Dr. Torkil Færø: Transforming Health With Wearable Technology

Did you know that wearable technology could revolutionise your health?

Join us for an eye-opening conversation with Dr. Torkil Færø, a Norwegian GP whose personal experience has led him into an explorationof preventative medicine. Inspired by the premature death of his father, Dr. Færø shares the inspiring story of overcoming his health struggles and explains how his bestselling book, "The Pulse Cure," is empowering countless individuals to take control of their wellbeing through cutting-edge wearable devices.

Torkil makes it easy to understand the hidden impact of stress on modern diseases and teaches us how chronic stress can lead to serious illnesses like cancer, heart disease, and autoimmune disorders.
Dr. Færø illuminates how wearables can help manage everyday stressors such as poor sleep and alcohol consumption. Through personal stories, you'll hear how lifestyle choices directly affect heart rate variability (HRV) and overall health. We also explore how managing stress can boost productivity, performance, and longevity, making this episode a must-listen for anyone looking to optimise their health.

We also hear about the intricate relationship between late-night eating, recovery processes, and HRV, and why our bodies are conditioned to fast overnight.

Dr. Færø reviews the best wearable health devices like the Garmin watch and Oura Ring, and discusses the significance of age and gender on HRV.
He also addresses the benefits of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and its often misunderstood role in health. Finally, we take a step back to understand our bodies and the universe, emphasising a personalised approach to wellness.

This episode is packed with valuable insights that will leave you motivated to make meaningful lifestyle changes with the support of his simple-to-follow and easy-to-read book!

You can check out The Pulse Cure website. 

Purchase The Pulse Cure book on Amazon

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello, it's Nadine here and I'm here with this week's episode of Life, health and the Universe, and this morning for me and late night for you, my guest. We're joined and I forgot to ask how to pronounce your name, but I'm going to go with Dr Torquil Farrow. I've got a really bad habit of forgetting to ask people how to pronounce their names. You're dialing in from Oslo, norway, so I'm going to do a quick intro and I do need to read my notes because we've got. There's a whole bunch of things that we could talk about based on your biography, so let's, let me just go over that and then we'll get stuck into our conversation.

Speaker 1: 0:49

So, as well as being a GP, you've worked, or do work, as an emergency practitioner, and you have worked as well as a medic with Doctors Without Borders. You're a father of two, which is an important part of your biography. You're an award-winning photographer. You've traveled by bicycle, motorbike, kayak, boat and car through over 80 countries. You speak eight languages and, as if that wasn't all enough, you're also an author, and not just of one book, but two. But we're here to talk about one specific book today. It's a book called the Pulse Cure, which has been a Norwegian bestseller for over 65 weeks. I got that information a few weeks ago, so I'm assuming it's still going strong there and you're bringing it to the rest of the world. So thank you for joining us. This is going to be a great conversation. I'm really grateful for you being here with us today.

Speaker 2: 1:53

Thank you, nadine, so nice to be talking to Australia.

Speaker 1: 1:56

Yeah, it's great. Would you like to share anything else with us, or should we just get stuck straight in?

Speaker 2: 2:07

Yeah, let's just get started. Yeah, yeah, okay cool.

Speaker 1: 2:09

So the pulse cure is about, um, our health.

Speaker 1: 2:13

You're a gp and you've had um a lot of experience with thousands of patients coming in, especially with lifestyle related diseases, and in your book you actually even talk to us about your own experience, about your own health journey and some of the things that you've kind of discovered over the last few years that have really changed your health.

Speaker 1: 2:37

And one of the one of the things and the thing that the book about is using a wearable device to help track what's going on in your body internally that we might not necessarily see when we're, you know, just getting about our daily lives and the impact that certain lifestyle practices or behaviors can have on our internal health. So that's what we're here to talk about today. I've got a couple of like big overarching things that I would love to ask you about first, and then we'll get into some more detail. But let's talk. I just want to talk about preventative and personal medicine, because that's one of the things that you are passionate about and the reason that you've written this book. So can you give us a little bit of insight into, as a general practitioner, as a doctor, what has changed for you in your career that's made you want to look more at preventative health and not sort of, like you know, treating illness.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Yeah, because, as a doctor, you know, we are trained in medical school to treat illness, to identify and diagnose and treat illness with pills or procedures. The strategy is waiting until you get sick and then treating you. You know, and that was basically all I knew, and until 10, 12 years ago my father died. He was 73, so a little bit earlier and such early that I thought I don't want to die at 73. You know, I want to live a long life, I want to have lots of experiences, I want to go back to Australia one more time and many other things. And then I started checking out what can I do to live longer and healthier? What can I do to live longer and healthier? And then I saw that there was so much information now that we did not get, as medical students and doctors, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So then I started caring about preventative healthcare, mostly for my own sake, you know, just because I wanted to live longer and stay healthy. And then I also started to write books.

Speaker 2: 5:06

Uh, I was not a writer, I hadn't written anything. Uh, so, um, it has been an interesting journey in that aspect as well. Um, yeah, and I I did all the mistakes in my book. You know, I weighed uh, 40, 20 kilos overweight. I didn't train, I didn't care so much about nutrition or sleep, or I used to drink a couple of glasses of wine every day. So I did all the mistakes. So if I had continued on that journey, I would have ended up like the patients that gives me my livelihood. So I changed my lifestyle around more or less totally, and that is also part of what I'm writing about in the book. And so now, of course, you know now all you hear on health podcasts and all the books, everything that is written now in popular science is just about what I'm talking about in the book. You know how to eat right, how to exercise right, you know. And microbiome, epigenetics, all that you also know everything about. So, um, so the health field is turned around completely.

Speaker 2: 6:25

Uh, that giving and wearables is a way to give the power, to take the power away from the doctors and the healthcare system and put it into your own hands. Uh, to avoid becoming a patient you know to, to stay healthy, because the pulse, the heart rate, can tell us so much about our inner state, much more than we could even hope for as doctors and people, and that it's available, you know, with the wearables, with the garmin watches or aura rings or samsung watches and every everything now on the market, available, you know, at a reasonable price, um, easy to understand for everyone. So I kind of made it in the book, the Postcard. I kind of made the combination between what is the smartest strategies, lifestyle strategies, and how can you use the wearables to track them, because the good thing is that the smart things to do will show in the heart rate. And still, this is the only book in the world really, to my knowledge and to my publisher's knowledge, about this combination.

Speaker 1: 7:32

Great, Amazing. It's really refreshing when I was reading up on it in your book and your biography. Just yeah, it's really refreshing to have someone as a general practitioner who is actually advocating for this sort of stuff. And before we get stuck into more of the detail on how this all works, what, how? Is it something that a lot of GPs, a lot of doctors, are starting to take into consideration in their practices? Or do you think this is a real slow burn kind of thing? Like, are you hoping to have an influence over? Yeah, at least in Norway it has.

Speaker 2: 8:15

Yeah, at least in Norway it has had a big influence.

Speaker 2: 8:18

It has been a bestseller for 70 weeks and it's changed the way a lot of doctors, a lot of nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists look at the preventative health care. So it has really and it's become kind of a household concept in Norway, you know, because of the success of the book. You know it was completely unknown Earlier, it was used more or less only for people exercising. You know it was completely unknown it earlier. It was used more or less, uh, only for people exercising. You know, people running marathons or or. But now I think you would I don't know where you would have lived. You know, if you hadn't understood the last year that it's possible to use these smart watches to keep you healthy, you know, then you would be paying very little attention to what has happened. Last year I've been all over media and it's been translated into English, you know, and also seven other languages. So in Denmark, sweden, italy, holland, estonia, for some reason, and new countries keep coming on.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Yeah great.

Speaker 2: 9:33

So I hope to change that. As I said, I hope to change the health care into people taking charge of their own health, you know, and not just this stupid way of medicine that is waiting until you get really sick and then treating you with medicine that is not really curing you, it's just keeping you the symptoms a bit, you know, away.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Yeah, wow. Did you ever expect this when you wrote the book, or was this the the goal like to?

Speaker 2: 10:05

um, I knew that, I knew that the content, information could have this impact. Uh, of course, there's a lot of things that have to be at the right time at the right place for it to happen, um, especially for, like, an unknown concept like this. Um, so, but it has been massive. You know the last year, so it's been like being in a tornado.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Because I'm not used to it.

Speaker 2: 10:32

I mean, I'm just a normal doctor, you know, I'm used to talk to one patient at a time, you know, not to be on direct TV and radio, and I've probably been on more than 100 podcasts, you know, in the last year and a half. So, of course, now I'm used to it. Now it's like, yeah, what I do every day, yeah, it's brilliant, it's really good, great.

Speaker 1: 10:53

It's interesting that you had to go through your own health journey to like, even though you're working in the field of medicine, that you had to go through your health journey to kind of come to this place, and I have a background as a personal trainer and I'm the same as well. Actually, um, you know, there were some lifestyle things going on there, especially the alcohol. For me that you know I was doing all of the right things, ticking many of the boxes, but not the alcohol box, and having a wearable has definitely, well definitely, showed up some of the negative impacts that alcohol can have, especially on sleep. I haven't had a drink for two and a half years now. Yeah, and you can definitely tell the difference.

Speaker 1: 11:50

Um, yeah, uh, okay so let's just talk about, let's just talk about hrv, because this is actually one thing and I I have an aura ring. So you talk about four different devices in your book and I think you've tried them all and you might try them. Are you using them all all the time?

Speaker 2: 12:11

yeah, right now I have the aura ring and the garment wash and the whoop band and, uh, I even have a cgm. Oh cool, I don't. I don't wear it all the time, but I wear it, uh, at times, just to to remind myself of what, what happens. You know if you need this or that, and so I use it, maybe two months a year or something like that yeah, it's also very, very useful, yeah yes, definitely.

Speaker 1: 12:36

It's one of those things I haven't done yet, but I'm definitely keen to do that. So you've used these four different devices and, as I said, I have an Oura Ring, which is a wearable device that checks your energy levels and sleep. I use it mostly for sleep now, but it has a reading for readiness. So you wake up in the morning and you have a reading for readiness and it's based on your hrv and I know that stands for heart rate variability. But I haven't and this is kind of what your book is all about right and understanding heart rate variability. But although my phone kind of shows me the reading, I still don't quite grasp what hrV is and what it means. So could you talk us through that?

Speaker 2: 13:28

Yeah, the heart rate variability is a measure of the state in your autonomic nervous system. It's also the metric on the state of your immune system and of your overall physiology, really, but mainly it's a number for your autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic, restful state and the stressful sympathetic state. You know, and we are built as humans, like all other animals, to exist, you know, with the possibility to use our forces in the sympathetic state, you know, to fight and flee and to freeze, you know, and also to hunt and, you know, have fun, um so uh, and to stress. And then we are also supposed to relax and recover from the stress. And the way that the heart rate variability can show this is that when we are in the relaxed state and we breathe in, the heart rate will go up a little bit, and then when we breathe out and there's less oxygen in the lungs, the heart rate will go down a little bit and and these devices can detect this difference and if we are in the stress state, then the heart rate will will beat very steadily, like a clock, you know, very steadily. And in this way the devices can keep track of our heart rate day and night and to give us an answer of what kind of stress balance do we have, you know, are we too much in the sympathetic stress mode and enough time in the parasympathetic, restful mode to keep a sustainable balance over time? Of course, we can tax ourselves quite hard for a week or two, or three or four maybe.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Once it gets more than two months, three months, you become in the risk of contracting autoimmune diseases, diseases of low-grade, chronic inflammation that are probably 80% of the diseases that we treat. That's including cancer, heart disease, stroke, metabolic syndrome, all of the things that we see daily as doctors, and also fatigue situations, burnout, migraines, brain fog, all all these diseases, the modern day diseases. So it's a really, really useful tool. I would say. I may be biased, of course, but you know, like antibiotics and vaccines are good for infectious diseases you know diseases of the old times then this is a way, one of the solutions, to keep the new diseases away, to keep track of our stress balance, so that we can help our body and immune system to recover and work optimally right.

Speaker 1: 16:17

so, basically, um, we you're saying that stress is the cause of all diseases. So stress, negative stress on our bodies, when we don't have time to recover, challenges our immune system, and then our immune system when that's low, when that's um, not working at its optimum, can cause all types of lifestyle related disease.

Speaker 2: 16:53

Yeah, so its immune system is compromised. It is kind of the effect that it will not do its job, you know, against cancer, against everything else, and it can also turn against you and to, to cause the autoimmune diseases. Okay, um, and when I talk about stress is stress in a broad sense. So it can be both mental stress, you know, like everybody's used to think about stress, but it can also be like alcohol. It can be the altitude, it can be the PMS, the period, it can be ultra-processed food, sleep it can be poor sleep, so many things. It can be that you're eating from the breakfast until late at night. Yeah, so there's so many hidden sources of stress.

Speaker 2: 17:43

That becomes visible with the wearables Then you see that wow, if you're eating late at night some crisps or chips or candy, suddenly you see that there's a price to pay for it. You know, physiologically also. So then you get to keep track of the stressors and then you can mitigate the stress and then avoid getting into these. Because the good thing is it's not only for health and longevity that this is good. It's also good for productivity, performance and well-being. You know. So the the smart things to do will give you all those four things better productivity, better well-being, better health and and a bigger chance of living longer. And it's the same strategies for everything of this yeah, so, um, okay, I'm just clarifying now.

Speaker 1: 18:43

So if we're stressed, we'll see a regular heartbeat. However, whatever beats per minute it is, it's, it's just like a consistent, but with the heart rate variability. When we're in that parasympathetic nervous system, our rest, rest and digest, digest, um, we'll see fluctuations in the time. Before and after the, the heartbeat like a larger variation between heartbeats.

Speaker 2: 19:14

So so, if you, you know, would have measured. Uh, you know, now it's two and a half years ago since you drank alcohol, um, and that is the biggest stressor according to that that keeps track of what their users do. Alcohol is the biggest stressor according to whoop that that keeps track of what their users do. Alcohol is the biggest stressor of all.

Speaker 2: 19:30

So then, if you had measured it, you know, with your ring, you know, four years ago, you would have seen that your hrv would be low as a measure that you are stressed. Your body is using too much forces on dealing with alcohol, or really acetaldehyde, which is what alcohol is converted to in the body. That is very toxic and the liver has to work hard to detoxify this. And now that you don't drink alcohol, you will see that your heart rate variability is better, so that your body is more able to cope with disease and your immune system is working more smoothly. So that is one way that you can see that your body and physiology is working better.

Speaker 1: 20:23

In your own personal experience. How long have you been wearing all of your things Experimenting? Probably five years, Five years.

Speaker 2: 20:32

I would say five years yeah, from 2019.

Speaker 1: 20:37

So you've talked about how different things can affect our HRV, our heart rate variability, hrv, heart rate variability, their sleep, stress, movement and exercise. Active rest, have food and having a big eating window can affect it Alcohol, nicotine. You also mentioned in the book illness and disease and weight control. In own personal, personal experience, what um like? Where did you start out? I know in your, your book you mentioned some of these things about what some of your behaviors were without, and you've mentioned that you were having a couple of glass of wine did.

Speaker 1: 21:17

You was there some way you started and and that you kind of went oh, that was a big shift, I didn't realize.

Speaker 2: 21:24

Yeah, that was alcohol.

Speaker 1: 21:29

And I quit that. Before I started using the wearables, I was working.

Speaker 2: 21:31

At the time I was working 24-7 in a quite intense work. So after seven days working, you know day and night, you know sleeping a lot at night but often getting woken up and having to work at night also and then when I had a day off, I used to take a bottle of wine, relax, maybe, go for a walk, have a bottle of wine, and then I would have one more week of working that and then I would have one more week of working. Uh, and then I saw that I was much more tired after a day off with a bottle of wine than seven days and nights working. And then I understood that this, this is not right. You know, this is I can't continue like this. And that was probably the first time that I had been seven days without alcohol, because I used to used to think it was even recommended you know it was like doctor's orders that two glasses of wine every day was good for you. You know, I mean, it was a widespread notion and I was. I was, of course, happy with that and then I quit alcohol, lost weight just because of that and had more energy and so on. And then I started educating myself then on the different strategies. So I'm finding out about sleep, about nutrition. So it's been a gradual journey that has taken me, yeah, almost 10 years. I still discover things. You very, very often new things and exercising more. So it's been a um, yeah on many different um strategies. Uh, done a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and then improving my state, I think, getting in a better shape. And then improving my state, I think, getting in a better shape.

Speaker 2: 23:26

One of the things we didn't mention is also that it's a big stressor is just being in a poor fitness level. If your VO2 max is poor, you know you're just walking here and there and going from couch to sofa to car seat, you know, and then not really moving. And if you have a VO2 max, you know, maybe, know, maybe, yeah, below 30, then everything will be stressful. Your body has to work at the you know, at the very hard for everyday things. So once you get to, you know, start running or doing anything of activity and then it will be less stress on your body because you have more power. So so many people and I see that as a doctor, many people are in the same at the same time under-dimensioned, I would say and? And overstressed, you know, overloaded. So so you can. You can balance your stress either by becoming stronger, more fit you, you know and reducing the stressors, you know. So there's two ways to get the balance. It's not only reducing the stressors, but also making yourself stronger and more fit.

Speaker 1: 24:36

Yeah, more resilient, I guess, yeah, yeah, what, uh, oh, what would you say? Some of the so there's so, like when we're actually exercising, that's a stressor, right. And there are some other things that you do, um, like, you talk about intermittent fasting or closing your eating window, time restricted eating and also cold showers, um, so, a bit of cold therapy.

Speaker 2: 25:04

So they're all stressors, but there's um, it's hormetic stress, right, it's a different type of stress so could you talk us through how that differs, like what happens to our hrv during those activities and what happens like those activities and what happens, like as a result of practicing those things, yeah, so, like for exercise, um, then, as you're exercising, of course, then you're putting a load on your system, but it's also a signal to your cells that works the way that, okay, this organism obviously needs more power. Uh, you know, it is using its muscles, it is running, um, and then you kind of break yourselves down a bit and then it builds itself stronger. If you exercise too much, of course, that is also possible to exercise too much and just break down your body and before you have recuperated, you break it even further down. So that is not good either. A lot of people do that.

Speaker 2: 26:24

Um, and also with the other kind of stressors, if you go into the sauna or into the cold water. It's a temporary stressor of the body, but it builds the physiology stronger, more so into temperature changes. We are, of course, created to be creatures being outside, you know, with the heat and the cold at night throughout the year. So we are built to have a flexibility in our activities, and one of the problems now in our modern lifestyle is that we're not flexible. We're living at room temperature, you know, all the time time. We are not moving enough. We, we are living in many ways almost opposite from what we are constructed to live, you know, and and that will have a price. When we don't challenge our bodies, we kind of lose the flexibility in our physiology and we get sicker for it.

Speaker 1: 27:24

Yeah, and the same would go for intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating.

Speaker 2: 27:29

Just closing the window yeah, we are not made to eat. You know, from from when we get up until we go to bed, like many of us used to to be taught. You know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You know, of course, it's Kellogg's. You know slogan. You know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You know, of course, it's kellogg's. You know slogan. You know they wanted to sell cereals. Um, so a lot of people think that we should eat. You know, throughout the day. You know they have like five meals and so on. So, um, and what it becomes visible on the watches, you know, particularly the garmin watches.

Speaker 2: 28:03

I must say that to, to pinpoint your, to your stress levels throughout the day and night, then you need a Garmin watch, um, more than an aura ring and so on um, and then you can see that um, when you are fasting, for example in the morning and you don't see, you skip breakfast and you start eating to lunch, you will see that your nervous system is is calm until you start eating again.

Speaker 2: 28:26

So one of the big surprises for so many people is the amount of stress food can put on your system, particularly ultra processed food or some parts of it not all of it, but some parts of ultra processed food will give you a lot of stress. If you have a food intolerance, like for gluten or lactose and such things or many other things, then it will also stress your, your body and and you will see it in the heart rate. So many people have actually found out through the heart rates that they have some food intolerance and then they have taken blood tests and seen that, okay, there was several things that they could not tolerate. And then they, you know, take it out to their meals and then they feel better, you know, than they have done for like 20 years or so.

Speaker 1: 29:20

So the heart can tell us so much. Yeah, let's next talk about the different devices and the ones that you recommend. So, um, I wear an aura ring and I find that um, like it tells you your readiness and it tells you your sleep score, so that kind of gives you a good indicator of what your HRV is and that sort of thing. But definitely if I eat too close to bedtime, which can sometimes be difficult because we go to bed quite early. So you know, my ideal would be to probably finish eating at least three hours before sleeping, and I can definitely see a difference in my reading. If I eat closer to bed, my heart rate will take longer to drop, and so I guess how that converts in terms of it. It's basically your body doesn't have as much time to recover um, and that in its, in turn, can can affect heart rate variability, um and the amount of um yeah, and, and our digestive system is not made for for, uh, eating late at night.

Speaker 2: 30:25

You know that's a time through the millions of years that is just doing the repair work, yes, and not having to do any more digestion. You know it was darkness. You know we probably stopped eating around that time. You know six, seven, and not eating maybe until 12 o'clock the next day because we didn't have any fridges or ways to store food. You know you have to get the food before you ate it.

Speaker 2: 30:55

Through the millions of years eating at the time that our, our whole system does not really want to do that, to to digest food. You know from from all. You know the pancreas, from the, the gallbladder, from from all the, all, the, the whole system really. So, um, the body, you know like, yeah, like the cells, our intestines, is a very vulnerable system. It's only one cell from the contents of your intestines until the bloodstream. So it's uh, and you have, between all the cells, you have these tight junctions and if they are not working properly, you get leaky gut and parts of your, your intestinal. You know toxins and so bacterias get into the blood and resulting in inflammation in your system. So one of the best ways to ensure that you don't get this problem is to have long enough time in the night fast, so that your body can heal itself for a longer time there.

Speaker 1: 32:07

Yeah, okay, so the devices let's get a review, because you've got four different devices that you recommend or that you've tried out and that you've yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:23

In the book. Of course there are. There are many, there's lots. Yeah, there are lots of different devices and, I think, the accuracy of some yeah, it can probably be a bit different the accuracy, but it's.

Speaker 2: 32:36

It's at least a lot better. You know, probably even the worst one is so much better than our own guesswork. Yes, because we're not really. We don't really have a sense for our inner state. Throughout history, you know, in the millions of years, all the threats came from the outside, from animals, from enemies, from food that was contaminated and so on. So you have very good eyesight and hearing and taste and smell and touch and all this. But our sense of our inner state was in the, in the lifestyle. It wasn't something you had to really have, a develop a sense to, to feel if you were not hunting or gathering or fighting, you were relaxing. So no social media or stress Sounds quite nice, doesn't?

Speaker 2: 33:25

it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we don't have this sense. So even the worst wearable is so much better than nothing, but the best ones at this point by far is the Garmin watches. Yeah, and that is because they show the values throughout the day. You know, yes, like when you have the Oura Ring, you get the readiness and the sleep score in the morning, but it's a bit like you have been to the store, you know, been doing a large shopping, and you only get the total.

Speaker 1: 33:58

Yes, you don't know what each item costs.

Speaker 2: 34:00

You know. You don't know why is it. Why do I get this number? You know, and then you have no clue. Um, so you have the clue of eating late in the evening, because you can see that, but you will not be able to see. Maybe if there was a big stressor at 11 o'clock in the, in the in the morning, you know, or yeah, and that the garmin watch would be able to tell you. Uh, if you have an apple watch, many people do have that then there's an app called athletic, and that is quite good, um, and now samsung is coming with their galaxy ring and their new watches and so on.

Speaker 2: 34:37

So in this field, everything gets turned around every three months or so. So there's so much competition, and that is very good because, um, we are used to that. All the big money is in big pharma after you get sick, and now there's a lot of money in big tech. You know the before, and so to avoid you getting sick, so that you know, you have to follow the money, and I'm very happy about that now there's so much money in keeping you healthy and providing with these devices. Of course, they want to make money, but they make money on a device that can keep you healthy. So so that's good.

Speaker 1: 35:16

So there's so much happening in this field yeah, um, and do you find that people get stressed just wearing the devices? Are some people kind of like obsessed with it and it creates?

Speaker 2: 35:32

It doesn't seem to be that much of a problem, because usually when I hear this idea, that is people who are not trying to use them. I would guess that you are not stressed by using your aura, are you?

Speaker 1: 35:46

No.

Speaker 2: 35:47

No, and usually because there's always. If I have a lecture of 200 people, there's always somebody asking that question and then I usually turn it back to the audience because probably 80% in the audience you said are you stressed? No, no, they're not. So I'm not sure why people think that if you have a watch measuring your pulse, you you go check it.

Speaker 1: 36:09

you know every other second you know you don't do that, yeah I think a lot of them, like they track your steps, like I've heard of people saying that when they've been trying to like reach their 10 000 steps a day, um, they get, they can get a little obsessed and that it can feel like a bit a negative. Um, you know obsession, but yeah, I don't not really that bad, is it? You don't?

Speaker 2: 36:34

really need to have 10 000 steps every day. You need to have some flexibility in it. So if you have 5 000 one day and 10 000 other day and 15 000 the third day, you know you have 5,000 one day and 10,000 the other day and 15,000 the third day. You have to have some flexibility, but you have to at least move more than probably 70% do that move too little, too sedentary. So it's a good thing, but I think that most people use their watches just like you do with the speedometer in your car, that you check it once in a while just to check that you are, more or less, you know, within the speed limits or where you want to be, so you don't stare at it all the time yeah so and once you've got some metrics you can kind of get a bit of an idea, a bit like with your glucose monitor, you, it's like you do it.

Speaker 1: 37:24

You can kind of just start doing it. Every so often I don't wear my aura ring during the day as much anymore. I I generally wear it for night time. Um, because I have an idea of like what you know, what my daily activity is and and the practices that I need to do to to you know good readings with my sleep, when you what are some of the things. So you had a study group, didn't you?

Speaker 2: 37:55

A couple hundred people, yeah yeah, I've got a couple hundred people reading my script. You know, as we developed it and used the Garmin watches and, you know, found out about their systems. Because what is very clearly when you start using these wearables is that we're all individuals. We all react to many of the same things, of course, but in varying degrees. So this is a way to personalize your lifestyle. So one person can tolerate alcohol better than another, for example, and one has a better fitness level and can tolerate stress better. So this is a way to show how you respond to a certain stressor, and that is very, very valuable.

Speaker 2: 38:45

So, but because what we're used to as doctors is to get an average of what, uh, you know in the research, you know they ask you know, for example, 1 000 people, how do you respond to this in this medicine, or this, uh, this and this diet? You know, and you get an average. And then we, as doctors, use this average, uh, when we discuss things, um and and make plans for treatment. But, but what becomes obvious is that we're also different, um, that this average means really nothing, uh, in many cases, because you may not respond that like that at all. So, for example, if you take antidepressants, then probably the average will be a bit better, but some will be worse and some will be a lot better, and the most important thing is how you respond to it.

Speaker 1: 39:36

And did everyone in the study have some aha moments, some surprises about their?

Speaker 2: 39:44

lifestyle and make changes. Did you find a?

Speaker 1: 39:47

positive like response in terms of people maintaining change.

Speaker 2: 39:53

Absolutely absolutely. And some people, you know, take it off like you do at some points and then they take it back up back again, you know so they use it like that. But a lot of people find out that it's much easier to have it all the time. Yeah, also because it's fun. You know it's a gamification, you know you get the sleep score, you get to learn about yourself, you know so it's a fun way to get healthier, definitely so. Most people and I haven't heard of anyone yet that has not been surprised, you know, and there has been so many people, you know, thinking that, oh, I can feel, I can feel it myself, you know, I, I know how it is, and they do yoga, breathing exercises, and I think I get surprised too. You know so there's so many things that you wouldn't exercises, and I get surprised too, you know so there's so many things that you wouldn't know, that you find out, yeah, and I like it's.

Speaker 1: 40:53

It's quite cool really, isn't it? Like how quickly our bodies can respond, like even if someone doesn't make changes through all of the categories at once, like all of the categories that you follow in the book at once, but they might just fix their sleep or change their food slightly, like their meal timings, and they'll feel it and they'll get that feedback as well from the device, that positive reinforcement that what they're doing is actually working. But it's quite quick.

Speaker 2: 41:23

Yeah, like it's almost like overnight sometimes right yeah, yeah, and this has been a real part of the book's success that people feel it so fast, um, you know, one or two weeks tracking and you immediately see that, okay, this is working. You know, and, uh, and it's a lot more easier than probably maybe they would have thought. So that has been, I think, a huge part of the success of the book. It's not the book itself, but the devices. You know that they are so powerful, yeah, and combined with the book, that people immediately realize that this is very valuable and it's something completely new. Yeah, I want to talk to you. It's very interesting that this is very valuable and it's something completely new.

Speaker 2: 42:07

So, yeah, I want to talk to you.

Speaker 1: 42:09

It's very interesting yeah sorry, I'd like to talk to you a bit about, like just the structure of the book, just to get the listeners to sort of understand you know whether it's, you know why they would find it um beneficial. But before we do, I'm just curious about the, the difference between um men and women's hrv, and also about aging. So I'm at the, I'm at that golden age, 50s, so you know perimenopause, and I've definitely know my HRV and I know you said it's in, it is individual. My HRV balance isn't the same as my husband's he's a couple years younger but also, you know, hormonally different um. So how do those, how do the differences in male, female and like age, how do they affect the HRV?

Speaker 2: 43:11

Yeah, the heart rate variability will drop quite fast from the years you are 20 until you are 40. Okay, and then after that it will be quite flat. There's not so much of a difference between men and women. Okay, so it's almost negligible, I would say. So it's not so much anyway. So it's more with age. But it can be.

Speaker 2: 43:39

The perimenopause and menopause can be a big difference. And once you get then the HRT, the hormone replacement therapy, and you get, particularly you get, the bioidentical hormones, that seems to be a lot better. That will show in the HRV. So many people, many women, then tell me that when they change, you know, from synthetic to bioidentical hormones hormones their hrv improves a lot and, um, we have a social website called the pulsegearcom and they're by far the most most eager group of people that's women, you know in the menopause and perimenopause. Um, so, uh, so there's a huge, you know it wasn't talked so much about maybe 5-10 years ago and hormone replacement therapy had this bad rap because of this hopeless study, you know, 15 years ago that people thought it would induce cancer and it's just not true. So there's too few women using HRT. I think in the UK it's only 15% of women use it and really I think all should use it.

Speaker 2: 45:01

Well, without going off track too much.

Speaker 1: 45:04

I think that probably for a lot of of women, unless they have, uh, you know, classic symptoms of perimenopause or menopause, they probably, it probably isn't even recommended to them as a as a but they.

Speaker 2: 45:21

But they see now that there's so many symptoms that like the classic symptoms, you know, with the hot flushes, and so that is just a small part of it and what they recommend now. And I've just been on a big conference in London, just last week I had to speak about the pulse cure, but there were so many of the speakers, the international experts on the hormones, that said you should find out, you should just try it. You know that there's no, no need to not try it, you know, for some time, and then then you will see what symptoms disappear, and that may be symptoms that you wouldn't necessarily have connected it. You know, a lot of people think they're depressed, you know they. They start antidepressants, antidepressants and many other medications and well, the problem really was the menopause or perimenopause.

Speaker 2: 46:14

Yeah, so, um, so I think it's, uh, that might be a better way to look at it, that you should try the replacement and then see what happens, unless, of course, you're totally perfect, you know. And then, fine, you know there's no, it would be no use to to try, of course, but that the threshold for for for testing it out should be way lower yeah, right than it is now yeah, yeah, that's a whole nother conversation I have to get you back on can you write a book about that?

Speaker 2: 46:51

please. Yeah, there's so many books about it, you know now so so you know mindy pelts mindy pelts.

Speaker 1: 46:58

Oh yes, yes, she's great.

Speaker 2: 46:59

I don't know that she talks about the bioidentical hormones, though I'm not sure if she talked about it um so, but at least, uh, it's one more than a year since I met her, so yeah, she wasn't at this conference. So yeah, yeah and also I must also say women, what they see that the week the, the pms, women with pms or pmdd, uh, they see clearly on the hrv that the week before menstruation is as tough as having COVID.

Speaker 1: 47:33

Yes, yep. Hrv drops heart rate increases, body temperature goes up.

Speaker 2: 47:38

Absolutely, stress levels go up. And when they start taking that into consideration and reduce their stress levels for that week yeah, they can they can flatten this curve out. Yeah, yeah, so, so a lot of the problem is that if you are too stressed, there will be too little progesterone made and that is what causes the PFS symptoms. So once you manage to lower your stress for that week, then it will be so much easier so that I've seen so many people uh, responding to me with this, with this finding yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah, that's um one of the main reasons that I um use the aura ring now.

Speaker 1: 48:24

Actually, um, all right, let's, we've, we've, we're doing. Well, I've got, I've already. I'd love to talk about the um, the, the, the out, the, the way that you've laid the book out for for the listeners, so that if they, if they're interested in you know getting hold of it and and having a read. Let's talk just a little bit about how you've structured it. Um, I really like it. It's super simple and like really friendly and kind of like, you know, a bit fun as well. Is that how it's supposed to be? Yeah, that's how I read it.

Speaker 2: 49:01

Anyway, I think so yeah, so you know, I'm not, I'm professional author, you know. So I kind of write oh, I loved it. I think it was really nice.

Speaker 1: 49:12

Because I think that what your my experience of reading the book was it feels like you talk about joining the expedition, so it's like a personal exploration. It's like an exciting. It's kind of like an exciting journey where you could uncover secrets, right, and the reward is that you're taking control and you're being, you're empowering yourself to understand how your body's working and, like, yeah, making adjustments to make it work better. It's great, I love it. So it's got a really nice introduction um, yeah, join, joining the expedition. And then you, um take us through some theory about why these things are important, which is a lot of what we've spoken about today, and then, um, we go through some practices, um, based on the different stages. You the stages that you've got, which I went through before they do. They start in order of importance. So the sleep the stress.

Speaker 2: 50:23

Start, yeah, and ease you know, so that you know to do I lost you for a minute there, so yeah, I lost you a little bit there okay, so the sleep first, because, as you just make it possible to sleep better, your body does that automatically.

Speaker 2: 50:44

So all you have to do is the the tricks you know to calm down one or two hours before you go to bed. Make sure that you sleep for seven to eight hours and that is restful sleep, and once you do that, you get more feeling, more refreshed, you get more energy to do the other things that can be harder.

Speaker 2: 51:05

so it kind of starts easy and gets a little bit harder, and also try to make a little bit of variation so that stress is the next chapter and then exercise and then rest, and then yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:22

Food and so on.

Speaker 2: 51:23

Nutrition and yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:25

Yeah, cool. And so when someone's going through the book, would you recommend that they take a period of time, like, would they go three months um, two weeks, um to, to kind of go through these different stages, or is it like a personal?

Speaker 2: 51:46

I would say that would be flexible, yeah yeah, try to find out what, what would be most relevant to you. Yeah, uh, which of these ones you know, some would have a good good, uh, nutrition and some would have been a poor fitness, you know, and I would say, um, the best probably is probably to make it very individual. Um, so the whatever would be your problem, you know. And then a lot of people read the books one, two, three times, you know, and and go back because I think it's a quite easy read.

Speaker 2: 52:19

People say, tell me it's the fastest book they've read, you know yeah so it seems to be easy just to to go back and maybe read. You know, if the problem is sleep, then you go back to that part again, and so on yeah so, um, so, um, yeah, so, and, and maybe, when you start using your variables, maybe the best thing is to do nothing different for the first month or so, or even more, just to see. So you get your baseline, so that you know what you're changing from.

Speaker 1: 52:53

Yes.

Speaker 2: 52:54

That could be a good idea to do nothing in the beginning.

Speaker 1: 52:59

Yeah, to just sort of keep a bit of a record. Well, I guess the beauty of these things, as well as the app keeps a record right.

Speaker 2: 53:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:07

So you, if, if you're into writing things down, then I think it's probably a good idea to write some of the things down. But, yeah, you can sort of go back and refer, yeah, get a bit of a baseline of all of those different things and then make those changes and, as you said, like people see changes quickly, like within a couple of weeks. So, yeah, that's kind of encouraging, isn't it? What I also really love about the book is that you stay on topic. You take us through some of the theory of the HRV, but you refer to other podcasts, other books when it comes to getting specific about whether it's intermittent, fasting, whether it's types of exercise, all different things, I think, which is great, because then if someone does want to know more theory, they can access that.

Speaker 1: 54:16

But it's like you're staying on topic with what your book is about and it means that it is super simple.

Speaker 1: 54:23

It's straightforward, step by step, which is really good, and it's also interspersed with quotes from people who have actually followed, who did the study with you and have followed those protocols and got some really great results. So, yes, it's a great book, highly recommend to anyone and, like as you say it's, it's like a simple, accessible thing that we can all get our hands on, um to have um a really a really good outcome when it comes to our life, changing our lifestyle, um and what we need to do to to adjust to our own personal bodies. Before we close, because we are coming towards the end of our hour, there's something in your book and I thought I wanted to talk about this, and I don't know if many other interviews would have even mentioned this, but we're called this Podcast. Is is Life, Health and the Universe, and I feel like there are some inklings where you reference the universe, or particularly one, Page 58, it was on the book that I had and it says we're all primeval stardust and I kind of think that's universe thing, a universe thing.

Speaker 2: 55:57

Can you?

Speaker 1: 55:57

tell us what you mean by that, because I'd love to hear it from a doctor's perspective.

Speaker 2: 56:05

All our molecules are like billions of years old, you know, they're just temporarily us, you know. And all the the larger molecule, the larger. What do you call it? You know the in the periodic system I don't remember the name in english at the time you know, like carbon and okay, the elements, the heavier elements.

Speaker 2: 56:38

So they're all made from supernovas and neutron stars exploding millions of years ago. So to have elements that heavy they have needed a supernova. So we all carry with us elements that have been around for ages and through biological life they are splitting and coming back and what we persist of. You know, some parts of me are still in Australia. When I was there 30 years ago, you know, I left some cells there you, you know and picked up some new ones and shed them again and uh and um. So it's all a circle, um, and our, our, our molecules, um, are billions of years old.

Speaker 2: 57:21

Yeah, and many people don't think of that or see themselves in this perspective. And also, you know the fact that beer we are there is end result of an unbroken line of reproduction from the first cell. You know, every, every cell had to be successful at reproducing itself from from the first cell until us. You know, if one of your ancestors didn't make it, you wouldn't be here. So I like to look at that perspective, because it's to take the hot air balloon perspective, or even further out to see life. You're talking a lot about spirituality and that is just, um, I think, the, the knowledge, uh, and the, the presence that we have, you know, to to understand these things.

Speaker 2: 58:19

You know that's that's, um, the spirituality, I think yeah yeah, so many people live too much like everyday lives you know they don't really think about these things, that it just go shopping and eat and watch TV and and you know they're not really taking in the experience of living. So so, and I've written a book on this before I wrote. It's not translated to English or sold to a worldwide publisher, but it's called the camera cure. It's about how to take pictures, it's about how, uh, you know to when you're a photographer and then you really have to be curious and to discover things and see how things really look. So so there's a lot of spirituality, I think, in that approach to to exploring life, you know.

Speaker 1: 59:14

Mm, yeah, great, I um well, I called the podcast life, health and the universe because of all of that sort of the interconnectedness of so, so many things, and I feel like, for me personally, with things like this, where we're empowering ourselves by taking control of our human form we do start to explore more of the possibilities of what's beyond that, and so I love that quote in your book. We are the primeval stardust.

Speaker 2: 59:47

Yeah, and what these devices, uh, you know, hack into. That is what I call in the book also a living fossil, because the part of our brain that is um, is this old part of the brain, the reptilian brain that we have in common with all vertebrates, you know. And so we're tracking this foundation of our nervous system that is hundreds of millions of years old, and our immune system is is mostly unchanged for like 100 millions of years, you know, which is why we can use rats, you know, in research and tell things about how humans work. You know, we, even though we divided hundreds million years ago, um, so, um. So I think that is interesting too, and we have to, and for our intellectual brain to work, um, we need to have this foundation in our brain in balance, because if you are stressed, you know, our intellectual brain will not work or will work poorly, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:00:52

So yeah, wow and it's, and the autonomic nervous system is a very overlooked part of our physiology, of our brain, so it's good that this now comes more to light definitely, definitely.

Speaker 1: 1:01:07

That's a wonderful um way to close. Thank you so much for this really insightful conversation. I am really looking forward to seeing where this book takes you, because it's it's it's kind of like you know when, without going, without going on on another tangent, when we, you know, people buy the device because you know it's something that they think that they should have, but your book actually it's like a, it's like the usual, the user manual that isn't available anywhere else. It's like this. These are the reasons that you need it and this is how to do it, to make the most out of it and and for it to actually improve your health, not just be something that gives you some metrics, but that you actually practice some changes in behavior that can improve your, your health.

Speaker 1: 1:02:02

So, yeah, brilliant book, um, thank you so much wish you the best of luck with taking it out into the world.

Speaker 2: 1:02:10

Australia, here we come yes, yes and it's a. It's both. It's also an audiobook and an ebook also, so I hope it's available there.

Speaker 1: 1:02:21

So amazon takes it anywhere, doesn't't it? Is it on Amazon? Yeah, it should.

Speaker 2: 1:02:26

Yeah, yeah, it will be on Amazon and all other. I'm not sure how they may have to order it from England.

Speaker 1: 1:02:34

I'm not sure.

Speaker 2: 1:02:36

But so it may take some time.

Speaker 1: 1:02:39

Yeah, e-books and that sort of thing we can probably get instantly.

Speaker 2: 1:02:45

Fabulous.

Speaker 1: 1:02:48

Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation and, as I said, I wish you the best of luck with the continuing success of the book.

Speaker 2: 1:02:57

Thank you, and the best of luck to you too.

Speaker 1: 1:02:59

And have a great night's sleep.

Speaker 2: 1:03:02

Yes, and you have a nice day, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:03:04

Take care. Bye, thank you.