Kristen Holmes on Performance, Sleep and Psychophysiology
“The opportunity here is using research on the physiological side and on the psychological side to understand what are the things that we need to focus on.”
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In this episode, we are joined by Kristen Holmes. As Vice President of Performance Science at WHOOP, Kristen drives thought leadership by engaging with industry-leading researchers and partners to understand better individual and team biometric and performance data across high-stakes verticals. Kristen also works with hundreds of the best tactical, professional, surgical teams and NCAA Athletes/Teams worldwide, helping them interpret WHOOP data to optimize training, recovery, and sleep behavior.
Kristen was a 3x All American, 2 x Big 10 Athlete of the year at the University of Iowa, competing in Field Hockey and Basketball. 7-year member of the U.S. National Field Hockey Team and one of the most successful coaches in Ivy League history, having won 12 league titles in 13 seasons and a National Championship at Princeton University. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan Executive MBA Candidate (‘20), MIT Sloan Artificial Intelligence Certificate, M.A. Psychology, and Sports Performance, B.S., Political Science, University of Iowa.
Connect with Kristen:
Instagram @kristen_holmes2126
I'm excited to bring this conversation with Kristen Holmes. And as many of you know, long time listeners, I've been a whoop user for over a year now and probably really close to two years. And it's been an enjoyable experience to talk about this performance data and track your metrics.
I know that many people don't feel the need to use wearables like this at this time. But given the unique situation of this pandemic to date this conversation. I believe these devices have even more power to give users feedback about how their body's responding to not only stress that is precipitated by this pandemic.
But also we can look inside our bodies as Kristen alludes to in research about respiratory rate as it relates to the virus in just actually lower respiratory infections in general. Not only that, but we get into the behaviors and different physiology that are all interrelated.
We close out this podcast on psychophysiology, which has been added to the Whoop journal as we recorded this, which they ask you a subjective question is on efficacy, control, and purpose in your life. And this is where my meaning frameworks and how to create behavior patterns and routines to allow you to function best in your life as you see fit.
I often go through this podcast, and I get a little worried, but every time I come back, and I listen to the conversation again, when I'm about to release these episodes, I find that even packed more with things that are still relevant for people too. Hopefully, live better.
I find myself digging into more after myself or checking in with myself at the very least to say, Hey, am I still doing these things that either I say or that Kristen brings up? I hope you enjoy this conversation with Kristen Holmes.
Read more on wearables here: Wearables: Meet WHOOP and Oura Ring
Get a free WHOOP 4.0 and one month free when you join with my link.
Show Notes:
[00:06:56] How did Kristen get interested in wearable technology?
[00:09:01] What is Heart Rate Variability (HRV)?
Everything You Need to Know About Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
[00:11:50] Perception vs. Internal Signal in terms of Recovery
[00:13:51] Whoops isn't a step tracker
[00:16:40] Providing Information on areas of improvement
[00:18:54] Quality of Sleep
Top Factors That Determine Sleep Quality
[00:20:45] Consistency of Sleep and Compromising on the weekends
[00:22:18] Getting through sleep deprivation
[00:23:22] Blue light blocking glasses
Blue Light Glasses - Helpful or Just Hype?
[00:25:43] Dr. Andrew Huberman and sky transitions
[00:27:09] Sunlight, Vitamin D, Fish Oil, and effect on physical states
[00:29:06] General Guidelines and then find what works best for you
[00:32:24] Iterative Process and Domino Effect
[00:34:11] Intermittent Fasting to improve behaviors
Intermittent fasting | Peter Attia
[00:35:18] Autoregulation
[00:37:55] Magnesium benefits before bed
[00:40:38] Research with Whoop
[00:42:43] COVID-19 and Resilience
[00:45:51] Psychophysiology
[00:50:04] What is a meaning framework and where to start?
Self-Control Strength Depletion Reduces Self-Efficacy and Impairs Exercise Performance
Self esteem, self efficacy, and locus of control
[00:53:11] Closing
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Kristen Holmes on Performance, Sleep and Psychophysiology
[00:05:38] Erich Wenzel: Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of feeding curiosity. And today's guest is Kristin Holmes of Whoop.
[00:05:44]Kristen Holmes: Hi there. How are you?
[00:05:45] Erich Wenzel: Good. This is awesome. And I'm really excited to just sit here and talk to you about not only wearables and whoop, but just kind of broadly speaking, how we can use technology to help further our quality of life and given the context of this whole pandemic, where, I mean, especially given the context that we all have to wear masks now when we go to any public place, I think having a wearable technology that can give you insights into how your body's responding at a health level is, is really interesting.
[00:06:16] And, yeah, so you're the director of performance. I get that, right?
[00:06:21] Kristen Holmes: The vice president of performance,
[00:06:24] Erich Wenzel: and, you have a long history in sports, being one of the. The most correct me if I'm wrong. There were the most championships for field hockey.
[00:06:34] Kristen Holmes: Yeah. We, we, we did a lot of winning. Yeah, so we won a, in my 13 seasons, we won 12 Ivy league championships and a national championship that Princeton university.
[00:06:43] Erich Wenzel: Cool.
[00:06:43] Yeah. I just want to highlight a little bit about your background before we kind of dive into the research that you've been doing, because I know you through the podcast and things like that. So, I know a little bit more about your background than maybe the average person. So. Yeah. That's all.
[00:06:56] How did Kristen get interested in wearable technology?
[00:06:56] If there's anything else, like how did you get into the wearable space? Like obviously you were an athlete or we're interested in sports for a very long time, but the idea I think of like recovery being a huge metric now is not. Is more relevant today than it ever has been.
[00:07:13] Kristen Holmes: Yeah, I mean, I think it's always been relevant.
[00:07:14] We just didn't know how to quantify, you know, how we are adapting to stress. Right. So, and I, and I think we were, you know, we, we kind of thought about it and, you know, from, I think a too, too narrow of a, of a lens in that we would just look at training stress and then try to map recovery with training stress.
[00:07:35] Where I think one of the things that became really obvious to me as, as a, as a athlete, you know, competing for the U S and then, you know, as a collegiate athlete and then, and then kind of going into coaching, I recognized pretty quickly that, you know, training stress, you know, that's happening in a know two to four hour block of time is not necessarily predictive of your capacity tomorrow.
[00:07:58] And, and I think the notion that there are so many factors that actually influence recovery is really, It is really, I think, where the evolution has taken place in terms of our broader understanding of, of what, you know, what, what are the factors that actually go into adaptive, you know, into your adaptation.
[00:08:17] And it's, you know, it's how you sleep. It's how you eat, it's how you hydrate. It's really how you're spending the other 22 to 21 hours of the day outside of training that are actually most influential on your next day's capacity. So it's really. I think this notion of, of recovery is, is just this. The opportunity is to, to really look at it from this 24/7 lens, you know, is an an, and that's essentially what whoop helps wrestle to the ground is, is really giving you super holistic picture of how your body is trending and tracking across these metrics that are really great estimators of, of your kind of mental and physical capacity, you know, in resting heart rate and heart rate variability and, and obviously how we, how we quantify sleep.
[00:09:01] What is Heart Rate Variability (HRV)?
[00:09:01] Erich Wenzel: And it's a really interesting topic for me because when I had first started getting into it. Like, what are the metrics behind this?
[00:09:10] I'm a huge podcast listener, so I was listening to a lot of health and wellness people. Peter Attia, a lot of other doctors within the ketogenic sphere, like Dom D'Agostino and other people. And so one of the things that kept coming up around some of their research was like the metric of HRV, right?
[00:09:25] At the time, it was probably two years, two years ago or so, but there wasn't a whole lot about. what it meant, like there was some people saying like training of HRV, like using it as like a meditative practice for, I think it was Josh Waitzkin is actually who was kind of into it and trying to use it as a metric to be able to control how his body responds in stressful situations, being a top competitor.
[00:09:44] And I was like, that's really interesting. I've never heard of that before. And. As I said before, it was like I, as an engineer, I was really interested in it because I started looking at like, how do you measure that? And you know, it's a root mean square, which is, you see that all the time in electronics.
[00:09:58] So I was like, well, this is right up my alley. And. So if you can go ahead and explain in the simplest way, because I know I've tried HRV, but it's something that I've gotten good at explaining because I've just tried to wrap my head around it.
[00:10:09] Kristen Holmes: Yeah, it's definitely, it feels really abstract and, and there's a lot of factors that kind of influence your heart rate variability, so it can, it can feel, hard to understand.
[00:10:19] But I guess the best way to explain it is that heart rate variability is. A function of the heart, but it originates in the autonomic nervous system and your autonomic nervous system has two branches. It has the sympathetic branch and the parasympathetic branch, and I guess imagine that these two branches are both competing to send signals to your heart.
[00:10:43] The more recovered you are, the more receptive your heart is going to be to both inputs of the autonomic nervous system, okay. And that will yield higher variability. Okay. So if you think about heart variability really, the interval is a measurement of time. It's an interval time between you, your heartbeat.
[00:11:02] So the more variability between heartbeats, the more, Capable you will be of adapting to demands in your environment. Okay. The less variable, the less recovered you are. Okay. The less able you'll be to adapt to the demands of your environment.
[00:11:21] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. I think that's
[00:11:23] Kristen Holmes: sufficient.
[00:11:24] Erich Wenzel: That's a great way of explaining it. And it's not normally, the way I would, I normally tend to explain it is, is because I go to the math more often than anything else. And I think that should help people understand it. And I'll always have links in the show notes so people can go understand and peruse it further because I think it's one of the things that you won't be able to like wake up in the morning and say, Oh yeah, my arch HRV feels hot high today, or low today, or something like that.
[00:11:50] Perception vs. Internal Signal in terms of Recovery
[00:11:50] Kristen Holmes: It's not. Yeah. Well, I think that, well, there, I think that's where quantification can be, you know, being able to quantify, to know actually what's happening internally, like your, your psychological state or your perception of how you feel might not actually be. In line with what is actually happening internally.
[00:12:11] So having, having insight into actually what your heart rate variability is or, you know, kind of this recovery picture can really help you inform how you approach your day. You know, if you're, you know, if you don't have, you know, this kind of. Adaptive energy available, you might change your volume intensity slightly, you know, and, and I think trends are more important to look at that and single day values, but, you know, or you're like, okay, you know, I'm a little less recovered today.
[00:12:39] My body's telling me something that I might not necessarily feel yet, but gosh, I'm gonna, you know, really focus on my hydration. I'm going to do, you know, spend some extra time meditating today. I'm just going to really take care of myself, you know, and, and change my situation. Right? Like, it just, it really empowers, from my viewpoint.
[00:12:58] Like I, I just think I want to know the truth of what's happening. Like I'm not, I don't, you know, and I think people who are scared of data are generally not interested in the truth, frankly. So I know that's harsh. That's a little, a bit of a harsh vantage point. But, but I, you know, I think there's something, you know, you don't have to be obsessive about it and, and there's no reason to be anxious.
[00:13:16] But, you know, but I think knowing how you're trending and tracking is information that enables you to take action, right? Like, it puts you in a position of power to have agency over your own health and wellness. Right? And I think that's the opportunity that this data provides. You know. Obviously it needs to be accurate and needs to have been, you know, have valid measurement.
[00:13:38] And, you know, it needs to be scientifically validated so you can trust the information you're getting. But I think once all those boxes are checked, then, you know, it's, it's really, really important, I think, at a, at a high level to understand how your body's responding to the external stress.
[00:13:51] Whoops isn't a step tracker
[00:13:51] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. And I think you hit on a whole bunch of points at why this is relevant for not just people who are interested. You know, whoop is designed for the elite. More like performers and athletes with the strain metric, being able to, you know, it's not a step counter basically, and you know, for, for lack of a better term, steps. If you already are active at a minimum, steps are useless, at least in my view.
[00:14:14] Kristen Holmes: You shouldn't, you shouldn't get the same credit. If I, you know, two years ago, if I'm taking 10,000 steps and I'm still taking 10,000 steps today, like I shouldn't get the same credit as I did two years ago if I'm like, if I've actually gotten sitter, you know what I mean?
[00:14:26] Like, it's really it. Yeah. I mean, and, and there's, there's absolutely no research to back up anything related to 10,000 steps. But yeah, I think understanding your cardiovascular load and how you're. Heart is responding to its activity. I mean, to me that's, that's, that's the gold standard that we need to, right?
[00:14:43] Erich Wenzel: And that was one of the big reasons why along with HRV, but also with the reason that the band is, is there just as technology that works for you it not the other way around where it wants to take your attention. Like a lot of the other fitness trackers out there when, when. I was first doing this stuff.
[00:15:01] I was really starting to get mindful of things like our phones being dopamine drips and like constantly notifying us and all of that. The psychology that gets wrapped into it where it's constantly distracting you or making you interact with them when they want you to, not when you want it to.
[00:15:16] Kristen Holmes: So true.
[00:15:17] Erich Wenzel: And so I was, I, you know, I went through and basically turned off 90% of notifications except for like calls and text messages. But then whoop comes along and I'm like, Oh my God, here's this. Here's this device that's just passively reading things. It doesn't have a screen on it. It doesn't send notifications.
[00:15:32] Right. And you just check it, you know, once or twice a day, once for the morning. And then once when you go to your workout to make sure you're, you know, inline with stuff. And that's kind of like the way I kind of view it, or I'll check my sleep, like make sure my sleep is doing okay.
[00:15:46] But other than that, like for me, one of the big things that I found myself doing is, is like over assuming sleep, right?
[00:15:54] Cause like all of these are so intertwined. And so when I started tracking my sleep, I was kind of like, Oh yeah, I probably get like around seven hours of sleep like everyone is supposed to get. Right. in reality it was probably closer to like six, six and a half. Yeah, it's probably more of the national average in general.
[00:16:10] And I'm like, wow, this is, you know, it's like the data thing, right? Where you're scared of your own data and you're like, well, now, it's right there plain as day and now you just hold yourself accountable. Which I think is kind of the power of these kinds of devices in general where it gives, instead of like a doctor prescribing you and say, you need to take these pills and go to sleep or, or whatever.
[00:16:30] Having something that lets the user. Make the decision for themselves and say, Whoa, wait, like if I do that, you know, you create the feedback loop for yourself.
[00:16:40] Providing Information on areas of improvement
[00:16:40] Kristen Holmes: Yeah. And I think it also provides you information on, on where things can, where you can improve, right? Like, I think, you know, a lot of folks don't have a problem with spending time in bed.
[00:16:52] They're spending plenty of time in bed, but they're not getting quality sleep, right? Other folks might struggle with regularity, right when they go to bed and when they wake up, which we know is like a hundred percent correlated to cognitive and physical functioning, right? Like when you're, when you're, You know, when your circadian rhythm is, is just, you know, deregulated, like all sorts of bad things end up happening internally. So, you know, regulating, in stabilizing your kind of sleep, like timing is really core. So being able to track these things just gives you information on where you need to spend your effort.
[00:17:22] Right. And in terms of improving. So I think for me, like my time in bed has always been, you know, hasn't. Really been too much of an issue. It was, once I started quantifying, I realized, wow, I actually like not really getting a whole lot of REM or sleep. And then you realize, wow, you know, you, you actually need to be spending almost half the time that you're in bed in these deeper stages in order to fully restore physically and mentally.
[00:17:45] So that's what I started working on. I'm like, okay, what are the behaviors that are most associated with quality sleep? Well, you know what it is. Those behaviors start the moment you wake up, right? Like, and, and are, you're gonna, you know, help you get into these deeper stages of sleep or are not going to help you.
[00:18:01] And I think that principle of non neutrality is one that is always floating in the back of my head as it relates to performance. There's just, you know, there's, there's not a lot of neutral actions, right? So it's either you're gonna make choices that are going to upgrade your health and wellness. And then the behaviours are going to support sleep, or are not right.
[00:18:17] And you know, some of those behaviors, obviously alcohol consumption close to bed is gonna crush your deeper stages of sleep, your restorative sleep, you know, allowing negative stress to accumulate throughout the day. and then there's a whole host of environmental factors related to sleep that can cause fragmentation.
[00:18:33] If you're not, you know. Dark, you know, if you don't have a dark room, dark, cold, quiet, you know, if you're not checking those boxes, that can interfere. But yeah, I think it is looking at, you know, using the information and the data as a way to inform how you approach your day, I think is really where a lot of this, a lot of the power is.
[00:18:54] Quality of Sleep
[00:18:54] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. I totally agree. And like for one of the things, like you brought up deep sleep as like a huge impact on, you know, restorative sleep. Cause I, I do think that's a really important distinction to make. And I think it's one that's being added now because of devices like this, where before a lot of the sleep stuff was all about, get eight hours of sleep.
[00:19:13] Right. And that's still good because we're not sleeping enough. But there's also that part that's the quality of sleep, you know, it's like quality over quantity. Like anything else.
[00:19:21]Kristen Holmes: and you want to, you don't want to have to spend, like now I only really need to spend, I used to have to spend like almost eight and a half hours in, in bed in order to meet.
[00:19:31] To get that quality sleep. But now I only need to spend about seven hours, you know, somewhere between seven hours and 44 minutes, seven hours and 42 minutes. Like literally. That's how I know, which is sick, but I get it. but, basically, I know that's how much time I need to generally spend in bed in order to achieve half of, of that timeframe in the deeper stages of sleep. So, you know, so, so basically, you know, three and a half, almost four hours of the time that I'm in bed are in these deeper stages of sleep. and a lot of that has stemmed from just stabilizing my sleep weight timing and that my biggest behavior change.
[00:20:04] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. I mean, that was one of the things that I really worked on. And you know, Dr. Matthew Walker is a huge force in this space. He gave the best example I thought about like. Sleep consistency or like what the average person does about to their sleep consistency. And it's like if you Monday through Friday, you go to work and you wake up at say seven every day and then your weekend, you stay up until, you know, two, three in the morning.
[00:20:28] It's like you're shifting your body's circadian rhythm to times zones. If you, if you live in New York for an example, and you're shifting all the way to California time for the weekend. And then Monday morning it's like bam, right back into New York time. And I'm just like, Oh, wow. That's a really good way of putting it.
[00:20:45] Consistency of Sleep and Compromising on the weekends
[00:20:45] Kristen Holmes: Totally. And we see this play on the data, you know, where sleep consistency during the week is pretty stable. And then the weekend, it just all falls to hell. And, you know, and this is, you know, we obviously work with a ton of. You know, professional and collegiate athletes and tactical athletes.
[00:21:00] And we saw this play out and, and what was great is, is, you know, to be able to share that data and just be like, okay, look at the consistency during the week. Look at the inconsistency on the weekend. You know, how do we compromise here? Because it really does impact your performance levels, right? And especially for these folks who are thinking about the margins and the way that they are.
[00:21:18] Like, you know, you can't really afford to to get your circadian rhythm that far at all out of whack. Right? Cause you end up delaying recovery and you just put so much stress on your system that would otherwise go to, you know, performance improvements, right? Like the stuff that you're doing in the weight room.
[00:21:34] And, yeah, it sleep consistency is really, I a hundred percent like the lowest hanging fruit as it relates to high performance.
[00:21:43] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. That's, that's so interesting because that's kind of one of the first things that I think I wound up fixing. It was just like no matter what day it is, you always wake up or go to bed around the same time, and it did.
[00:21:55] I noticed that it was just like, it was kind of like, It's like turn not using no alarm, I guess, so to speak. That's one of the big things that I can do now is I don't need to use an alarm to wake up. Yeah, I've found that sweet spot where I can wake up without having to use an alarm and go to bed at the same time. And then that usually kind of keeps me from feeling like that grogginess when you first wake up, if you didn't get enough sleep or high quality enough sleep
[00:22:18] Getting through sleep deprivation
[00:22:18] Kristen Holmes: or a kind of alarm will often interrupt you when you're in a deeper phase of sleep, which, you know, will create that. You know, kind of that inertia, that groggy feeling, you know, the first hour or so.
[00:22:28] Yeah. I mean, it's ideal, you know, once you get through that sleep deprivation, so once you no longer have, you know, sleep debt and you're kind of in a position where you're, you're generally meeting your sleep needs. Yeah. You probably don't need an alarm clock anymore. I'm kind of at that same point where, you know, I, I pretty much wake up at 5:30 AM the birds have been just particularly loud lately out my window that's been helping.
[00:22:49] But, but yeah, I'm kind of at that point to where I just. Literally just wake up now. And that's, that's a sign that you're really, your system is completely aligned and, you know, things, you're, all, your clocks are kind of firing all, you know, every cell in your body has a clock, right? Like, I think we forget that.
[00:23:04] We think you can have the sleep wake clock, but. No, no, no, no, no. Every cell in your body has a clock and, and you know, if you can kind of stabilize this one behavior in terms of sleep-wake timing that really informs all the other, a lot of the other clocks in your body and gets them firing on all cylinders.
[00:23:18] So it's a really, really powerful piece of the equation.
[00:23:22] Blue light blocking glasses
[00:23:22]Erich Wenzel: I know there's a lot of data around blue light blocking glasses and stuff like that. So are those actually helpful for fixing the circadian rhythm? Cause you know, we're always bombarded by these screens and especially working from home right now we're bombarded even more by screens cause we're always stuck in meetings like this or, or anything like that.
[00:23:38] Cause I use blue light blocking glasses and they're subtle. But I mean if anything, they reduce eyestrain and I find that to be really helpful for my own sake, if I like wearing them post sundown basically.
[00:23:52] Kristen Holmes: Yeah. So there you kind of need to think about it like day versus night. So Amber generally at night is good and studies have kind of shown that Amber lenses are really helpful for preventing like that, that blue light from reaching the eye.
[00:24:07]so that can absolutely help. you know, with sleep efficiency and kind of. Actually correct disruptions, dissipating rhythms and a hundred percent in and, you know, increase overall sleep amounts. so yeah, so there's some really good brands out there that do that well. daytime, you know, blocking all blue light during the day, can actually hurt sleep because you're basically altering daytime signaling and cues that influence your circadian rhythms. So, you know, lenses that you wear during the day should block no more than, I think it's like 60% of the, like 445 to 460 nanometer range of light. Yeah. So, yeah, so there's definitely cool ways to think about blue light versus, you know, day versus night and the color of the lenses and all that.
[00:24:54] So. Yeah. So that's kind of, what the research says around, around that.
[00:24:59] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. That's interesting. Cause I, cause I remember like, why was it a finishing school? There were some, some of the engineering students had started doing a comparative analysis on lens technology, basically to see if they actually did what they're advertised to do.
[00:25:13] Which I thought was really interesting. I'm like, Ooh. Because now all of this light stuff is kind of becoming. A really important thing, like my brother's a designer and he talks about, you know, color temperature and stuff like that. But now as the technology within, even the lighting in buildings is going to start having, you know, smart color temperature stuff.
[00:25:30] So it's going to be hopefully better. But also we just kinda have to pay attention to some of this, how these different wavelengths interact with human physiology realistically. And it's really interesting.
[00:25:43] Dr. Andrew Huberman and sky transitions
[00:25:43] Kristen Holmes: It is so interesting. And I, you know, one of my favorite guys to follow dr Andrew Huberman out of Stanford.
[00:25:50] He's a neuroscientist, but, he talks a ton about just sky transition too. So, you know, I think we forget, like how. Like our body is wired to take in, choose from the environment, right? So, you know, one of the best things that we can do for sleep as well. And, and just again, aligning the, you know, kind of circadian rhythm and sleeping past patterns is, is observing the sky transitions.
[00:26:15] You know? And so getting that morning light, you know, a couple minutes, you know, not looking directly in the sun, but just allowing that sun, you know, the photoreceptors in your skin to kind of absorb that sunlight is really, really powerful. Even if it's cloudy, it's totally fine. But just like getting in nature in the morning is really important.
[00:26:32] And then I've been making a habit, you know, the last. I guess four weeks now. Just, I literally, I get my cup of tea at night and I watched this sky transition and it's, I like it. It's like, I literally look forward to it. Like my body, like is craving it now. It's, it's crazy now that I've made this a habit, but, you know, watching the sky transition from, you know, day to night and, and, you know, night to day, really reinforces kind of the natural circadian rhythm and sleeping patterns.
[00:26:56]So anyway, there's, there's a lot of really cool research around that. But, another, I think important behavior that we can deploy that, you know, will really help. all the clocks in our body kind of sink to kind of the natural environmental cues.
[00:27:09] Sunlight, Vitamin D, Fish Oil and effect on physical states
[00:27:09] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. I think that's really interesting because it's one of the things that I've noticed myself as being at home.
[00:27:16] I wound up going outside to work out more. And it's usually around like evening time, like six, seven or so that I'm kind of like outside and I'm doing my run around the neighborhood. But that's also like when the sun's going down. So it's kind of Overlaying two things on top of it, because I know how important the vitamin D aspect for mood regulation and hormone productions know I was, I was not taking fish oil for a very long time.
[00:27:41] And then I, you know, heard a study on how important just fish oil is, but then also that . Fish oil and vitamin D kind of have a synergistic effect. And so I wound up using both of those. I have one that has both in it, and it's just as such a powerful thing to actually help improve the quality of my health.
[00:27:57]it's, it's really interesting for me, to just have that, there's like these little things, right? Like, you don't think how much sunlight is going to affect like a mood, if anything. Right.
[00:28:07] Kristen Holmes: Yeah, I know it has a profound, you know, not just physiological effect, but, but a psychological effect as well.
[00:28:17] and, and I think to your earlier point, and you started the podcast off saying this, like, it's all intertwined, right? Like our, our behaviors, you know, the, the what, you know, what we put into our body, how we interact with nature. You know, all of this. Like profoundly influences our, our mental and physical States.
[00:28:35] And, you know, to kind of think that it doesn't, is, is at this point, you know, it's kind of crazy talk. So, yeah. I mean, there's just a whole lot of research. but yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the concept that, you know, the foods that we're putting into our body and how they interact, like, yeah, I mean, there's, there's.
[00:28:52] There's, there's a whole science behind that. And I think nutrition science is really, is kind of complicated, you know, cause it's so unique to each individual. But, there's certainly, you know, high level principles that we can deploy to really help our cause. Yeah. And you just outlined a couple.
[00:29:06] General Guidelines and then find what works best for you
[00:29:06] Erich Wenzel: It's interesting to me, you know, the more you go down this kind of rabbit hole for, I guess probably speaking wellbeing, you kind of realized that there's a lot too that's going on and interplays with each other.
[00:29:19] And I think it's just really hard in general to kind of give a one size fits all. It's more of like, here's the general guideline, and then you kind of have to do the work to kind of figure out what's. You know, happening in your own life. And yeah. Also understand too, I think one of the biggest things I think people have to understand is that this isn't going to be like you put these habits in place now and then, you know, three years from now, you're still going to be on top of them.
[00:29:46] It's like your life is going to change and, and how you act, interact with your routine is going to change too. And so you're gonna have to come back and look, be like, okay, you know, six months ago, here's the habits that I was doing maybe I was reading in bed or, or, you know, meditating more often, whatever it is.
[00:30:04] Right. And, and being able to look back on that and be like, okay, here's what I was doing and it was working really well. Maybe I need to get back to that now.
[00:30:12] Kristen Holmes: Yeah, it's such a good point like that, you know, I always would say to my students and my student athletes, you know, performance is very much a work ethic, you know?
[00:30:20]and I always define, I know people have different definitions for, you know, the performance. I would kind of always think about it as, you know, the. Capacity of an individual kind of to intentionally, behave at a level equal to their physical, mental, and emotional potential. That was kind of the working definition for me, but, you know, I think it's, yeah, I think it's just number one, being aware of the factors that actually influence your performance.
[00:30:43] So, you know, to your point earlier, there's a set of principles, right, that are gonna affect human beings. Just because, you know, we're all kind of built similarly that said, you know, what works for each individual is gonna take, you know, some time to figure out. And I think that's where data can be really helpful.
[00:31:00] You know, I have a pretty well structured. Bedtime routine because I have been doing this for so long and I've in my data, I know it works and I know, and I definitely know what doesn't work. So it's up to me to make that choice in terms of, Hey, if I want to sleep all tonight, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z.
[00:31:17]and I know I just have a choice, right? And I know what foods interact really well with me. I really can't tolerate sugar, but, you know, do I love it? A sour patch kid and chocolate, of course I do. You know, but I just know that it doesn't, you know, doesn't jam well in my system. Right. I just don't tolerate it.
[00:31:34] So it's just a matter of like, you know, just being, you know, building that awareness. I think data can help amplify awareness. somatic awareness. Like, you know, I think it gives you have a feel, right? Like when you start to kind of see these correlations in the data. You, you just can eliminate stuff that isn't upgrading.
[00:31:51] Right. And, and then building in this stuff, to your point, it's a choice. You know, you build in the stuff and you keep the stuff that you know really works for you, and that's where, you know, you can use the data to see, all right, if I'm getting. If, if I see this downward trend in my heart rate variability, for example, I see an increase in my resting heart rate.
[00:32:09] Okay. What, what's going on? You know, and you can kind of go through the factors physiological and psychological that, you know, are most influential on health and wellness and, and kind of start to tackle it from there. So, anyway, yeah, that's a, yeah, totally. That's exactly how I think about it.
[00:32:24] Iterative Process and Domino Effect
[00:32:24] Erich Wenzel: It's a really interesting point. And it's one of the things that. I just kind of, I tend to view most almost anything as an iterative process. And this is like no other aid or process. But the reason I think I've latched onto it so much is that it's this iterative process that the more you do it, the better you get just about anything else.
[00:32:43] You know, it's like the better you get at being a human being on this planet
[00:32:46] Kristen Holmes: and domino effect.
[00:32:48] Erich Wenzel: And it's, you know, it's weird because it's like people notice around you. Like when, when you kind of start lining these things up, it's like you're like synchronizing with yourself when you get put in a stressful situation, you're able to kind of not react that with like a knee jerk reaction of like, when someone's tired you're just going to lash out to someone because you're just grumpy. And it's just kinda the nature of the beast or anything like that.
[00:33:09] And I, and so by doing a lot of these things. And it also like even for me, it's like getting into mindfulness or meditation. Like I would never do that unless there was like, you know, just overlaying the data, part of it makes it be like, Oh wow, here's this thing, and now I can understand why it's useful.
[00:33:26]Kristen Holmes: Totally. I, you know, I, I think that, that, you know, I've always just being inside high-performance environments, you know, both now more kind of in a consultancy type of role, and then what I was trying to drive performance outcomes in my own environment, just, I think that the recognizing that, you know, everything has, every behavior will have a domino effect.
[00:33:44] Right? and, and, you know, when you make a change to one behavior, it's going to activate. A chain reaction and cause a shift in related behaviors. Right. I think James Clear talks about this so, well, you know, when he talks about domino effect and, and I think that just the sooner we're aware of that, like the more we can really drive like, our, you know, how we, you know, how we probably feel and, and, and, you know, just our overall kind of health and wellness.
[00:34:11] Intermittent Fasting to improve behaviors
[00:34:11] Erich Wenzel: It reminds me of intermittent fasting. I do about 14 hours a day, and one of the main drivers, like I don't have, I'm not overweight, I don't do it for performance really, but I do it out of the, one of the main reasons I do is like, you know, humans are incentive drivers, like if we're incentivized to do something. Then. Then we'll, we'll keep doing something or we won't do something. And one of the huge problems that I had is I would get hungry late at night around like nine 30 or so and I would eat something late and it didn't have to even be a lot. I would just be like maybe a snack or something like a, you know, a couple hundred calories.
[00:34:44] Yup. But what I found, I'm noticing is that over time, that would drive up my resting heart rate when I slept, because your body's digesting food even that little bit, and it would make for less quality of sleep. So I'm like, well, I'm just going to start intermittent fasting and do most of my intermittent fasting while I'm sleeping, and kind of put my like cutoff time at like eight 30 every day.
[00:35:05] So I can just tell myself I don't eat after this time. So that keeps me from doing two things. Eating and drinking cause those are like the two worst things you can do, especially late at night, right before bed to improve quality of sleep.
[00:35:18] Autoregulation
[00:35:18] Kristen Holmes: No question. Yeah, we definitely, you know, a lot of folks see that in the, in the data, you know, just everyone's insulin response is gonna be a little different.
[00:35:26] But, yeah, I mean I think that. When you're asking just principally when you're asking your body to do two or two different things, like you confuse it, right? So I think, I think when you think about it, like at the highest level, it's this concept of autoregulation, right? You want to create a set of behaviors that doesn't confuse the fuck out of your system, right? Like, you know, you just want to try to like, keep, like, allow your system to do what it's like, what it wants to do, right? If you want it to hover, right. And if you want to use all of your resources for recovery, don't ask it to digest food too.
[00:36:03] Right, because you have to be in a parasympathetic state in order to digest food. But if you're, if you want your resources to go toward recovery and rejuvenation. Don't also ask it to digest food, right? So it's like we start, we have to start to think, I think a little bit more clearly about what, what are the demands of, of my system?
[00:36:24] What am I asking it to do? What do I need it to do right now? And making sure the behaviors line up with that.
[00:36:29] Erich Wenzel: That's such a cool, I love, that's such a cool idea. I didn't even think about that because it's like they're trying to. That's how I'm a night just to keep the sleep. Example, you're trying to get your body to go to sleep, but then you eat something and so like now you're trying to push it into digest mode and it's like, I can't do both, dude. Come on.
[00:36:45] Kristen Holmes: I know. And I am telling you like everyone, you know, people are like, I really want to enhance my Carver. I'm like, well, go to bed and wake up the same time and then don't eat a huge meal before bed, right? Cause you're going to divert resources that are, that you would want to go to recover and re regeneration towards digestion.
[00:37:01] You're missing like half of the time, right? But you need to figure out too, like, okay, how do I not. I don't want to be hungry either when you sleep. So, you know, eating foods that are, very, you know, super easy to digest is key, right? Like, you, you, you want to make sure that you're, you know, the casein protein I think is really good, that sole release, you know, amino acids and, and is not going to put a lot in managing your system in terms of digestion.
[00:37:24]so there's a lot of like, little. Things that you can do to prevent being hungry. but I think a lot of it too is what you're used to. Like, same with me. Like I literally, I really try to stop eating after six 30. I don't eat a thing, you know, I just have a bit of tea and I might put a little cream in there, you know, that kind of seems to help, or just a little bit of MCT oil or something.
[00:37:43] But, yeah, but generally I'm just used to it. And, Yeah. And, and I think that's, that's why my HRV is, you know, pretty high from, you know, from my relative. I think that's what helped it improve over time.
[00:37:55] Magnesium benefits before bed
[00:37:55] Erich Wenzel: I do have a quick question on magnesium cause there's a lot of talk around like magnesium and maybe even zinc sometimes before bed or like for improved quality of sleep. And I personally take Mag Mind by a Jarrow, which is a specific formulation of magnesium that's supposed to interact or pass through the blood brain barrier if I'm getting that correct. And. Has some nootropic qualities. Is there actually research backing this stuff up?
[00:38:24] Kristen Holmes: Well, I think as it relates to magnesium specifically, like it's not soporific effects, like it's not going to make you feel sleepy. I think where magnesium can be really helpful is that it does, I think, I think there's been shown that it does reduce. some anxiety. and I think generally most folks, especially if you exercise a fair amount, well a lot of athletes have, do, have magnesium deficiency.
[00:38:48] So supplementing can be good. I think, you know, I'm not a doctor obviously, but I do think you can, you can definitely take too much magnesium and it can have a quite a deleterious effect on, on kind of your health. So I think similar to iron, you know, you just want to make sure you've got the right.
[00:39:04] Dosage but I think timing, honestly, like, I don't know that there's enough kind of research out there on, on timing. you know, and, and kind of, I, it does interact, you know, with like you, you definitely wouldn't, if you're taking an antibiotic, for example. and. You know, I feel bad for folks I've talked to about it cause it just crushes your gut biome.
[00:39:26] But, yeah, you know, you definitely don't want to have magnesium, within a four hour window of an antibiotic. So you do have to be careful with, with magnesium and in terms of, and there's quite a few considerations that I think that you need to think about to, to ensure that you're getting the right dosage, number one, and that you're, it's interacting with other things that you're taking and that you're. You don't have realistic expectations of what it can really do. Yeah.
[00:39:50]Erich Wenzel: I was just curious if you had any newer studies or just in general, because I've heard a lot about, you know, silver bullets in this world of like, just do these things and you'll feel better.
[00:39:59] And you know, my knee jerk reaction is like, how true is that? So I'm just interested to hear if there's any foundational things. And obviously a lot of these studies, there's just not enough data yet, especially with,
[00:40:09] Kristen Holmes: I think the N is like, usually is pretty small and the, and a lot of the research that's done and it's, you know, on, like actually your cohort were male, white.
[00:40:18] So, but yeah, I think that, yeah, I think you have to just be really careful. Like when looking at research, you know, and, and taking in. And I think I recognize all of them. The factors that like associated factors that could influence like the efficacy of anything that you're doing, you know?
[00:40:35] Erich Wenzel: Yeah. That makes sense.
[00:40:38] Research with Whoop
[00:40:38] So we've been doing this for a little while and I know you have some new studies that you wanted to share here on from Whoop and that have been wrapping up. So I thought we could switch now into the research that you've been doing with Whoop and just even like last year, because I know there's been a lot.
[00:40:52] Yeah. We've done it where we, you know, we had a, a validation study that was published in the journal of clinical, sleep medicine. So that was really exciting. The University of Arizona did that study. And, and one of the cool things, they were able to actually validate respiratory rate, which was kind of like, just a happy find because what we've been seeing, you know, in the data, the Whoop data for folks who have, reported being COIVD positive, we've seen that, you know, while resting heart and heart rate variability are kind of nonspecific markers in that, you know, if you have the flu or other non-COVID sickness, they're, you know, they're to die.
[00:41:25] Your heart rate variability is gonna be low. Resting heart is going to be high. If you have code, your resting heart rate is going to be high and your heart rate is going to be low. But if you have, but if you have COVID specifically your respiratory rate is profoundly affected. and folks who report that they have COVID-19.
[00:41:43]Because it's what's cool about respiratory rates. It's, it's actually like a really stable metric. So if you have non. COVID sickness, your respiratory rate not going to change, right? It's only in the presence of a lower respiratory tract infection where your respiratory rate will change. Right? So, you know, in kind of where there's structural, like pulmonary changes.
[00:42:04] So, respiratory rates kind of have been like this Canary in the coal mine as it relates to coven 19. So we've been doing a lot of research centered around that. you know, we're about to, I can't reveal who, it's with but we're about to launch a really pretty big study with 500 healthcare workers, in a hospital system.
[00:42:21] Yeah. So it will be kind of looking at just health, you know, healthcare physiology, just generally, and then alongside for those folks who do test positive for COVID-19. being able to kind of look at the course of the disease and study that. So, really in depth, you know, kind of, testing that these folks will go through to just again, try to understand the disease a bit better.
[00:42:43] COVID-19 and Resilience
[00:42:43]And then the other piece of research related to covert that we're looking at is, just the kind of concept of resilience. You know, what does that profile look like of a person who gets it versus doesn't, you know, doesn't get it. you know, what does a person who does get it, you know, what, how much time are they spending in sleep asleep?
[00:43:00] Like how consistent is their sleep? You know, what does their, what are their exercise habits? You know, when we look at all the journal features that all the journal questions that we have within the Whoop platform, you know, what are, what are their behaviors look like? Are they? You know, are they doing intermittent fasting?
[00:43:15] I mean, there's so much metadata, right? To be able to dig in and ask some, some cool questions about, you know, what is resilience? What are the behaviors that contribute to resilience? So I think, to me, that's one of the, one of most exciting, and that's, I'm super excited about that. those findings. But yeah, I mean, I think these are all really innovative approaches.
[00:43:31] And then we just started a study with Duke. A medical university, looking at the cardio metabolic, aspect of recovery, and covert patients. So, we've got, I think they've. Got about, you know, 19 folks in, in ICU right now. And basically when they come out, we'll be putting, whoop on, on these patients and as they go home, they'll also have a cardio-metabolic cart.
[00:43:53] So we'll be able to look at all sorts of metrics alongside, you know, the metrics that we're tracking and, and, you know, kind of see, see what we see, in terms of coverage. Cause that's an aspect of the disease that we don't know a whole lot about. No, no one knows anything about. Right. So we're going to be investigating that.
[00:44:07] Kristen Holmes: and then, so that's kind of all the COVID related research. And then we've got, some other research. I'm looking at kind of a classification of breathing protocols.
[00:44:16] I was talking about nasal breathing. yeah. But, but yeah, this is with an institution now in California and we're really close to being able to kind of announce that. But yeah, very excited to kind of look at different types of diaphragmatic breathing and how that influences our sleep. So we'll kind of look at breathing as it relates specifically to sleep and hopefully be able to provide insight to folks on, you know, what breathing protocols are most effective to, and, most, yeah, effective in helping you get the best night's sleep.
[00:44:48]Erich Wenzel: Wow, that's lots of different things happening. Just, you know, just by measuring, you can now start to build like a foundation of like, here's what we can tell by just measuring it, you know? And like one of them, one of the ones that I thought was super interesting that went just live on the journal.
[00:45:06] So we kind of mentioned a couple of times, but just for an overview of everybody's, the journal in woop is every morning you could wake up and you. Kind of say yes or no or, and then add a little bit of granularity to activities you did the previous day. So it could be, you know, sleeping late, screen device, reading it late before bed, things like that.
[00:45:25] So just to kind of personal tracking what you're doing to affect your recovery or, or not. and one of the things you guys added was, you know, the psychological purpose, you know, things like that. And I, I thought that was super interesting cause you don't see that kind of come out except out of like study stuff and to have a device that's tracking it.
[00:45:42] I think it's super interesting for me because it reminds me of a flourish of positive psychology. It's, it's, it feels like right in line with that.
[00:45:51] Psychophysiology
[00:45:51] Kristen Holmes: Well, that's, yeah, that's, so that's my background is in psychology, so I've been kind of pushing for this for four years too, because we track, again, I think it's this concept of, you know, psychophysiology right?
[00:46:01] Like they're, they're, they're 100% intertwined right? Heart rate variability is not only a great estimator of your physical readiness, but it's also an unbelievable estimator of your psychological readiness. Right? So, and I think the reason why I chose purpose, efficacy, and control is because those are the three most important, most.
[00:46:20] Three most impactful, psychological needs that we have as human beings. And this is grounded in tons of research by, you know, Ryan at Dessi and you know, all the positive psychologists and self information theory and all of that. So it has its roots in science. But yeah, I think, you know, being able to reflect daily on, and this is.
[00:46:38] The origin when I was at Princeton university, you know, coaching and teaching, you know, this is was part of the, kind of performance education, was really understanding the influence, that these needs have in our, in our life, and being able to create a framework to account for those needs on the daily, right?
[00:46:57] So, you know, what, what does my level of control look like? Like, right. Like, you know, and I think this is, you know, an interesting time, right? We kind of feel this weird sense of control and then this weird sense of not having control and understanding. Yeah. We were talking about this before I went live. I think just how amplified, you know, these, I think the emotions kind of are right now because there's this weird.
[00:47:21] Quiet, and then there's this kind of noise in our mind, you know, like, I think it's just everything feels quite acute now. So it's just this weird time. But reflecting on your level of control I think is an understanding and understanding how you interact with that across the day, I think is really, really important awareness.
[00:47:40] Then efficacy, you know, do I have the skills and resources to do what's asked of me, you know, as a, as a mom. As a partner, as you know, a professional. You know, I think when we don't have resources and skills to do what's asked of us we immediately start to feel this really strong level of dissonance.
[00:47:57] You know, this kind of tension inside that I want to contribute value. I want to be effective and in my role, but I don't. Feel like I have the knowledge to do it. And again, just being aware of that dynamic is really, really powerful to kind of help you take control of your performance and understand how and when to ask for help.
[00:48:15] And the third piece is purpose, right? Like, you know, what is your level of, you know, do you feel like you're, you know, living your, you know, your, your values, right? Like, you know, so understanding number one, you know, what is it. That you value and understand that's going to change a little bit as you, as you grow and evolve.
[00:48:31] But, you know, taking stock of that really I think, you know, weekly and, and really exposing yourself to the things that you care about and making sure that, you know, when you think about your day, you want 90% of your tasks to drive towards your purpose. Right. And we were talking about this too, before we got on, like, you know, this is an exercise that I put in front of my students and my student athletes at Princeton.
[00:48:55] You know, it's like, okay, you know, you want it to be 90 10 you know, like, I know the 80 20 right? Like, you know, you say, you know, innovation and peace are two of the things that you value, for example, are two of my values. You know, what am I doing every day that leads me, like that enables me to kind of scratch this itch of innovation, right?
[00:49:15] Like a lot of it is the research that I'm able to do with partners and, and asking questions of performance and, and science, and, you know, these are, this is how I want to spend my time, right? So I want to make sure that the tasks across the day are an outlet for what I say I care about, you know, I care about, you know.
[00:49:31] Piece, right? Like, which is really just, you know, feeling a level of contentment that I'm not, you know, kind of trying to fill a void of, of, of sorts. And, you know, what, what does that mean about my behaviors throughout the day? You know, so. Yeah. I think the whole concept behind these and putting these into the journal was really to try to help folks understand, you know, that it's you, you just, you want to try to create an infrastructure that allows you to attend to these needs.
[00:50:03] Right? Yeah.
[00:50:04] What is a meaning framework and where to start?
[00:50:04] Erich Wenzel: I totally agree with that. A hundred percent and I mean, one of the big reasons I even do this is because of how much of that type of meaning frame working that I've done personally has given me the ability to do this podcast. And by extension, you know, providing things for other people.
[00:50:22] You know, it's all about providing information for other people to live better at the end of the day, but it's also like this really deep internal thing. But to find out what that is, it's almost like you've got to look at those questions and be like, what does that really mean? Because like, because they do feel out of reach to some degree, like when you know a psychologist can just say them and you know, it doesn't really hit you the right way.
[00:50:43] But like when you, you have to kind of sit down with a notebook and even if you start that page for an hour and nothing gets written down, you kind of have to really just ask yourself like, what do I want to do? Like, what's the, you know. If, if everything goes perfect, right? Like how far could you go, you know, sort of the dart in the sand somewhere far off in the distance and say, what?
[00:51:01] What could my life be like if everything I wanted to do in my twenties happens?
[00:51:07] Kristen Holmes: Yeah. And I think it's to your point earlier, like. I think we often, like we don't know where to start. Right? And, and I think that's where a lot of the research that's been done kind of gives us a platform. The stuff that's stood the test of time, like efficacy, purpose, and control, you know, those are three needs that just bubbled to the surface over and over and over again over the past 70 years.
[00:51:30] Right. So if I like research so, okay, we know these are important. So. If folks just literally focus on those three things and, and, and to your point, you know, get a pad and pen out and really start to reflect on what those mean. And then, you know, kind of building. You know, behaviors and habits that enable you to fulfill those needs, then all of a sudden, like, life kind of corrects itself, right?
[00:51:56] Like you, you know, you start to just feel like you have some direction and you have purpose and you have some control and, you know, those are psychological needs that are being met on the, on the daily, and, you know, things start to feel pretty good. And, you just minimize that, that tension internally that can, yeah.
[00:52:12] That can manifest when we're not really certain what we should be focused on. And I guess that's the opportunity here is, really using research on the physiological side, on the psychological side to really understand, what are the things that we just need to focus on, right? That is really going to move the needle for me.
[00:52:28] And then just making sure it's built in.
[00:52:30] Erich Wenzel: That's awesome. And you know, normally I asked the question as, how would you provide? Advice for a young person who is just starting out in the real world. But I think we just nailed it with talking about just those three components of the psychological meaning framework.
[00:52:46] And it's just an honor for me to be able to, to have a conversation with you to talk about, you know, all of the cutting edge science in this space and to. Just highlight more of it because you know, this is relatively new for the most part. And to get it out to more people, I think is even and to see where the research is headed with more people seeing how it actually interacts with patients and how they can improve the quality of their life too, is really exciting to me.
[00:53:11] Closing
[00:53:11] Kristen Holmes: Yeah. I definitely think that just building awareness and having conversations and you know, getting folks to kind of ask questions of their behaviors and how it's contributing to, you know, their overall kind of goal as and mission in life. Like I think those are, are really, I think the extent that we can use kind of research to, to knit that together and to, to sensor people's focus I think is, that's really valuable.
[00:53:37] Erich Wenzel: Thank you so much. And so just as a closing thing, how can people reach you across the internet?
[00:53:42] Kristen Holmes: Oh, okay. So I'm on LinkedIn. and I definitely post stuff there. And, just Kristin Holmes and then on joined Instagram about a month ago was still trying to find my way. So forgive me for any.
[00:53:59] Weird things you see on there. I'm still learning, but, I guess, what is that called? My like name, like my,
[00:54:04] Erich Wenzel: username, I guess would be the right
[00:54:05] Kristen Holmes: one. I use your name. Yep. I'm looking it up right now. It is Kristen underscore homes 2126. And I post all sorts of, you know, performance related things and, you know, some random personal shit every now and again.
[00:54:20]and I think that's it, that I can't go into the Twitter black hole. I, I did it. I tried like a couple of years ago and I was like, Whoa, this is like. Deep and dark, I can't do it. So yeah, I really had never done social media before until like February. So yeah. Kind of new at it, I think, to your point, you know, like I just, yeah, I just didn't know how to interact with it.
[00:54:46]but, but yeah. It's a great platform too. Educate folks and put ideas out there and connect with other people who are really interested in the same thing.
[00:54:55]Erich Wenzel: I think Instagram is a great platform right now. It seems to have the most positive community, or at least if you build it in the way that, yeah, use it.
[00:55:03] It's a lot of it. There's a lot of people that I've been able to communicate through my podcast and connect to even like you.
[00:55:09] Kristen Holmes: So it's like, yeah. I mean, I love the stuff that you're putting out so good and, yeah. And like, you know, just Brian McKenzie and, and you know. Do you know Dave Asprey and Dr Huberman and you know, just all these like, just amazing people kind of sharing their thoughts and ideas.
[00:55:24] And I already feel like I've learned a lot. And, yeah, it's, it's been, yeah, it's been cool.
[00:55:30] Erich Wenzel: That's awesome. And I really appreciate it once again, and you know, when more research comes down the road, I'm happy to do a round two and we can do a wrap up and just see where this keeps going as we keep refining it.
[00:55:41] Kristen Holmes: So as we finalize, or as we kind of dig into the healthcare space, I think that could be interesting to talk about what we find absolutely. You know, those that cohort cause that's, that's going to be, that's a really understudied population that, obviously high stakes and a lot happening. So yeah, it'll be interesting. Yeah. Well thanks for having me.
[00:56:01] Erich Wenzel: Absolutely. And I'll have show notes for everything so people can find links to both Whoop and to where they can connect with you.
Today on the podcast, we are joined by Joe Jackowski. Joe is a Marine Corps veteran and current graduate student at Vanderbilt University in the Cognitive Psychology in Context program. His primary interest is meaning in life, which broadly extends to problems in ethics, A.I., and culture.
In this episode, we sit down to discuss his first long-form article on his new sub stack, Apotheosis: A Philosophy for Influencers