house in my living room i can do some exercise and then write or do anything and then another exercise i can spread it out over like six hours and do maybe twenty different different exercises.
00:11:33
Speaker
What is that equipment that you have that allows you to just stand when you call it this and this there is small weights that you can put on and i have a. ah I can do pull ups and different things i think it's a rack with that and then you have is it plates that you use or is it one of those all in one dumbbells. Yeah all in one dumbbells what you would call that yeah yeah and that that keeps me strong enough you know i don't wanna.
00:12:00
Speaker
I don't even want to look stronger, and so to speak. So so um so yeah, that's enough. And I also use a rolling machine. So I was doing this one year of running. I will keep running once a week and then maybe add two days of rolling machine. And and that's enough. So that that means a total of exercise every week, maybe three hours at the maximum. And that's keep me in VO2 max of 45.
VO2 Max and Longevity
00:12:27
Speaker
which is good enough, you need to have a good enough VO2 max. You don't want to be in the lowest 25%. That's ah the big problem. um Whether you have and the on the percentile or the 2%, it doesn't matter so much when it comes to health span or lifespan. okay so So as long as you are in the on the average or above, it's good enough.
00:12:55
Speaker
okay ah that I'm sure that will be comforting to hear for many, many listeners.
Nutrition Overhaul and Fasting
00:13:02
Speaker
If you're on the 25th percentile, your 10-year survival is 96%, on the 25% best ones. If you're on the 2% best ones, it's 97%. So it's just 1% extra, right? And it would take you so much exercise to do that step from 25% up to 2%.
00:13:24
Speaker
which could be fine for people that love to exercise, right but probably do it because you love rowing or running or biking, whatever it is, not for necessarily that 1% benefit. You just do it for a different reason. Exactly. I mean, it's super powerful to hear. right We started at 10 minutes, four and a half, and now we're hearing two minutes. right like You can make two minutes in your day, even if you broke it into four 30 seconds slots to to get the different exercises and just the amount of benefit. But that was paired on a nutrition side as well. So, you know, there's certainly the ill effects on our sleep, which I want to get to. But just pulling out what's it.
00:14:04
Speaker
maybe that's 275, 300 calories a day from two glasses of wine, that's going to have an impact too. right If you're replacing that with water, just going into 300 calorie deficit, you say you're going to lose some weight. How else did you think about your nutrition as you were shifting? I yeah i was skipping ultra-processed food, um and I was reducing my eating window to maybe eight hours.
00:14:30
Speaker
And what what was your eight hour window? That's probably from from now from 12 o'clock until seven. I would say I would finish by seven ah most days, 80 percent of the days I would have days like that. So I would do a little things on many different aspects of of the health. Yeah.
00:14:51
Speaker
And being a physician, and especially, you know, very far north in the northern hemisphere in the winter, do you supplement with anything vitamin D, magnesium? What is your take on supplement? Yeah, I supplement with vitamin D and magnesium. As you say, I also supplement with tanning beds, and because vitamin D is really a biomarker of that you have gotten enough sunlight.
00:15:16
Speaker
So it's not necessarily the vitamin D in itself, but but that is a sign that you have gotten up sunlight. So um I'm actually using tanning beds and I'm looking at a lot of the research. I actually am starting to write a book now on the health benefits of sunlight. And we see more and more that the sun exposure is so important for health.
00:15:37
Speaker
advising people to avoid the sun has been one of the biggest mistakes that the doctors have have been advising people for for you know for for a long time. i mean This is incredibly timely. You're bringing this up. a I just came across Dr. Jack Cruz. I don't know if you know him, but Yeah, all about that. And so now I'm about to go down a rabbit hole to investigate this whole light, sunlight issue, because I remember my father is a cardiologist, and he had told me this story about the Somali immigrants to the US of they don't even have a word for autism.
00:16:13
Speaker
back in Somalia. But when in Minnesota or in Detroit, where you have big population, it's just rampant. And the need for the sunlight for the vitamin D that they're just not getting in those different climates that their body requires, it causes real issues. And so I will be pre-ordering that book when you have it out, because I am really curious on this topic right now. So are those the only supplements? It's just the magnesium vitamin D and then you add it. Can I do omega 3?
00:16:42
Speaker
Okay, yeah and then 210 I'm doing in selenium I'm not always sure what it's called in English, but it's selenium Yeah, so yeah I mean I I get that I'd eat two Brazil nuts a day supposedly that's giving me enough selenium I don't know but you take a a supplemental form of supplement. Yeah, okay but the But the most important things that I'm talking about in the false cure is free. you know right so right right for sure So if you get good enough sleep, you know eat real food, exercise, get sunlight, and have some way to manage your stress levels, and breathing exercises,
00:17:23
Speaker
cold water immersions, everything is free and and fasting, of course. and So ah usually, even though I do supplement, I am ah don't have the qualifications to say if that is really important.
00:17:42
Speaker
I think that's totally fair. I think it's for a lot of listeners just understanding, well, this this is what the whole package looks like. And so if I only get 90%, it turns out this other part was important, and I miss that, then kind of missing the benefits of just trying to get that full picture. On the nutrition side as well, just coming from a conference where this was ah a big topic, protein. And do you deliberately think about how much protein you consume in the course of a day or what percent of your diet it is?
The Role of Protein in Diet
00:18:11
Speaker
absolutely and I tried to get it through eggs and eggs is also important because it contains choline and that is an important part of acetylcholine which is a neurotransmitter of the vagus nerve. um So that is important and in addition to the protein and I also eat the meat.
00:18:28
Speaker
preferably you know as that unprocessed as possible. um But i'm I'm kind of not not a fanatic and then eat vegetables and and and fruits and try to eat it as natural as possible. Do you mind me asking, how many eggs do you have a day? And is it full egg or just egg whites? I would try to get four.
00:18:49
Speaker
Okay. And is it calling in the white and the yolk or is it just in the white? It's in the yolk and it's supposedly ah better to have it stuffed, but it's not too too hard boiled. And supposedly it's easier digestible or available in that state. Okay. Yeah. I mean, i eat right now you Because I mostly eat plants, personally. and But I have this issue on protein. Where are you going to get enough protein? and Especially swimming, lifting weights. I need a certain number of calories. And so you're going to have to get a lot from fat. How much can you get from plant protein? And there's certainly powders. So I supplement with powders. But then that can have a digestive issue. So I've started doing eggs. And I'll do eight egg whites a day and twice for lunch, for dinner. And I just put one yolk in. But I'm wondering if I should
00:19:42
Speaker
Add more to that. for the biggest Okay. Yeah. So maybe i'll I'll double the yolks and do two at lunch to a dinner to get up to that four. Okay. Do you supplement additional protein or is it all through eggs and meat? you you'll know the out I tried to do all through that, but I also have some protein shakes once in a while. I'm not sure if that is, I hear a lot of people say it's not the the best thing that it's better to get it through through natural foods.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've heard both sides. There there was a conference with Max Lugavere and Dr. Lyon and all these people, and they were going back and forth, but they were studying a lot of research. Like, look, whey protein, it goes back thousands of years. Like, we were deliberately producing this because it's a byproduct, and our body processes in a different way. It's very valuable as long as you don't have issues with whey, I suppose. Can we also touch on the the sleep point? so And I think this will lead to the the wearables and a lot of what you talk about in your book.
Optimizing Sleep for Better Health
00:20:42
Speaker
But on sleep, you certainly saw alcohol really hammered it. And like that that was probably, it sounds like, the single biggest shift you had in terms of absolute quality of the sleep you're getting. What now, knowing you're not someone to let perfect be the enemy at good what is your sleep routine and hygiene and what does that look like for you? I try to have a good sleep consistency that I go to bed and wake up at more or less the same time every day within a half hour window if I can. you know As a doctor, I often work late. I sometimes work at night. I used to work a lot at night. I used to think it was just uncomfortable, but now we know it's dangerous, as even carcinogenic, you know to have those night shifts and and and late nights.
00:21:31
Speaker
and So I try to keep my bedroom cool. I think we're talking 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Try to keep it really dark. yeah And I try to wind down in the evening the last one or two hours, dim the lights, put on blue blocking glasses if i if I need to in the summer, or if there's too much light around.
00:21:53
Speaker
And yeah, that is what I do. And then, of course, to track it, to see if it's rolling up. I try to also to keep the last meal three hours before I go to bed. And I try to avoid things like if I eat things containing chili or this kind of heavy mustard, it will be almost as bad as alcohol. I'll be stressed way into the night.
00:22:18
Speaker
and And then of course to track it, to see with the sleep trackers and and Garmin watches that it's actually restored to sleep. Yeah. And so the blue black and glasses, I mean, in Norway, in the winter, certainly, and I imagine probably also in the summer, like to keep the room cool, it's not that difficult, right? you Do you use any of the mattress cooling things or are you like, hey, it's cool enough. I'm setting up to buy some maid sleep that I understand you're using. Is it good?
00:22:48
Speaker
ah said Yuda likes me to get it? is Yeah, so I actually use both an eight sleep and I have a chili pad. So I have two different homes, one in the US, one in Bermuda. So one I use eight sleep, another I use the chili pad. um And so both are phenomenal, big, big.
00:23:06
Speaker
And then do you the probably the two of the very low cost, most impactful for me, are a comfortable eye mask because I am light sensitive and I do travel so I can't always guarantee I control the light environment and wax earplugs.
00:23:23
Speaker
Because again, I use that too. I can't use it on call here, so I can't use it here. But usually usually I would use that as as well. And my bedroom at home, I'm full control, so it's completely dark and that you can't see a hand in front of you. But also, like you say, if I'm traveling or and I'm in an environment, I can't control the lights. I use IMAX as well. And yeah we've touched on it a few times, and I think now we're diving in because this is such a big part of the book on There's so many people that drink and say, Oh, I don't have an issue. Like caffeine doesn't impact me. I sleep just fine. Alcohol doesn't impact me. I sleep just fine. And they can think that until you know the truth. right like that Yeah, its like you wear wos from men
00:24:07
Speaker
yeah you can't argue with your heart rate, you know, you're you're losing. So, so the heart rate monitors will keep track of your physiology around the clock. And it will And not only the heart rate but more importantly the heart rate variability which is like watching your heart rate with a magnifying glass it will tell you so much more than just a heart rate in itself so when you see that you can see that.
00:24:31
Speaker
Too much coffee late in the day ah will reduce your deep sleep. Alcohol will wreck your sleep. And so many other things will affect your sleep that you never even thought of.
Using Wearables for Health Monitoring
00:24:42
Speaker
um And we are very poor at judging ourselves. And we don't really have a good sense of our inner state. Neither our sleep or our or recovery rate.
00:24:54
Speaker
and Because we never needed that sense. all All our senses, all our good senses are directed outwards. Eyesight, hearing, smell and taste and touch and all these things. Because the threats throughout history came from the outside. Other animals, poor food, enemies and and so on. And the sense, our inner state was depending on the circumstances. You you were either hunting or being hunted or you rested or slept.
00:25:23
Speaker
you know, there there was no exercising, you know, there was no stress, there was no phones, iPhones and so on. So, um but the heart rate is the monitors that can monitor the heart rate is kind of a substitute for the sense that we never needed to develop, but that we can now see. And when we can see the graphs, we can see the numbers, it's so much easier to to do the right choices to be motivated to do to skip that glass of alcohol when you can see the results.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, for me, I think it's it's almost twofold, because there's one on what helps you get better or worse sleep. I think there's another piece that hopefully most people, especially most people listening to this now i'm get, but I didn't get until I was in my mid to late 30s on the importance of sleep itself and why quality sleep matters in terms of not getting dementia and and all the downstream effects of poor sleep, because being the child of physicians I was explicitly told when I was growing up of, you can train your body not to need sleep. We did it as residents. It's not important. You can get more done. There's this doctor. He wrote all his books because he only slept four hours a night. He would write from these times. And now we know scientifically that's not true. but Yes, you you can get through life, but the quality of life, the early death, the the mental state, it is all heavily impacted.
00:26:48
Speaker
And there will be a price. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, but in my residence, yeah, I think I remember I worked 51 hours without sleep. So and that was kind of being tough. It was what you were expected to do. And after, you know, my aha moment, I started sleeping probably one more hour every day.
00:27:11
Speaker
But if you want to sleep one more hour every day for like 40 to 60 years, that is actually two years of lifetime. you know so So it's not weird that we used to think that, okay, let's cut down on sleep and sleep as little as possible. But now we know the price of that with increased dementia, with with reduced performance, and then for longevity, and then almost everything, then this extra hour of sleep that you get maybe seven or eight hours of sleep.
00:27:42
Speaker
it is really really important so now people try to sleep more you know they are bragging about their sleep scores rather than sleeping five hours a night so that is probably a big improvement yeah and i mean. Probably with your practice with your personal attorney as well as in writing the book you tried a bunch of these different wearables right. and And so what have you found using the different ones because ah a lot of people ask me and say, well, how do you know it's objectively right? I said, actually, and does it doesn't matter as much to me if it's objectively right.
00:28:16
Speaker
because it's the differences, it's the changes that matter. So if even if my heart rate, it's consistently y% off, I can still see if it's going up or down based on different behaviors is my take on it. But I'd be curious as someone who put more into this what your thoughts are. So it's my journey to wearables started more than five years ago. And for the first two years, I was using an ECD monitor that just recorded You know, the the HRV, I could see the 24-7 graphs, whether I was in the parasympathetic mode or in the sympathetic mode. And I had to interpret these graphs all by myself. There was no books. The Pulskyr is the first guidebook in the world on how to use variables compared to lifestyle strategies. ah So there was no nowhere to find information.
00:29:08
Speaker
I didn't even know that there existed rings or watches or other wearables i could i just knew about this easy to monitor. I use that for two years exploring my own nervous system my own physiology and then by chance i got to know that.
00:29:24
Speaker
Garmin had the body battery system in their watches, and then I started using the watch. I could see immediately that the curves that I got from these ECD monitors, I could put it on top of the Garmin monitors and it would be The difference would would be so slight that i just threw away the city monitor it was no use in it was a a lot more cumbersome using the test monitor instead of just the watch of course and a garment is still the best choice i would say if you want to manage your stress levels throughout the day and night and in the moment.
00:30:00
Speaker
and There are other choices as well that you have the orange and the samsung galaxy ring that's coming now with the samsung watch. You have the apple watch if you have the apple watch you could use the athletic app and that is quite good not quite as good as carmen but it is getting a little bit worse. ah And you have the who band that I've been using. and I've been using other other instruments as well. And every instrument is so much more than your own guesswork. Your own guesswork is really poor. And it's also the reason why we have ended up in this stress environment with half of the population more or less is on the verge of burnout, you know, at some point. And getting the stress related disease
00:30:49
Speaker
treating as doctors so if If we were good at judging our stress levels, we wouldn't have these diseases, you know, we would calm down before we get too stressed and get sick. So any instrument is better than way better than nothing. For sure. But but the the Garmin watches, as I say, is is by far the best one. They're also the one with the cheapest entry level. So you can buy a Vivo Smart 5 for around $150. So it's not that expensive, it may be a roof or other ordering.
00:31:20
Speaker
so You brought up a couple times now on the stress management side, right? And so part of the wearable benefit is being able to monitor more real time, the stress you're under. Knowledge is the first half of it. that Then doing something with that knowledge is where the impact thing comes.
00:31:43
Speaker
Now with the monitoring you're doing, what are your own stress management and mindset practices? Like either consistently day to day or week to week or in the moment once you notice something is starting to go awry. I'm doing day by day and week by week. And so both during the course of the day, I make sure that I manage the stress troubles, that I do a cold shower in the morning, that I do breathing exercises now and then. If I'm too sedentary, that I'm like now working here on the coast of Norway, I do i do some running. i In between patients, I may just run around the office, you know, just jumping jacks and burpees and whatever.
00:32:31
Speaker
um And then in general, try to slow down my speed at some point because, you know, having the book is still in the second year after two years is still selling a lot. It's still so much pressure and so many talks, so many podcasts and and and appearances here and there. So it's still a stressful life that I didn't have two years ago. You know, being just a normal doctor and suddenly finding yourself having written a bestseller book.
00:33:00
Speaker
um So i I'm really micromanaging my stress level, making sure that I get enough sleep. and But some days are just stressful. then Maybe two or three days in a row where I have to use all my forces. I have to kind of pull my physiological credit card and some days in a row. And I can do that, but then I know the physiological load of it so I know how much do I need to recover for the next day or two. So I make sure that I try to not put more stress on a single day than I can recover from until the next day or any way that I don't
00:33:37
Speaker
After one hard week that I will have an easy week that I'm able to see that on monitors and see the heart rate variability, the nightly heart rate variability over time, that I can see if there gets a dip. If I'm overtaxing myself, I will be able to see it and and can do some measures. Of course, what what we can measure, we can we can manage.
00:34:00
Speaker
And in that, is it just time and space or are there specific things you're doing on the recovery side to reduce that stress level? um that That would mainly be by breathing, breathing slowly, breath work, doing four seconds in, six seconds out.
00:34:21
Speaker
Now it's almost automatic. So I would do it while I'm listening to patients. I will do it in phone calls. I will do it you know as I'm walking. and So I have a lot more control over my breath and knowledge of how I can use use it to slow my speed down, both as I'm relaxing, but also as I'm going along, as I'm doing things. So so that is a way to control it. and then Of course, on the Garmin watches, you have the body battery system, so that I try to charge up to 80. It's a scale from 0 to 100. I try to charge up to 80 most days and not not go under 20 in the evening, also in those days. As long as I'm in that space, I'm good. Then I'm i'm performing, then i can that I'm operative at all hours during the day. Okay.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah, and I'll have to learn more about that Garmin system. May may I ask on the breathing, you said the four and six out, is it cyclical so there's no pause on the out or the end? It's just a short, I'll just do a short, maybe a half a second pause at the end. And then and and and then I'm curious, is it do you think the benefit there, because I have twice a day on my calendar,
00:35:42
Speaker
a reminder to do a 4-7-8 breathing. Breathe in for 4, hold it for 7, and out for 8. There's certainly potential placebo benefits, psychosomatic benefit. There's a separate benefit, maybe not necessarily from the breathing, but just the pause and the reminder to pause in general. and Then there's probably this separate requirement for the mindfulness of to actually reconnect with your breath. And so whether the pattern is four, six or a four, four, four block breathing or a four, seven, eight is less important than just tuning into your breath to to bring yourself back into your body, back to what you mentioned before of all our senses are outward looking.
00:36:29
Speaker
And this is a way to say, nonetheless, let's start looking back and again. So where do you think the benefits are coming from? I guess is my question. I think the the most important is to breathe slowly and to find the pace that suits you. Often you would feel it. Often you would feel that it's about six breaths a minute. So there's sort of a sweet spot for most people, somewhere around six breaths a minute.
00:36:57
Speaker
And you would often feel it, ah the the pace of it. And then of course, you have the box breath, you have the 478. I also try that, but it's a bit too hard for me. It's a bit too long because 478 will be like three breaths a minute. And often that stresses me more than it calms me down. So it's a bit too hard for me. And I would also do the spread of three seconds, you know, 3333.
00:37:26
Speaker
I'm going to call it a bit um bit too stressful for me so you will find the one that you're comfortable with and according to your capacity for for breathing the most important thing is the knowledge that you can control your parasympathetic nervous system with the breath is kind of a signal.
00:37:47
Speaker
i you know the person that i was nervous system i call in the book i call it the inner living fossil in our brain. Is hundred and like fifty millions or two hundred million years old and it's still more or less works in the same way which is of course why we can. Do research on rats and all the other you know the animals and this is the system is still working as if it was hundred years hundred million years ago.
Breath Control and Stress Management
00:38:17
Speaker
So when we breathe slowly, it's a strong signal to that part of the brain that it's calm out there. This organism is breathing slowly. There's no war inside. There's no enemy inside. We can do the recovery work from the vagus nerve. So it's a way to kind of trick our body and mind into a more calmer state. And that is very, very necessary in our modern world.
00:38:44
Speaker
It makes a lot of sense with with your trackers is a more selfish question. Do you monitor your respiratory rate at night? No, not much. No. Okay. I'm not sure how well they perform that either. So I'm not sure how much we can trust the calculations of the respiratory rate. Probably the eight sleep would be better ah because it would be easier to to to measure it, you know, being a mattress and not just using the heart rate for for guesswork. Yeah. And that's, that's where, you know, cause I use multiple seeing that they move in tandem of if it's going up or down one night, it it was something i I didn't think anything up, but when you were saying that six press per minute, you know, I found I was getting up to 16 my respiratory rate at night.
00:39:34
Speaker
and Dr. Andy Galpin was saying, hey look if you're over 12, this is kind of a red flag. We did some research and it turned out swimmers, even though yeah I was a swimmer, you think strong lungs, all of this, but because we spend so much time inside with chlorine, we basically poison and damage our lungs.
00:39:51
Speaker
And so i've been getting devices to try to work on those muscles and i've gotten it down to fourteen which is still high but from the sixteen where i started it's getting an improvement but six seems. Very out of reach at this moment wouldn't i wouldn't be able to have that at night that is only while you're in conscious control okay that you yeah so so so you wouldn't be able to.
00:40:16
Speaker
to Maybe eight breaths a minute, you know, I can see on my monitor that it's the lowest breath rate, but the average would probably be around 12, 11, 12. Yeah, I mean, that still would be amazing if I can get back down to that. Very interesting. One thing you touched on that I'd like to come back to, again, probably more selfishly than for any other reason, fasting. So what what is your take on fasting? We talked about time-restricted feeding.
00:40:43
Speaker
But I would put that in a different camp than true fasting. Is fasting something that you utilize at all in your routine? And if so, what does that look like?
Fasting Benefits on Health Indicators
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah, I used to do a lot of five to fasting with two days a week with maybe six or 700 calories and the five other days normal. um But now I usually only do the restricted feeding window. I sometimes do ah five days passing mimicking diet, where you eat 700 calories, you know, what theol the volta longo style, yeah but but with but with real food. I think that the you get in a long way with a restricted feeding window. And if you in addition to that, do a workout, then you get the autophagy effect of it, I think. So, you know, autophagy is of course, very important that you can push your body to
00:41:43
Speaker
to recirculate you know the the worst cells, the senescent cells are are on the way to developing into cancer or in sending out inflammatory signals to your body.
00:41:54
Speaker
and creating inflammation. so So some way of fasting, I can see clearly, is working and it will also be demonstrable on your monitor. The first time I was fasting, I was expecting to see stress, you know, because it's uncomfortable. And I was expressing expecting to see stress on my monitors, but it was totally calm. So fasting is a way to get your HRV better and to get you into the parasympathetic mode.
00:42:23
Speaker
and that you are able to see it on your monitor is of course also motivating because you're doing is something that is quite hard you know not to eat and so when you see the result it is so much easier to do it.
00:42:36
Speaker
yeah so I mean i now do it twice a year. I do a five-day fast. I used to do it four times, but I thought I was losing too much strength. But it's exactly as you say, the the first few nights, my HRV basically doubles. And it's the body is not having to spend time digesting food and cleaning and everything. It's just doing all this repair and recovery. It's a beautiful thing. By the end, I say I don't know if it's because ah my body's saying, hey, wake up and go hunt and get some food. Or it's just my excitement that I know, hey, tomorrow morning, when I wake up, I get to eat again. But by the last night, I don't sleep quite as well as those first few nights. ah And it's also important in general to be flexible, and and not to be too rigid that we are able to
00:43:24
Speaker
and Some days use all our forces go all out and and and really stress our systems both mentally and physically and that the other days are able to calm completely it down and be in that control ourselves in order and also you know with eating that you're able to.
00:43:45
Speaker
not eat and that you're able to eat you know and also with temperature that you're able to be in the sauna and push yourself temperature wise and also being in the to the cold water and then have this flexibility. I think that's very important to mimic the circumstances of our evolutionary types you know and because what we can see on our technological wonders you know with there with the wearables is that the more we can move towards the ancient lifestyle,
00:44:15
Speaker
the better we become. And that is good because that lifestyle didn't cost any money, you know, as I was talking
Empowerment Through Wearables
00:44:20
Speaker
about. So um it's a good thing. And it's because there's too much money in sick people. That is the problem of the healthcare system that we as a strategy, wait until people get sick, and then we treat them. And that costs a lot of It's a lot of people involved, a lot of doctors, a lot of nurses, a lot of equipment you know to do it that way. um And of course, for for people, it's expensive. And also, it makes it your health. The control of your health is outside your control. But with these measurements and keeping track of our health in these ways, also with the CJ monitor, of course, as ah as a glucose monitor, we can avoid getting sick.
00:45:04
Speaker
And then the control is in your own head. So the whole thing about wearables is really a huge shift of power from the doctor and the health care system and and into your own hands, literally, and giving you the control. So I think it's a huge thing. It's it's a real revolution in health care, I would say.
00:45:25
Speaker
Now, we've we've talked mostly about looking inside, right? and And we're getting these monitors to help us look inside more. ah But our senses are all outward facing, and we are creatures that do and need to and interact with our environment.
Social Interactions and Health
00:45:46
Speaker
And we know on the social connection side, if you're socially isolated, just like with sleep, you have a 50% higher chance of developing dementia. It's being lonely, has the same effects as obesity and alcoholism when you think about impacts on our health. And so how do you think about that, where it's it's not getting captured in our wearables? Or it does. It does get captured. Absolutely. if If you have good relationships, it will be seen in the heart rate.
00:46:17
Speaker
And actually and that is quite funny because a lot of people who are considering themselves introverts and trying to avoid people because at some level they felt stressed by it. At another level the heart rate monitors could show that when yeah they are with people their heart rate is better. Even though at some some level you know in there because The heart it monitors, monitors the basic system in your body. It doesn't manage manage or measure your thoughts, you know, in in the intellectual brain. So you could still feel horrible, but your autonomic nervous system is in balance. You could still feel pain. You can still have poor thoughts about your ex breaking up with you without it necessarily affecting your autonomic nervous system.
00:47:07
Speaker
And good relationships will be seen in a better heart rate variability. at the same And poor relationship, so many people at work will see that when they're working with certain colleagues, their stress levels is high. And then they will try to minimize the contact with that person, for example. And of course,
00:47:30
Speaker
There's two sides of that good relationships are good for your health and bad relationships are very bad for your health, you know, and both of these things you can see in the heart rate to your heart rate will. respond to any any demand on your body and or any relieving factor on on your stress level. So also also being social. Yeah. That resonates. that You can see it on the output metrics. I guess what I was thinking more is the the wearable will show you how much sleep you got or how much deep sleep you got or how um your your stress score for the day in terms of fitness level and and what you put your body under.
00:48:10
Speaker
and the hours or minutes that you spent exercising and the calories you burned or the steps you walked and what may not get captured. and I'd love to get corrected here, is the breadth and depth of your social interactions and connections as the the input metrics. You're just seeing the results on the other side. and so For someone who's looking at it and saying, okay, I can see when I have these two glasses of alcohol at night, I'm i'm seeing this impact on my sleep,
00:48:42
Speaker
how do you or how do you suggest others take that same kind of rigor and thought process to how they choose to engage with other people and the world around them? Yeah. So many, you can see the effect on your stress level of interactions with people. Some people can see that when they're with certain people, they can even tolerate two glasses of wine.
00:49:10
Speaker
then they couldn't necessarily tolerate with other people. A lot of extroverts can see, are often shocked to see that their interactions is very taxing. So even if because a lot of people and including myself used to think, okay, that that is because the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic part is called fight, flight and freeze. So you would necessarily think that it's only a negative state.
00:49:40
Speaker
So as long as you are having fun, it is not taxing your system. And that is what a lot of people have been thinking, that as long as I'm having fun, I don't need to recover from that. But a lot of particularly ex extroverts find that because they they thrive on being with people you know all day long, but when they see that it's actually taxing their system, they also have to recover from from the fun, interesting conversations and and social and you know those situations.
00:50:11
Speaker
um Then they learn learn that too. that this four hours of being at a very fun party ah you know needs to be recovered from in hindsight so that they don't get into a burnout situation.
00:50:27
Speaker
so um I think I'm not sure if that was what you were asking about, but um but there is things to be learned from how your you whole system reacts to a social situation. And to because the most important thing is the totality of it. and That you have a stress balance that over time is sustainable. We are supposed to stress, you know, the diverse thing would be not to stress. And then then you would just become weaker and weaker and weaker until every everything is a stress, right? Just like if you would refrain from doing any workout and then just moving across the floor gets gets hard. And so we just have to find the right balance between stress and and recovery. We're not necessarily overstressed, but we are mainly under recovered. That is the biggest problem that we haven't had a focus on recovery
00:51:26
Speaker
Of course the athletes know that more and more than ever you know they do cold plunges cold exposures breath where they sleep more and so on. but I think in the in the general population i have been thinking like we are machines we can just go on and go on and go on and push ourselves there's no price price to be paid for that.
00:51:44
Speaker
but um But of course ah it is. and And you don't know what recovery is until you can measure it. Because I used to think that I was calming down, but I could see from my wearables that I was not. What I thought was a calm state, there was still a couple of and kind of leagues beyond that of recovery.
00:52:06
Speaker
Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. Seeing that and learning that, how do you now, deliberately or not, think about your own social connection and engagement with others? I mean, is it something you schedule a certain amount of time, or if you schedule a certain amount of time, you then block a proportionate amount of time for recovery from those parties? like how How do you manage that now?
00:52:31
Speaker
I can be calm in any situation now. so so ah can be I'm usually with people as much as I want. I don't have to have any restrictions on that. um so What stresses me the most is food, actually. Different kinds of food can can can and stress me more. so That is what I have to be very particular about, what to eat and when to eat.
00:52:56
Speaker
um and That was of course one of the biggest surprises when you started tracking the system that food would be a stressor. You know you would never have thought of that. and The first surprise was that when I was um working and you know as a normal GP and in the lunchtime instead of my usual salad, there was some kind of celebration. Maybe a colleague was you know quitting their job or whatever. ah they had a huge cake I took two big slices of that cake instead of the salad, and my stress levels went through the roof. I mean i was just you know ah couldn't understand what was happening. you know how how can i How can my heart rate go up 15 beats just because I'm eating something for four hours, maybe for for five hours afterwards? And I would feel tired. you know So that was the ah start of my exploration into food and and food intolerances and then so many people having health problems.
00:53:53
Speaker
At the bottom of that is the food intolerance. And if you have a food intolerance, your heart rate will react to that food, and you can see it. and So I usually say to people that if there's a big difference between your stress levels ah when you eat and fast, um it's a it should be some difference. you know But if it's the huge difference, then there's a chance that you may have a food intolerance that you should have to check out through special blood tests.
00:54:23
Speaker
Yeah, so this is a a lot, right? We've talked about this, this was a journey, you had your own aha moment, and then getting informed by data, which we live in the best time in history for this, because instead of having to go to a lab or a hospital, we can wear this stuff and get this data of real time. For someone who is just getting started, and this ain't, well, this ah seems like a lot, you know, you've already touched on most of the things are free.
00:54:50
Speaker
um But they're not necessarily free in terms of time, and time's the most valuable asset. So if somebody was just to get started, where would you suggest they take that first step?
Prioritizing Sleep for Overall Health
00:55:03
Speaker
and That would be to sleep better, to prioritize sleep. And once they sleep better, they will have a better heart rate variability, they will have more willpower, they will have more energy to do the right choices the rest of the day.
00:55:18
Speaker
to do that to do some exercise to to choose an apple instead of a chocolate and so on. So that is the starting point also in the book and to to improve sleep. Yeah, fantastic. just to Maybe once you once you start tracking your system, it's it's a huge thing. Suddenly you get the window into your own physiology and and it can be ah challenge So you also just have to be patient and and accepting that probably you will see too much stress. 80% of the diseases that we are treating is because of too much stress. So the chances are that you will see more stress than you would hope for. right right But that's also good and then you must just see that it may be a long journey ahead to to get this control of your speed level. because
00:56:07
Speaker
It's almost like you suddenly get a dashboard like in your car, suddenly get a dashboard in your own physiology and it will take some time to to to manage that and you just have to be accepting and patient and and do one step at a time. I think that is the best advice.
00:56:22
Speaker
There is. Sleep is so foundational and then just do your best one step at a time. Back to where you started it. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You're going to get 80% of the benefit from just putting forth 20% of the effort. And for those, again, the the book is The Pulse Cure. It is phenomenal. And I am so grateful for you taking the time to not only write it and share it with the world, but also to come on the Home of Health Span podcast today and and share all your wisdom with us. So, Torkel, thank you.
00:56:52
Speaker
Thanks a lot for coming in and I would also say that a lot of people listening to podcasts like better to listen to audibles and the book is also an audiobook that you'll get anywhere you buy books and even on your iPhone and so on. Fantastic and we'll make sure to put this in the show notes and certainly on Torkel's a lively page as well. So thank you again and until next time, enjoy a lively day.
00:57:16
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home with Health Span podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other healthspan role models on the lively.com. Enjoy day.