Anshu Bahanda: Have you ever noticed how you constantly feel tired, even when your mind thinks you’ve rested enough? I’ve spoken to so many people who describe the same thing. They take time off, they slow down when they can, and yet they feel unsettled. The body’s always tense, the fatigue lingers, and the calm just doesn’t arrive. It makes you pause and ask a different kind of question. What if stress isn’t just about what you’re thinking, but about what your nervous system is holding onto? What if our heart has been communicating this all along through signals most of us were never taught to recognize? Scientific research shows that the body’s stress response can be measured through subtle changes in heart rhythm, revealing whether the nervous system is stuck in survival or able to recover. These patterns often tell a very different story from what we feel on the surface. So how do we begin to listen to those signals? And what happens when we finally understand what the heart has been trying to say? This is Anshu Bahanda and today on Wellness Curated, we’re talking about Heart Rate Variability (HRV): The Missing Link Between Stress and Recovery and what it can teach us about healing burnout, restoring balance, and listening to the body in a world that rarely switches off.
Welcome to the Wellness Algorithm, where wellness isn’t fixed, it evolves with us, shaped by how we live, what we carry, and how our bodies respond beneath the surface. In today’s episode, we’re exploring something many of us feel, but rarely do we understand it, the sense of being constantly switched on, resting but not recovering. Calm on the outside, but tense underneath. This isn’t about doing more. It’s about understanding what’s happening in the nervous system and why stress often lingers long after the day’s ended. And you can see this in the way people are not able to sleep. You can see it in people’s stress patterns. There’s a lot that’s going on in people’s lives today which shows us that the tension isn’t leaving people’s systems.
To help us explore this, I’m joined by Salim Najjar. Salim is an expert in Heart Rate Variability or HRV and nervous system regulation. Together, we’re going to look at HRV, what it can reveal about stress, burnout, our body’s ability to recover in this world that doesn’t switch off. Before we begin, a small request as always. Please subscribe to the podcast. It’s free and it allows us to bring you conversations like this which are grounded in science, deeply human, and if these episodes resonate, share it with someone who might be standing at a crossroads in their life and this might help them move forward. Welcome to the show, Salim, and thank you for being here with us today. So, Salim, to start with, there’s a lot of people out there who haven’t heard of HRV or heart rate variability. So will you explain it in simple, everyday language and tell us what it’s all about? Why is it important? Pour out everything about HRV.
Salim Najjar: There’s a lot to pour out. And before I start, I just want to thank you so much for the opportunity to come and share and be a part of this podcast and everything that you’re trying to bring to the world. So thank you so much, so much for that.
AB: Thank you. I’m delighted that you made the time to be here with us.
SN: So HRV stands for heart rate variability, and it’s measuring the gap or the variance between each of your heartbeats. Now what that indicates is how your heart and nervous system is perceiving its ever changing environment. So essentially, your relationship to your stress is a direct reflection of the health of your autonomic nervous system and its ability to go from a sympathetic fight or flight state into a parasympathetic rest and digest state. Now, why I believe this is so important, and I call it the number one biomarker for longevity, is because science has very much proven that we all age, get disease, and eventually die from cellular inflammation. Period. End of story. If you peel the onion back on any sort of aging or disease, unless you die in an accident, the root cause of whatever it is that caused you to die is cellular inflammation. Agreed?
AB: Okay. Yes.
SN: Science has also proven that the number one leading cause for cellular inflammation, chronic stress. Not stress, but chronic stress. Meaning prolonged high-beta sympathetic activated states. So if you have a biomarker like HRV that is measuring your relationship to stress and whether you’re in a high stress beta state or not, then you arguably have the most important biomarker for longevity, because it’s a way to determine if you are leading to that cellular inflammation.
AB: Okay, so, and that is heart rate variability.
SN: That is one of so many different things that HIV tells you. But at its core, it’s measuring your relationship to stress, your relationship to this present moment. And it’s your, I call it the language of your nervous system, communicating how it’s feeling in every moment with that gap between each heartbeat.
AB: And a lot of people say that if your heart rate goes down, your heart rate variability goes up, that it’s inversely related. Is that right?
SN: In general, a lower heart rate usually means a higher HRV. Now, first, let’s talk about, is a higher HRV good or bad? Because they say a lower heart rate is good because it’s a more calm heart. So for HRV, the wider the gap or the larger the variance between each heartbeat indicates a more malleable and resilient nervous system that can handle more of the ever- changing environment. On the flip side, a lower HRV, meaning less of a gap between each heartbeat, indicates a more rigid nervous system. And that which is rigid eventually breaks. So in general, a higher HRV correlates with a healthier heartbeat nervous system. Now, there’s a caveat to that. The caveat is that science has researched HRV for decades. HeartMath Institute, one of the longest, and they have yet to publish any HRV range. The only thing research has proven is that HRV is so uniquely individualised to the person.
Meaning you cannot compare your score to someone else’s or a certain number you need to get to. Because just like there’s no two fingerprints in the world that are the same, there’s no two heartbeats in the world that are the same. And so that’s why I intentionally say, utilise HRV as a language. And when you think of languages, you don’t think English is better than Arabic is better than French, right? The whole intent of a language is for an ecosystem within a community to communicate. The whole intent of your HRV is for your nervous system and body to solely communicate with you.
AB: So what I want to ask you again, you made it very clear that it’s about you. But in general, a lot of, say, athletes have low heart rates and higher HRVs, but they may be very stressed. So just explain that to me before we dive into the rest of the questions.
SN: So, HRV, the second thing that, important to understand is that it is so variable, it is changing 50, 60, 70 times a minute, right? Because if it’s measuring that gap between each heartbeat and your heartbeat’s 40, 50, 60 beats per minute, it’s going to change. So the real-time HRV is not as important as what I call your baseline HRV. And I define your baseline HRV as your average HRV score over the last 30 days. And again, if you were to utilise HRV as a language, then how you do so is wake up. Let’s say your baseline is 40 and you wake up to a score of 20. That’s not a good or bad thing, it’s simply data. It’s your nervous system saying whatever you did the day before is more of a load than it’s been used to. The best thing you can do is listen to it, is honor it. Do something that nourishes your body. Now, to get to your question. Athletes, who are training, have very good cardiovascular health, right? They’ve been able to bring their heart rate down. And in general, a lower heart rate will lead to a higher HRV, because imagine there’s less beats in that minute, meaning you should have wider variances between each gap. So in general, a lower heart rate, which also reflects a more calm nervous system, a nervous system that can adapt and recover quicker, will lead to a higher HRV, because a higher HRV is a reflection of a healthy nervous system that can adapt quicker.
But just because it’s higher in that moment does not mean you are dealing with a whole lot of other internal stress, right? And at the end of the day, that’s why it’s not the real-time, but it’s your baseline over time that I believe is the most important barometer and metric to be measuring. And only comparing yourself to you. Science has proven that as we age, HRV decreases, which makes sense because we age, there’s a lot more stress and load on the body. However, in myself, in my clients, in so many people I’ve seen the inverse where HRV actually, as I’m aging, has been going up.
AB: Wow.
SN: By training it, right? And so that’s really what you want to be cognisant of and always understand that it is the language of your body. And the best thing you could do, because our bodies are such intelligent vessels of wisdom, is to listen to your body.
AB: Thank you. Salim, I noticed that you’re wearing something that looks like two Oura rings, one in each hand. What does that meant to be?
SN: This is actually new. It’s called Gabit. And I got connected to the founder and it’s like Oura, and they just wanted to send it to me. And I am just comparing, seeing the interface. Yeah. And in terms of measuring HRV, there’s not one product that I think is superior to another. I think the most important thing is whatever you will consistently utilise. Some people like, whoop, there’s, you know, the real time polar straps, rings are, to me, the most minimal and simplistic. But all of them are within a three to four and a half percent accuracy. Accuracy is not as important as consistency.
AB: So, and is it important to measure HRV?
SN: That depends on how you intend to relate to it. For some people, like I was, I was very, in my mind, very, driven by data and numbers and knowing. And I had a challenging time listening to my body, feeling my body. HRV was a beautiful compass supporting me to feel more, because I was so obsessed with wanting to optimise this metric. I tried hacking it, like I did everything in life, and it didn’t move for three to six months. And then when I finally started to listen, when I finally started to prioritise recovery and being in a parasympathetic state, I started seeing it go up. And that’s how I developed my Art of the Heart framework and all my pathways for HRV growth that I believe you heard me talk about.
AB: That’s interesting. So now I want to come to this question that the whole world is asking, and you’re probably my fourth, or fifth or sixth podcast recently on the nervous system, because I get asked all the time, why are we so tired? We’re doing everything right. So what is it that HRV reveals about us that rest is not being able to fix? What does HRV tell us? How does it explain it? What can we do to get over this?
SN: Yes. So sleep, super important and one of my pathways for HRV growth. But just because you’re sleeping doesn’t mean that you are listening and honoring your body, right? And so what HRV is telling you, it’s again, I call it a compass towards nervous system sovereignty and sleep and rest is one aspect of it. But what I have found impacts HRV almost more than anything else is your emotional and mental state, is how you are relating to your challenges, to your environment, right? So just because you give yourself the right amount of sleep, just because you’re eating right, just because you’re working out, just because you’re doing all these checkbox things that we’re supposed to be doing, does not mean that you are honoring and listening to what your body wants. And so HRV is reflecting that. And again, I weave my five pathways for HRV growth, which kind of covers what I’ve seen all the pillars that HRV is reflecting, and if you practice the framework within each of them, I have seen in myself and anybody who has their HRV begin to increase.
AB: Lovely. And at what stage does your framework or does HRV tell us that we’ve moved from “I’m just stressed because, you know, there was traffic” getting care to a point where it’s a deep burnout. So no matter what I do, how do you know that you move there and that you need to do something greater about it.
SN: I can only speak from my personal experience, but for me, it took my shoulder dislocating, tearing 30% of my socket off, and my body screaming to slap me silly because I was too much in here and thinking that, yeah, I know I’m a little stressed, but I’m okay. Burnout isn’t coming, and I wasn’t listening to my body. And the body is always speaking to us, and if you don’t listen, it speaks louder and louder and louder until it eventually slaps you silly. So that answer to that question is so unique to the person. But what I love about HRV is if you start bringing awareness to it and wanting to improve it, you will redirect your path towards burnout because it is truly a reflection of your internal state.
AB: But, you know, I’ve seen this in a lot of people where they say, oh, we’re calm, we’re fine, but they’re not because they’re not sleeping. So, again, how. What are the signs? Tell me some of the signs where people know that they need to do something about this.
SN: Well, in terms of need it is an interesting one. I think, again, it’s all up to how you want to relate to what you’re doing. But for me, the sign was my HRV was not improving. I said, I’m okay. I was, you know, hacking my way to five hours of sleep, living in New York City, running 10 miles every other day.
AB: Wow.
SN: Listening to a minimum of three audiobooks a week. Raising money from 170 people, thinking I’m, like, winning this game of life, running my old beverage company. And so, I am literally the character you’re describing on the outside. Physically, I look great. I was telling everybody I was fine. I was calm, cool, and collective. Internally, not the case. But I was so running on an old programme, an old belief, an old pattern in my mind that I was ignoring what my body was saying until it had to scream, right? And if I was paying attention to my HRV back then, I would have noticed that it wasn’t going up. And it was actually, for me, low compared to what now it’s gotten to. But I didn’t know that, right? So the best way I think people can understand is, be aware of your HRV and be cognisant of wanting to improve it and start to do things that could potentially improve it. And when you start that journey, you will start the journey of actually listening to what your body wants instead of just projecting what your mind is thinking.
AB: And, tell me how much of this nervous system overload or these lower HRVs that people seem to be experiencing, how much of this is because of technology? Because we’re constantly on the phone, we’re on computers, there’s screens everywhere, there’s Wi-Fi everywhere.
SN: Yeah.
AB: How much do you think is because of technology and what would you suggest we do about that?
SN: Such a great question that I have contemplated in my answer to that similar to my priors. It’s so unique to the person in their relationship to the technology. So I’ll speak from my experience.
AB: By the way, I love how you take responsibility while you keep talking with me, which is fantastic.
SN: Well, and, and I’ve humbly learned to do that because at the end of the day, like why. Actually the best example before I answer the question is I was giving a, I was co-facilitating a retreat in Okinawa, which is the largest blue zone in the world, right? The most centenarians. And every morning we’d get up and we’d see these 100-plus Japanese, gathering in community, which is so important, on the beach and they’d be smoking cigarettes. In my New York judgmental mind would look and be.
AB: Like, Oh, my God, what are they doing?
SN: How can they smoke cigarettes and live to be over 100? And then I realized their relationship with the cigarette is vastly different than my conditioned belief that it’s a cancer stick. Now I’m not saying it’s not and I’m not saying to go smoke. I’m just simply saying they have a different perspective on it. And not only them, but their parents and their parents. Parents and their parents. So it’s in their DNA, right, that this cigarette is not a cancer stick. And it brings joy and communal gathering.
AB: And it’s community and it’s socialising.
SN: So they live to be over 100. So who am I to project my belief on someone else?
AB: And it’s not an addiction, it’s just a, you know?
SN: Totally. And so that’s why my answers to the question truly how I intentionally want to drink this water versus how intentionally you want will change the actual molecular structure of the water, right?
AB: Lovely. That’s actually lovely. So we come back to technology.
SN: So technology. I was obsessed with biohacking technologies. I had a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, sauna, cold plunge, read every gadget you could imagine, all the things and utilising it, to optimise and, you know, improve my energy and I can go out and do more in the world and money and blah, blah, blah, blah. And throughout that entire time my HRV was down at like 32, right? And it wasn’t until I started my inward journey and I started prioritising, like I said, the parasympathetic side, the rest and digest. I started even traveling and changing that I saw my baseline go up. But then I came back and I still utilise the technologies, except with an intention to regulate my nervous system. Not to go have more energy and do more, but to learn to bring sovereignty to my nervous system to support my recovery and rest. And I utilise these technologies and it supports my HRV.
So that’s a long- winded way of answering the question that technology isn’t good or bad. It is. It’s there, it’s here for a reason. We’re not getting rid of it. How you intend to use it, what you are using it for is more important than actually using it, right? And so if you’re going to utilise technologies like phones, like I have an app that I love that supports getting me in a parasympathetic state. So it’s incredible for me to use, but if I’m going to use it to go get a dopamine hit, to scroll on Instagram and project that I’m not good enough because that person has this many followers, blah, blah, blah, then it’s going to have a contradicting impact, right?
But if we were living in nature without this technology, there would be a lot less things and exercises we need to do to support regulating our nervous system. However, we have chosen to live in these cities like Dubai and to have a big impact on the world and do things with that comes a lot of stress on the body, both with, EMF waves with to all the things.
And so we can utilise other technologies to support the body by combating and working with those. So I don’t think technology is good or bad. Again, your intention and how you’re utilising it is what matters most.
AB: Thank you, Salim. So, I also want to ask you about what’s happening in the world. You know, the person that you were, where you were on a race to get somewhere, you felt like, oh, god, if I slow down, I lose the race. Now there’s a lot of people you meet like that, you know, of all age groups. Now, from the HRV perspective, where is, what would you suggest we do about this?
SN: Yeah, the famous quote that I used to live by: Plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.
AB: Wow. Yes.
SN: Yeah.
AB: I like that quote a lot.
SN: That’s entrepreneur in the entrepreneurial circle.
AB: Yeah.
SN: Yeah. Which is a quote that I, I lived by and for me, I was defining success as these external things, validation, money, business, all these things. And why I love HRV is it is a reflection of what is most resonant with your body. And one of my five pathways towards HRV growth is intentionality, the alignment, right? And I’m just going to weave in this pathway to answer this question because I was the most guilty of, you know, thinking, plenty of time to sleep when we’re dead and I need to do, do, do, do, do, right? And I actually asked for this beautiful wish on my birthday two years ago. My company at the time, a beverage company, was doing so well on the outside. Number two beverages in Whole Foods on the East coast and 2,000 retailers nationwide. And, really moving. And with that you need a lot of capital to keep up with the demand. And I was struggling raising enough money to keep up with demand at the time and get myself in that. And it was my birthday and in front of my community, I asked everybody to step into less doing, more being. A common statement also echoed amongst entrepreneurs as they’re approaching burnout. And I got gifted for my community, the Super73 electronic bike. A burning man bike.
AB: Okay. Oh, wow.
SN: Yeah. And I take said bike for its first spin on the Venice boardwalk. The sun is setting. I’m like, oh, the money’s going to come in. It always does. Everything’s going to work itself out. And I get in the silliest accident that entirely dislocates my right shoulder, tears my labrum, fractures 30% of my sockets off. I had to rush to the ER for them to dislocate to relocate it. And I wake up the next morning, excruciating pain still, but furious. How can I raise money without a right shoulder? Why did this happen to me? And my head is spinning, right? Because again, I still have this programmed belief that I need to do. I can’t let the hundred and seventy people that I raise money from, I need to have my business. All these things that I thought to get back to your question, I needed to do. And luckily I got on a call with my coach that day and I tell him the story and he breaks out laughing and I go, what the heck is so funny? And he says, let’s break down the body, spiritually. The arms represent the doing. The torso to body represents the being. The shoulder connects the doing to the being.
AB: To the being.
SN: What did you ask for on your birthday? Less doing, more being. What did I get? Exactly what I asked for from the gift.
AB: From the universe.
SN: Everybody that I asked it, how could you not laugh? So that allowed me to reframe, which is one of my pathways, my relationship to the bike accident happening for me instead of to me. And just that reframe alone shifted my HRV from. It was 31 when I woke up that morning. 97 the next day, tripled.
AB: Wow.
SN: Simply from my relationship.
AB: From that reframe in your brain.
SN: I still had the same gift.
AB: What a gift.
SN: Yes.
AB: So that bike accident was your gift?
SN: Biggest gift.
AB: Wow.
SN: Biggest gift.
AB: Amazing.
SN: Then to get to the intentionality part, I decided to let go. I needed to let go of the beverage. I went to Bali to find myself, quote unquote and.
AB: Like Julia Roberts, like you do.
SN: Yes, Yes. I watched that movie right before, Eat, Pray Love, before I went. And every morning I’d ask myself that question and contemplate less doing, more being. And every morning, my beautiful mind would incessantly chatter and say we love doing. We’re so good at doing. What are we going to do if we’re not doing? We need to do, do, do. That program that was running everything in my life just came online until finally one morning I had an epiphany that that statement, less doing, and more being is mind made dualistic in nature. And it implies that doing and being are mutually exclusive when the reality is we’re always being even though we’re unaware of it, 99% of the time. And we’re always doing even if we’re sitting.
AB: Because our body is functioning.
SN: 100%. Yeah. So it’s actually not about doing less and being more. It’s about the intentionality in your doing, the why behind your doing. And it reminded me actually of my favorite quote from the Bhagavad Gita. You have a right to your actions, but never your action’s fruits.
AB: Don’t expect and don’t be attached to inaction.
SN: Exactly. We all came in.
AB: It’s karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana. That’s the quote.
SN: That is so beautiful. I’m gonna have to learn it like that.
AB: It’s beautiful.
SN: That is so beautiful. I’m gonna have to learn like that. And so how this relates to HRV is I’ve come to find that HRV is a direct reflection of how aligned you are with your purpose, with your why, with your intention. And a compass needs three points to triangulate. So how HRV works is point number one, what we’re perceiving? Point number two, how we’re responding to what we’re perceiving. Point number three, something to compare it to, your why. And if you do not take the time to audit.
AB: What we’re perceiving, how we’re responding.
SN: And then something to compare it to.
AB: Compare what to?
SN: What we’re perceiving to how we’re responding, right?
AB: Okay. Okay. Okay.
SN: And if you don’t take the time to audit or reflect your why, then, if you’re anything like I was, you are running on an old program, an old belief I need to do. I can’t let people down. I need to have this successful business to support my family, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then you, your body, if it is ready for the next evolution, will start to have friction. Your HRV won’t go up. But if you audit and be like, you know what? Do I still actually need to support and provide for my role? Am I still this? And actually audit and say, no, I want to do what is most resonant for me now, then you will start to see your HRV increase because it is a reflection of how aligned you are with your purpose, with what your body wants now, and not with what a younger version of you believes it needs.
AB: So tell me what happens when someone’s got stored trauma. Say someone loses a parent, really young, and that trauma is stored in their system and their HRV is not very high. How do you handle it? How does your framework, and we’re going to come to asking you to talk about it, but how do you handle a situation like that?
SN: It’s no coincidence you asked this question because I lost my father when I was 7 and he had cancer and was slowly dying between the ages of 2 and 7.
AB: For me, I lost my father when I was 14. But you were even younger. Yeah.
SN: So those formative years, right? So you, you’re spot-on in terms of the stuck emotions that get trapped, you know, stuck trauma, whatever you want to call them, that get trapped in your body from those formative years. Because your baseline brainwave state is oscillating in theta, which means you’re a sponge in hypnotic to everything around. And you don’t have a frontal cortex developed to discern reality for itself.
AB: Absolutely.
SN: So again, I’ll speak from my experience. The stuck emotions and the trauma that got stored in me was, I’m the oldest sibling in a patriarchal Lebanese male family. So I got named after my grandfather. All the ownership, everything, right, is on me. And so I got put into, not because of my mom, but because of cultural expectations and my own as a little boy, a belief that I had to support, I had to protect, I had to provide for my mom and my younger brother and sister. So these beliefs, this trauma, these emotions were actually such a gift because they gave me the fuel and my desire and passion to go out in the world and to create my beverage and to become an engineer and to do all these things, right? So it’s not that they are bad or wrong.
AB: They gave you the energy, you took the obstacle, put it behind you and helped you push it, helped it push you forward, which is lovely.
SN: But where it becomes dissonant for the body is when you do not sit and pause and allow yourself to feel all those. You continue running on that same desire and fuel and belief of the little boy. And burnout will come, because that is not sustainable for your whole entire life. And as you evolve, your body wants more than what the little boy wanted, right? And so, I have what I call a HRV reset, which is a somatic awareness practice to drop into your body and feel that stuck trauma, that stuck emotion, to allow that emotion to move through you so that you can develop and cultivate a different relationship with it and with how you want to respond in the world.
AB: And tell me, how long did it take you from that, from realising that you need to do something for your HRV to actually increasing your HRV?
SN: So when I first discovered HRV, it was six years ago. And, the first three to six months I tried hacking it, right? I didn’t understand that. But as soon as I started to become aware of that it’s a language and not a biomarker like all others, to treat and not to chase something, but rather just to listen to it. The baseline at the time was 32. And within a year and a half, I got it up to 170, by going through my A.R.T framework and the five pathways that supported my own HRV growth, which, again, isn’t an end all, be all. It’s to be, it’s to be audited and experimented with your own personal beliefs. And why HRV is such a beautiful biomarker is it will tell you if whatever you’re trying is resonant or dissonant. Like the number doesn’t lie around your internal state.
AB: Okay, so before we get on to your five pathways, can you tell me if there’s one thing that our audience could do to improve their HRV? If there’s just one thing, what would you recommend? And is there one thing?
SN: Yeah. Again, you know, where I’m gonna begin to answer this question that is so unique to the person.
AB: Right.
SN: And why I love HRV is it will tell you the one thing. Based on the result, what I have seen the most consistent. I’m going to say two things. One is dropping your body consciously in a parasympathetic state sometime in the middle of the day. Because most of us wake up from our deepest parasympathetic state of delta when we sleep, we look at our phone, we read an email, we get an argument with spouse, we stay in a mind-made perceived beta-state until we go back to sleep. Because our culture is so conditioned to be on, on, on, on.
AB: That’s true.
SN: Right? And if you look in nature and if you’ve ever been on a safari and seen some of the most fierce animals, lions, tigers, everybody, they’re in a parasympathetic state 99% of the time. They only turn on when they’re hunting, fighting or running, right? That’s where.
AB: They are meant to be like that. Yeah, exactly.
SN: They’re meant to be like that.
AB: Yeah, absolutely.
SN: And so if you can, you know that power nap or in biohacking they call it the NSDR non-sleep deep rest, some sort of way. And that could be as simple as two minutes of conscious breathing, right? It doesn’t need to be crazy, but something to just calm your body down in the middle of the day. Equally as important for me and what I immediately implement with clients is a morning practice, some sort of way to just connect when you first wake up with yourself, with your purpose, with your breath, with your body, whatever that is. And it does not actually need to be meditated. It could be dancing or singing or walking or coffee with your partner, but just some sort of routine before going out into the world.
AB: Okay, lovely. Now let’s talk about your framework. Tell us about your framework and if you want us to do a quick meditation, we would love that.
SN: This sort of framework is called the Art of the Heart and it’s a path towards nervous system sovereignty through HRV. And I intentionally use the word sovereignty because as you mentioned, so many people are talking about nervous system regulation, which I love that nervous systems are becoming a popular thing to be aware of. But what I believe and have come to find is that we didn’t come here as humans to be regulated all the time. And in fact if we’re regulated all the time, we won’t have the ability and to build resilience and capacity of our nervous system to handle more stress or to have a bigger impact. So, I believe it’s more important to have agency and sovereignty over our internal state, to consciously choose how we want to respond to the ever changing world, right? So sovereignty is super important. And within the A.R.T of Heart framework, there are five pathways towards HRV growth. Pathway number one is sleep, the foundation. No surprise, we all know about sleep, we don’t need to talk about that. Pathway number two is hormetic stress, the catalyst.
And by hormetic stress, that’s the philosophy of intentionally eliciting a stress on your body, but then consciously dropping into a parasympathetic state. So the best analogy I have for that is like weight training. If you’re lifting weights for your biceps, you’re, you’re lifting more weight than the muscle can handle to tear it. But the next day you don’t go and lift the bicep again, you rest it so that the following day you can go lift more weight, same thing. That’s hormetic stress. So examples of that is contrast therapy, right? Or just anything cold plunges, cold plunges, even getting up, seeing an email, getting triggered and then breathing after. That’s hormetic stress, right? Consciously training. And that’s actually how I was able to go from 32 to 170 because I continued running the beverage company, raising money from 170 people. Go, go, go. But throughout the day, multiple times, I would use technologies, breath work, cold plunges, to drop into a parasympathetic straight.
So it’s literally training to be an emotional athlete at the most extreme conditions, running a beverage company, okay?
AB: Okay.
SN: Okay. Pathway number three, reframing the shift. And I shared that story about the bike accident. Pathway number four, intentionality, the alignment. And I shared HRV is a compass around that and then pathway number five is community, the amplifier. And this has been proven in every blue zone. The longest study in Harvard history of 80-year-study shows the thing that led to the longest, healthiest, happiest lives was relationships. Not quantity, but quality.
AB: Okay, that was wonderful. Now do you think we can do something, a two or three minute, maybe a meditation or a focus or something where we bring in your framework?
SN: Yeah, it’s not going to be the total thing because it takes about 15 minutes. But what we could do is a simple little breath work and then just drop into somatic awareness practice where we just bring awareness to our bodies and sensations.
AB: Wonderful, wonderful.
SN: Okay. So let’s get in a comfortable seat. Let’s close the eyes. Let’s exhale all the air from the lungs. We’re just going to do a minute of box breathing. Following my voice. Inhale for 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Exhale, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Inhale, 2, 3,4. Hold, 2, 3,4. Exhale, 2, 3, 4. hold, 2, 3, 4. Inhale, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Exhale, 2, 3, 4. Hold, 2, 3, 4. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold. And keeping the eyes closed a bit longer, allow your breath to get back to its normal rhythm. Feeling the stillness, feeling the calmness that a couple minutes of box breathing created. And from the stillness, see if you could just scan your internal landscape, scan your body and see if there are any sensations that you are feeling. And, the object will be to just bring awareness and attention to the sensation. Don’t try to change it, don’t try to move it, but see if you can just physically describe the sensations that you are feeling. And by physical, I mean, is there, a pulse, is there a movement, is there an intensity, is there a temperature, is there a color?
A mental description is I feel pain or I feel discomfort, or I feel a knot or I feel a ball. There’s a big difference between a mental label on a sensation in the body versus a physical label on the sensation in the body. And what I have come to find is if you can change that relationship with the sensations from mental to physical, you’re actually bringing awareness to the stuck, frozen emotion and trauma that’s stored in the body, allowing it to melt and move, because that’s all an emotion ever wants, to be felt and not judged. And so the more we can just sit in this beautiful place that you are sitting in now, allowing all sensations in the body to arise and just simply feeling them, the more you will start to clear any stuck emotions that are in the nervous system. So whenever you feel called, you can come back into your body and slowly open your eyes.
AB: That was lovely. Thank you. Yeah, that was very lovely. And it just shows you that no matter how crazy your day is, it takes you 2 minutes, 3 minutes to kind of get back to your baseline.
SN: And I’m telling you truly that’s one of the biggest hacks that supported me to improve it so quickly was if I had two minutes between a call, I would do what we just did. That’s all you need to do, because I could even feel it in your energy now how much different it is versus and me as well, because I came from traffic, like you said in all the things. And that’s all it takes, just a minute or two going inward and feel, feeling.
AB: That was lovely. Now we’re going to end with a fun segment.
SN: Okay.
AB: So I’m going to. It’s like a rapid fire round. I’m going to give you a statement and you tell me what you can do to improve, increase your HRV as quickly as possible. Okay, so you’re lying in bed exhausted, but your body won’t switch off. What do you do?
SN: Bring awareness to your breath and focus more on the exhales. So inhale and then long, slow. Exhales as long as you can. And then inhale and then long, slow. This activates the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic state. And more importantly, gets you out of your mind because your focus now is on the breath.
AB: So inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth is what you’re saying.
SN: Yes.
AB: Okay, so for all those people who are lying in bed unable to sleep, try this. Next, you’ve had too much screen time and you feel wired and restless. What do you do?
SN: Go outside and immerse yourself in nature if you can. The sun, beach, sand, ground grounding is so, so, so important. Nature is one of the best teachers. And if your technology- overwhelmed, go in nature.
AB: Okay, thank you. So midday slump and you’re, you know, you’re reaching for coffee. Even that isn’t helping. What do you do?
SN: So you need energy. Movement, I would say. Movement. Movement is so important for HRV as well. Cardiovascular health. So even if that’s just jumping jacks or jump rope or a walk, but some sort of movement.
AB: Thank you. If you’re feeling irritable for no apparent reason.
SN: My favorite thing when I feel irritable is box breathing. Like we just did.
AB: Okay, like we just did.
SN: Four in hold out or six in hold out, but some sort of box breathing. That for me, irritation, one of the best ways.
AB: Thank you. And you’re about to walk into a stressful conversation or meeting or somewhere stressful.
SN: Best thing you can do before walking in, close your eyes and visualize yourself walking in. And as you do that, go into feeling the physical sensations like we just did. Because the reality is what you’re projecting out as a stressful situation is just a stuck emotion and stuck inside of you. And so if you could train, I say, to be an emotional athlete and feel it before you get there. Then when you walk in, you won’t react how you normally would have for this uncomfortable feeling in your body. So visualise it before you walk in and drop into the physical sensations that we just did.
AB: Thank you. Thank you, Salim. That was such a delightful conversation.
SN: It really was. Thank you so much for the time and for your energy. I really appreciate it.
AB: Thank you. No, I really enjoyed the conversation. Today’s discussion reminds us that stress, fatigue, burnout, they’re not personal failures. Don’t beat yourself up about them. They’re signals from a nervous system that has been working over time. Learning to listen to your body, understanding what HRV is quietly telling us, and recognizing that recovery is a biological process gives us a far more compassionate approach to our health. If something in this episode helped to make sense of your own tiredness, stress or restlessness, share it with someone who may need that clarity. And don’t forget to subscribe. It’s free and it helps us continue to build conversations like this one around well being. I’m Anshu Bahanda. Be kind to your nervous system, be curious about what your body is communicating, and remember that healing often begins the moment we start listening. Thank you.
