Episode #222: What Is The Best Way To Track Your Heart Rate Variability (HRV)?

In today's episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast, what is the best way to track your heart rate variability? Also, what is glutathione? The least amount of exercise necessary for good health, how to minimize stress from travel, how and when to swim with a snorkel, how to deal with a foot neuroma, and how antacids and ADHD medications affect athletes. And I'm back.

Welcome to the Ben Green Field Fitness.com podcast. We provide you with free exercise, nutrition, weight loss, triathlon, and wellness advice from the top fitness experts in the nation. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfield Fitness.com.

Okay, so I just polished off a box of wine and I spent some time getting in touch with my feminine side, so hopefully I'll be able to measure up to the last couple of episodes with Jessa.

Dude, it's kind of weird actually to be a recording this once again at the ungodly hour that we usually record rather than in the evenings with my wife. Who's been sitting in for you the past two episodes. Barack.

And doing a fantastic job. Thank you, Jessa.

And having to have this glass of plain water rather than the usual box of wine, I was able to get used to the past couple of weeks. So thanks for that, Brock.

You know what I'm most disappointed in is that you did an episode that involved chocolate, coffee, garlic, and talking about boners without me.

Hey, but at least my wife thinks you're Australian, apparently.

That's right, mate.

That's right. That wonderful Down Under Canadian accent.

Quite similar, yes.

Welcome back from Thailand, Brock. I'm glad you survived.

Yeah, I more than survived. It was a fantastic time. The races were a little more challenging than I had anticipated, but they were. It was pretty awesome. And I mean, the food, the people, the country, it's all just magical.

Awesome. So now that all the listeners out there are aware that Brock was not killed in any type of military coup, he is not laid up with any type of strange parasitic infections that we know about yet.

Not yet.

And he is back up in Canada, let's do this podcast thing.

All right? News flashes. Okay, as always, to get these news flashes hot off the proverbial presses, make sure to follow Ben on twitter.com BenGreenfield and also go to Google because there's all kinds of cool stuff going on there. And you can find all that, all those links, all the ways to Find them if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com that's right.

This is what episode number is this that we're recording? Brock?

222.

Nice. Easy to remember. So we'll put a link to everything we talk about in episode number 222. One tweet I put out was yummy brominated vegetable oil in sports drinks. And this was based off a New York Times article that came out this week that talked about this lady over in Missouri who is a dedicated vegetarian. And she grabbed a bottle of Gatorade to drink and check the label to make sure that there were no animal products in the drink. And she noticed that there was something called brominated vegetable oil as an ingredient in Gatorade.

Well, that's made from vegetables.

Yes, it is made from vegetables. So the issue is not that it's an animal based product, but rather she was a little bit curious about what that actually was. And so when she started to look into it, she found out some of the nasty things that actually happen when you consume high amounts of brominated vegetable oil, like neurological disorders and altered levels of thyroid hormone. Use of brominated oil in the US has actually been something that's kind of gone back and forth in terms of its safety for the past 30 years. European Union has banned it from foods for a long time. Japan recently moved to ban it as well. But about 10% of the drinks sold in the US have brominated vegetable oil. Mountain Dew is one, Powerade is one, the Dr. Pepper is another, and Gatorade is one. And basically what brominated vegetable oil is, is it has bromine, which is the same thing that they put into like flame retardants. And they also put it into these.

Drinks, of course, so they don't burst into flames.

Exactly. You would never want your Gatorade to burst into flame after you left it in a hot car or something like that. So obviously it's very log thing to put into a sports drink, but something to certainly take into consideration before you start giving your kids or yourself a bunch of Gatorade. And there was basically a panel called to action back in the 70s to look into this stuff because it was generally recognized as safe. Back in 1970, the FDA took it off the list of substances generally recognized as safe after what's called the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers association revoked the approval of brominated vegetable oil. But it's kind of just fallen off the face of the map since then. And it was never added back to that list. It was kind of ignored. No Long term studies have been done on it. However, there was an article about it by Environmental Health News that ran in Scientific American last year that did find that people who binge on sodas and other drinks that specifically have this brominated vegetable oil in them experience nerve disorders, memory loss, and a lot of the things that brominated vegetable oil has been shown to cause in studies in animals. So I probably don't have to tell a lot of our generally healthy listeners not to drink soda, but I do know that a lot of folks are still them or their children getting a decent share of sports drinks. And this is another reason to be kind of careful with that.

Well, and it's not necessarily in all sports drinks. It's really just Gatorade, and I think Powerade as well uses it. But I know the sport drink that I use, Tailwind, doesn't have it and there's numerous ones out there. So you really just need to check the ingredients lists.

I'm sorry. Tailwind is just a horrible name.

I know, I know. I feel embarrassed every time I pull the package out. It's such good stuff. But it's really a terrible name.

It sounds like some type of flatulence beverage. So enjoy. Drink up your Tailwind. Or my favorite sports drink, just basically coconut water. So another thing that I tweeted was how to use whole body vibration. And whole body vibration was something that Jessa and I discussed briefly about how all vibration plates are not created equal in one of the episodes we recorded. I think it was episode 220.

Is that the marathon two and a half hour long one?

Yeah. So if anybody got past the hour mark of that, my deepest apologies. But anyways, there was a study that appeared in the National Journal of Strength Conditioning Research this month, and it looked into the improvements in running economy after eight weeks of whole body vibration training. And it turned out that there was not only an improvement in the rate of force development in the muscles that were involved with running, but also an increase in what's called the maximal isometric force or the force production capabilities of those muscles and what they were actually doing in terms of how to use these things. Because I know a lot of people will see these studies on whole body vibration platforms, but, you know, maybe scratch their heads about how you actually use the things, if your gym has one, your health club has one, or you'll listen to that podcast with Jess and I where we talk about which vibration plates are good and which aren't that good. But the protocol they used in this study was 10 efforts of 30 to 60 seconds on that vibration platform with the knees bent at about 120 degrees. So you're kind of like in a quarter squat standing on the thing for 30 to 60 seconds. So it's basically a semi squat vibration training. And that protocol, 10 by 30 to 60 seconds, was done three times a week over a period of eight weeks. So I wanted to tweet that just for people who I know may have access to a whole body vibration platform. That's the way you would use it if you wanted to use something like that to improve your running economy.

So you're just standing on it in a three or a one quarter squat. That's all you're doing for 30 to.

60 seconds, which is actually on a good vibration platform that has a high velocity of acceleration in terms of amplitude. Yeah, exactly. Like a strong vibration platform, a high quality one that's actually pretty hard to do. It's a pretty tough workout that'll drain you 10 by 60 seconds in the semi squat position on whole body vibration. So not to be confused with basically slouching with your arms on the pads of the vibration trainer while you sip a soda, which I have witnessed people doing, or maybe smoothie, who knows? The last thing that I wanted to mention was another study that looked into the risks of ibuprofen use when combined with exercise. And as we mentioned last year, when a study published last year came out that cyclists who rode hard for an hour on ibuprofen developed elevated blood levels of a marker that indicates basically gastrointestinal leakage. And that marker, by the way, is called a fatty acid binding protein. It's something that you can measure to see how much leakage in the GI tract is occurring. Well, there was another study that just came out that was just published this month. And what they did was they had a group of healthy active men swallow about 400 milligrams of ibuprofen the night before. And also the morning of their trip to this lab for exercise, they rode bikes for an hour. And what they did was they drew blood to check whether or not these guys small intestines were leaking. And they found that blood levels of that same protein, that fatty acid binding protein that indicates intestinal leakage, was way higher when these men combined bike riding with ibuprofen than when they just rode or they took ibuprofen alone. So once again, for anybody out there who is popping this stuff to try and reduce inflammation or reduce soreness during a marathon or during a triathlon, it's a really Quick way to generate some stomach damage and GI distress. And poop your pants and possibly do that. That's right. Natural alternative to ibuprofen. My recommendation. This is something that was introduced to me by Dr. Roby Mitchell, who's been on this show a few times, and we did a whole episode on ibuprofen alternatives. I recommend phenocaine. I keep some of it at home. It's basically curcumin extract combined with phenylalanine and nattokinase. And those are two things that can inhibit cytokine production and help to shut down inflammation without putting the same number on your gut as ibuprofen does.

How would that stuff work for, say, like a headache?

Very well, really. You pop four to eight of them and they can have a pretty profound effect. Again, it's just a band aid. I mean, you'd still want to get the root issue of whether it's a food sensitivity or a blood flow issue or a magnesium deficiency or an acidic diet or something like that that's causing the headache. But this stuff can at least mitigate some of the PA.

Listener Q and A.

Have you heard about getting an IV of glutathione before and after surgery to help protect your brain? I was hoping to learn more about it. Thank you.

So glutathione, that's something that's actually manufactured in your cells, right?

Yeah. Glutathione is certainly something that you can take orally. It's basically a pretty simple molecule. It's a combination of three different building blocks of proteins, a combination of what's called cysteine, glycine and glutamine. And the other part of glutathione that's really, really important is it's got this sulfur chemical group on it. And sulfur, we're all familiar with, is something that's kind of smelly that you smell when maybe eggs are cooking or somebody toots or Brock drinks tailwind. But it essentially, you can think of it as acting almost like flypaper in your body. And a lot of free radicals and toxins, including things like mercury and other heavy metals, can actually get chelated or get removed by this. This particular antioxidant, you basically call it.

So it's like the super antioxidant, the smart antioxidant.

Yeah. Glutathione is a very potent antioxidant. It's also used in phase one and phase two liver detox, which is something that we've talked about on this show before. We got into that in detail about detoxification a few episodes ago. Now, the thing with glutathione is a lot of people can be deficient in it, especially people who tend to get exposed to lots of oxygen, oxidative stress, or too many toxins, whether that be from pollution, from excessive exercise, from heavy metal exposure in the workplace, et cetera. And you can deplete your glutathione levels by basically causing your natural glutathione levels to work overtime, essentially. And there have been studies that have looked into folks and found that the highest glutathione levels tend to exist in healthy young people, and there's lower levels in healthy elderly people and even lower levels in sick elderly elderly people and lowest levels of all in hospitalized elderly people. And there's some other good studies out there that show low glutathione levels to be associated with increased risk of heart disease, risk of cancer, et cetera. So it is something that's important. There's a few problems, though, with just seeing that it's good and then going out and spending a bunch of money on glutathione or even, I'll address this in a second, going out and getting like a glutathione iv. The problem is that glutathione tends to get broken down pretty easily in your digestive tract, because, as I mentioned, it is just made up of these amino acids and these proteins. And so it'll tend to be used when you consume it for things like skeletal muscle regeneration or basic metabolism, which is what your body tends to use amino acids for rather than actually staying in its whole glutathione form after you've ingested it.

So the body will sort of use the pieces of it that it seems to need right at that moment.

Yeah. So you don't get very good absorption from the stuff. And there's not very, very good correlation between your glutathione consumption of a normal typical oral glutathione supplement and an increase in your levels of glutathione. So you can't just go out and use glutathione. The most important thing to do if you want to boost your glutathione levels is to consume foods or supplements or engage in activities that are going to help your body to boost its own, to form its own glutathione. So one thing that you can do is you can make sure that you include sulfur rich foods in your diet, because as you just learned, sulfur is kind of that active component of glutathione so the main sulfur rich foods are things that are kind of smell like garlic, like onions and specifically all the cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, kale, collards, cauliflower, that kind of stuff. Cabbage is another one. So you know the stuff that makes you toot basically. But sulfur rich foods would be one really important thing to make sure that you include in your diet. If you're concerned about glutathione and you want to make sure that you've got enough of that particular antioxidant. Some whey proteins can be a really good source of glutathione. But you want to get what's called the non denatured proteins. And a lot of proteins get heated, they're not formed through what's called cold processing. They tend to be pasteurized or produced from pasteurized and industrial produced milk that contains pesticides and hormones and antibiotics. So you want to be careful with the whey protein that you choose. That's one of the reasons that I recommend like Mount Capra as a really, really good cold processed, non denatured protein with actually bioactive glutathione or the ability to give your body what it needs for glutathione synthesis. The main thing that you're getting from a good bioactive whey protein, by the way, is cysteine. And that's another component, as you learned, of glutathione formation. Exercise really boosts glutathione and so that's something that you want to take into consideration. Of course there is that. Diminishing returns over exercise produces a lot of free radicals and could potentially exhaust your glutathione levels. But exercise to a limited extent is definitely going to help you out. Doing strength training a little bit of cardio a few times a week. As far as supplements go, supplements that give you a lot of the precursors for glutathione production. One would be alpha lipoic acid and that's an antioxidant. It's not going to be used to form anything that helps you to make glutathione as much as it does take some stress off of the requirements of glutathione to act as an antioxidant because alpha lipoic acid is also a potent antioxidant. So that's something that you can supplement with is alpha lipoic acid. And most whole food antioxidants that we've talked about on the show before, like Life shots and Solar synergy or the Living fuel super berry stuff, all of that is going to be decent sources of alpha lipoic acid. Another thing that you would want to look into is a milk thistle extract which is also known as silymarin. It's something that I talked about in the hangover post that I published last week as something that can help with hangovers and liver detox. It also can really help to boost your glutathione levels. So that's another thing to look into. So for example, you could do something like use life shots every day and then supplement with this Capra cleanse. And that would be an example of how to keep your glutathione levels high if you combine that with exercise. And then one other thing that I thought was really interesting is whole body cold exposure. And there was a study that was done where they took a bunch of people who swam regularly in ice cold water during the winter, like these polar swimmers. And what they found was that these folks had much, much higher glutathione levels compared to non winter, non cold water swimmers. So using some cold thermogenesis to increase glutathione levels may also be something that you could look into if you're wanting to really improve your antioxidant status going into something like a surgery.

So would there be any advantage really pursuing the glutathione over just getting a really good dose of full spectrum antioxidants?

No, with a couple exceptions. And one is that you could technically bypass oral processing of glutathione through an iv. The problem with doing something like that is that IV glutathione injection can be dangerous. So there are some surgeons that do recommend glutathione IV injection, literally introducing glutathione into the bloodstream via a needle needle to enhance the body's ability to bounce back after surgery. And you actually see this stuff recommended quite a bit in the dental community, or not the dental community, the. What's the word for the folks who work on skin, the dermatology community, for some type of skin treatments. And the issue with IV glutathione is it can be pretty dangerous because you can risk glutathione over dose really easily. If this stuff isn't monitored quite carefully, it can cause a lot of side effects, stomach ache, diarrhea, even kidney failure and blood poisoning, as well as what's called toxic epidermal necrolysis, which is basically skin cell death from too much glutathione. So you gotta be really careful with this stuff. If you're getting IV injections, I would be super careful with it even though it is a pretty potent antioxidant and it could technically help you bounce back from surgery. I would be going after doing something like exercise, cold exposure and then using some of the other stuff I recommended like a good milk thistle extract along with bioactive whey protein. Yep. Sulfur rich foods and a full spectrum antioxidant and maybe a little bit of alpha lipoic acid. There is one form and I'll link to it in the show notes for you. There's one form of glutathione that a couple of studies have found to increase glutathione levels to the same extent as IV glutathione and it's a form of glutathione called acetyl glutathione and essentially what it is is it's a fat soluble form of glutathione that allows it to be absorbed without it being broken down on the stomach level. So the stuff is expensive. It looks like a good active form of acetylglutathione is going to cost you anywhere from about 60 to 100 bucks for a bottle of it. I'm not sure that's worth it versus using just some of the natural methods that you can use to increase your glutathione levels, but I'll link to it in the show notes if you wanted to use something like that and you weren't concerned about spending the money on it and it's called acetyl glutathione.

Hi Ben and Brock, this is Debbie. I have a question that I think is going to shock you and all of your super fit triathlete listeners. I want to know the least amount of time I can work out to maintain my current level of cardiovascular fitness, muscular strength and body composition. I'm just completing shape 21 with excellent results. I'm in my early 40s. I'm a working mother and a wife. I exercise only to be fit, look good and stay healthy. I do not compete in any events and I don't have tons of extra time. I am currently getting up at 5am to do the Shape 21 workout before my family wakes up for the day. It seems that going forward, interval training offers the biggest benefit for the least amount of time. How often will I need to do strength training and how frequently will I need to change the workout to maintain muscle confusion? Your podcast is so helpful and chock full of fabulous and helpful information. Keep it coming.

So it sounds like Debbie is using my Shape 21 lean body manual and that is a book that was the very first book that I ever wrote and my goal was to have a 21 day exercise plus diet program that someone could go through with zero guesswork. Since originally publishing the book, I've gone and kind of reinvented the diet once. But it has options for kind of a beginner circuit, an intermediate circuit, or an advanced advanced circuit and bounces back and forth between doing cardio intervals one day, doing weight training circuits one day, doing a little bit of heavier weight training on another day, and trying to hit as many different energy systems as possible over a 21 day time span. So it's over@shape21.com and first of all, let me say, Debbie, that we aren't all super fit triathlete listeners. There are many, many folks who are just looking for, for general help that listening to the show, and it's certainly not geared for geeky triathletes alone.

I was a little bit shocked though.

That's right, we were a little bit shocked that anyone would ever want to limit their exercise.

It's crazy. What do you do with your free time if you're not constantly working out?

So first of all, Debbie, you don't have to go through shape 21 for just 21 days. The way that I wrote the book is you could go through the entire beginner series for 21 days and then go back and do the intermediate until the intermediate starts to feel easy and it's no longer pushing you, you're no longer sore after the workouts, you're no longer sucking wind from the cardio intervals. And then you can move on to the advanced level. And literally the advanced level is tough. I mean, it's up there with beachbody insanity and P90X and all these other workout programs. And you could go through the advanced section a couple of times too. So technically, you could use this book for almost a year before your body starts to become adapted to it. It. But as far as these actual adaptations go, what's important to understand is that different sections of your physiology are going to adapt at different rates. So I mentally like to split things into the cardiovascular system, the musculoskeletal system, and the neuromuscular system. And it should be pretty apparent what each of those are. But of course, the cardiovascular system is your heart and your lungs and your vascular system and all the enzymes and cellular structures that your body uses to deliver oxygen and blood to working tissue. So when you're exercising and you're doing cardiovascular exercise specifically, or even weight training to a certain extent, can Be cardiovascular. Depending on how you do it, you get both or you get two different types of adaptations. You get what are called central adaptations, which are typically short term adaptations, and what are called peripheral adaptations, which are long term adaptations. So an example of short term adaptations that occur pretty quickly in response to cardiovascular exercise are increased stroke volumes, the amount of blood that your heart can pump, increased ventilation, the amount of oxygen that your lungs can breathe in, increased recruitment of muscle fibers, which would be how many fibers you can grab each time your foot strikes the ground when you're running. And then long term adaptations, or what are called peripheral adaptations would be, for example, an increased in the number of your mitochondria or what's called your mitochondrial density, which are needed for you to produce ATP from energy and basically become a better aerobic athlete. Another example of a peripheral adaptation would be your ability to clear lactic acid, which is kind of a metabolic byproduct that causes or that can cause or contribute to muscle burn during exercise. So generally, central adaptations to cardiovascular exercise, these immediate improvements in stroke volume and blood shunting, and recruitment of muscle fibers that can take place literally after about two to four cardiovascular workouts. But usually you see the biggest improvements in short term cardiovascular adaptations occur between two to six weeks. About the two week to the six week mark is where you'll start to notice that your ability to respond to a specific cardiovascular, say like an interval training routine, or a specific cardiovascular swim or bike or run or something like that, it's going to start to peak after a maximum of about six weeks and a minimum of two weeks. Now, peripheral adaptations like your mitochondrial density and some of these longer term results that can literally take six to 12 months. So it can, you know, you can be doing the same program for literally almost a year and still be getting decent results from your cardio workouts. But as far as getting the most results, getting the best adaptation, you're looking at six weeks being the longest you'd want to go without changing up the type of cardio workouts that you do. And the way that I generally lay out most of the programs when I'm working with athletes or designing like a triathlon training program or a cardio training program is about every four weeks. We change things up when it comes to cardio. So that's my recommendation as far as cardio goes. And all that means is, for example, you might do the same swim or the same bike workout, or the same run workout every single week for four weeks in a row, and then you maybe take an off week and then switch to something new. So that's an example of the cardiovascular side of things. Does that kind of make sense, Brock?

Yeah, totally. And I actually see that in the programs that you give me too.

Yeah, you'll notice that you might repeat the same swim workout for three or four weeks in a row and then it changes.

And that actually that works really well for any sort of technique that's involved as well. After four weeks, it's kind of, you get the hang of doing something technically as well as aerobically.

Exactly. So the other part of your adaptations would be your musculoskeletal and your neuromuscular. And again, there are central or short term adaptations, and there are peripheral or long term adaptations. So an example of a short term adaptation to weight training or to any training that's considered resistance training would be a synthesis of hormones, literally like your anabolic hormones, like testosterone, or increased recruitment of muscle fibers, similar to that cardiovascular central adaptation. Examples of peripheral adaptation would be, for example, increased muscle size, meaning it can take a while, it can be kind of long term before you start to notice that your muscles get bigger or increased strength of connective tissue, meaning like your ligaments and your tendons start to become better able to handle strain. Now, short term adaptations to weight training, to this type of musculoskeletal training, you're looking at very, very similar to cardiovascular training every about two to six weeks. Okay, but, but the caveat to that is that two to six weeks is generally more of your nervous system response, more of your neuromuscular response. And generally to actually see changes in muscle size or changes in the way that your body looks, it's usually six plus weeks before you start to see significant changes in that. And so when it comes to weight training, if you want to improve sports performance, you need to be similar to cardiovascular, changing stuff up about every four weeks or so, minimum of every two weeks, maximum of every six weeks. But if your goal is just improving muscle size, getting bigger, putting on muscle, changing the way your body looks, it can actually help out to go six plus weeks doing the same workouts over and over again before you switch to a new workout profile. And so that's why a lot of times you'll see in really good bodybuilding programs, someone will be doing the same workout, sometimes for six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, to really build as many different muscle fibers as possible before switching things up. Whereas if you're looking for more of a neuromuscular adaptation, more of kind of sports specific sports performance, Enhancing type of weight training routine, you're switching things up every two to six weeks. So that is kind of what it comes down to. And the most important thing here to bear in mind is you got to test and you only really know if you test and testing. You know, if your only goals are aesthetic. Testing could just be taking a photo of yourself or taking your body fat percentage. If your goals are performance related, it could be a specific section of road that you run once every four weeks to see how fast you're able to travel it on bike or on foot. Or it might be 10 by 100 meters in the pool that you swim to see how fast you're to able able to swim each hundred meter repeat if you're giving yourself 20 seconds of rest between each one. So, you know, testing is super important in terms of seeing whether or not you've stopped adapting to the workout that you're doing.

And what do they say? It's that which can be measured can be improved. I think that's the saying that goes along with that.

And again, go back and listen to it was either episode 220 or 221 where Jessa and I really got into all the different ways that you can test your improvements. But hopefully that gives you an idea of what you're looking at in terms of time, as far as how often to switch things up and as far as per week, like how much you should actually exercise. What they found as far as the positive adaptations to exercise, whether it be strength training or whether it be cardiovascular exercise, is two to three hours per week. You get good results, and after that, your results start to plateau. When it comes to just general health and fitness, it's two to three hours per week. And obviously, if you're looking to go out and run a marathon or do a triathlon or. Or get a really, really low body fat percentage or put on a bunch of muscle or something like that, you may need to exercise more than that, but two to three hours a week would be the minimum.

That's the old doctor recommends, 30 minutes per day kind of thing.

That's exactly it. Yep.

Okay, well, let's move on to the next question. It comes from Craig. Craig says, I have both an M Wave 2 and an iThelete. How do you use your M wave to help you determine whether or not you're over 20 training? I use the Ithleet for this purpose, but it sounds like you prefer the M wave 2 also. And this is the part of the question I thought was really interesting. I travel Nearly every week. And I find it stressful. A friend of mine asked me, why is it stressful? I wasn't sure how to respond. In your opinion, why is travel stressful and what can you do to mitigate this?

Wow. Two, two interesting questions. And we just threw around some phrases that, that probably could have confused some folks. The M wave 2 and the Ithole and the Eldium Q46 explosive space modulator. We just like to say technical things in this show to make us sound smart. All of those things that Craig mentioned, The M wave 2 and the iThelete, these are ways that you measure your heart rate variability. And we've talked about heart rate variability a little bit on the show before. But all that is is it's the variation between each of your heartbeats, it's how much time that is spent between each of your heartbeats beats. And you can measure that heart rate variability. And ideally you'd want your heart rate variability to be somewhat high, meaning that there's a lot of kind of jumping around in the variation between each of those beats. Because what that indicates is that your nervous system is talking to your heart very efficiently. You've got this nerve called the vagus nerve. It's one of your cranial nerves nerves, and it controls your heart and it basically innervates your heart. And it's the mediator of your heart rate variability. And the higher your heart rate variability, the more quickly you're able to make micro adjustments in how quickly or how slowly your heart is beating. That indicates how strong what's called your vagal tone is or the strength of your vagus nerve is. And that's a direct indicator of the health of your sympathetic nervous system, the health of your parasympathetic nervous system, and your propensity to be either over trained or overstressed. So it's a very, very good way to track your overtraining. It's one of my top recommendations in terms of a very good way to kind of see where you're at when it comes to being stressed or when it comes to being over trained. And there are a variety of ways that you can measure your heart rate variability. The traditional method and probably the most popular tool out there is called the M wave 2. And it's just this black kind of a box about the size of a phone, like an iPhone. And it has this cable that comes out of it. And you attach the cable to your earlobe and it's measuring your heart rate in your earlobe. And then you can use little lights on the unit itself to track your heart rate variability. If I remember properly, the more it's towards green, the higher your heart rate variability, the more it's towards blue, the lower your heart rate variability. But the reason that the M wave 2 is so popular is it's produced by this company called HeartMath. And HeartMath also produces what are called biofeedback tools for the consumer market. Meaning that if you have an M wave, you can plug it into your computer, you can purchase software from this Heartmath institute, and you can literally have the software bring you through smart special training exercises, special breathing exercises, and essentially tools that help you to consciously control your heart rate variability. It's called biofeedback. So it teaches you how to think thoughts, how to produce feelings that actually cause you to become de stressed. So it's more expensive using this software plus the EM Wave 2. But if you want to do really, really customized biofeedback, it's a good way to go.

That's really interesting because just knowing that you've got a really high heart rate variability, or I guess low would be even worse. It's great to know that. But what do you do about it?

Yeah, exactly. And you have to of course be able to not just create this vicious cycle of stress by seeing your heart rate variability is low and then getting more stressed out. So by the way, just as an interesting anecdote, I should note that if you're over trained with too much intensity, like too many CrossFit workouts, or running hard, too much, doing too many intervals, that type of thing, you tend to see that heart rate variability might actually remain somewhat high. But it bounces around a lot from day to day. I mean, you might be at 91 day, 81 day, 101 day. And by the way, the higher the score, the better. Whereas if you're parasympathetically overtrained, too much aerobic exercise, you're over training your parasympathetic nervous system, you tend to see just consistently low heart rate variability values. And as an aside, I also test my heart rate variability every single morning for five minutes. So the EM wave 2 is expensive. I mean, if you're buying that software, if you're buying the EM Wave 2, you're looking at 200, $300 investment. You've also got options that are more port portable and typically consist of a heart rate monitor strap and then some kind of a docket that plugs into the bottom of a phone like an Android or an iPhone, and these don't come with quite as powerful a biofeedback software as the EM Wave, but they can be more portable and they can offer you a way to test your heart rate variability, for example, when you're out exercising. Or say if you're lying in bed and you don't want to get up and plug into the computer while you're lying in bed in the morning. There's a couple of different types of apps like that. One is the Ithlete that Craig mentions. And another one is called the Sweet Beat, which is the one that I use. I'll put a link to both of these in the show notes, but all you need is an app that you download to your phone, some kind of a chest strap, and then some kind of adapter that plugs into your phone and lets the app on your phone get the information from that chest strap that's measuring your heart heart rate. And from what I understand that the difference between Athlete and this Sweet Beat thing that I use is that Athlete requires you to have a paid subscription after you buy the app and the chest strap and the dock you're paying to have access to be able to upload your data to Athlete and keep track of your data.

Oh, so it'll keep a history.

Yeah, exactly. And it's used a little bit more in kind of the sports and athletic environment. It's also a UK based company. The Sweet Beet, the one that I use, it was created a little bit more for kind of like the medical and nutrition environment. It's got like a food allergy tracker on there that will track your food sensitivity, your nervous system response to food intake. It's free and it doesn't require any type of subscription. And you basically also have an online platform that you upload your data to. And I've actually got a few clients that track their heart rate variability using Sweet Beat, upload the data to their platform and then share it with me so I can look at their heart rate variability as a marker of their training status. And either one will work. They're all based off of specific algorithms. So I'm not sure ifleet uses the same algorithm as the Sweet Beat does, But, for example, the Sweet Beat measures what's called your rmssd. And RMSSD stands for root mean square of successive differences, which doesn't really mean anything to most people, but basically I'm furrowing my brow. Yeah, it's a heart rate variability algorithm that they got from Harvard and mit and it basically measures frequencies, it's measuring what's called very low frequency, low frequency and high frequency data that it's getting from the heart rate chest strap and then producing a score, a 0 to 100 score based off of that. So essentially what you're looking at is perhaps the athlete is using a different algorithm than the sweet beats, but they're both giving out similar data. Sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system data. It's just differences in the app, some of the features in the app and the some of some of the package subscription prices.

How the heck does sweet beet do anything with your allergies or food sensitivities?

What it does is it's got this food logging part of the app. You log your food and then you wear the chest strap while you're eating. And for a little while after you eat, it tracks your nervous system response to what you eat and identifies if anything is actually causing decreased vagal tone or essentially causing your sympathetic nervous system to have an over response to the food that you're eating. Going fight or flight mode from what you're eating. So it's kind of cool. The other thing that you can do if you just want to kind of experiment with this stuff with a low entry level cost, there's an app made by a company called Izumio called the Stress Check app. And it just uses you putting your finger over the camera lens of your phone to track your heart rate variability. And it's probably not quite as accurate as the chest strap method, but it is kind of cool because it lets you play around with this stuff before you spend much money on a better tracking unit or a tracking unit that comes with logging capabilities and stuff like that. And it also comes with some simple biofeedback tools like you can put your finger over the phone, over the camera lens of the phone. It'll walk you through like a simple breathing exercise that will de stress you based off of you breathing in conjunction with the rise and fall of your heart rate rate. So I personally own an M wave 2, but I don't use it very much now that I use this sweet beat heart rate variability monitoring. And there's more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to this stuff. There's also one I know out there called the Bioforce and there's a few others too. But those are my thoughts on the heart rate variability component and some of the ways that you can use it, some of the differences between the methods of tracking, tracking it.

Cool. And we'll put all the links to all those different Apps and stuff into the show notes so you don't have to remember everything that Ben just said.

Yeah. And as far as travel being stressful, I mean, not to gloss over this question too much, but it totally depends. I mean, airplane travel can be stressful due to negative ion buildup from not being in contact with the surface of the earth and due to increased levels of solar radiation and some of the free radicals that can be produced from that. Whereas travel by car can be stressful because perhaps you're not moving as much as you're used to, or you're putting your body into situations that are new new hotel rooms taking out of situations in which you're mentally comfortable and increasing stress or increasing your sympathetic nervous system, you know, kind of fight or flight type of response that way. So, in my opinion, travel is stressful due to multiple reasons, whether it be physiological variables or mental variables. But I think ultimately, rather than talking about why travel is stressful, I think it's more important to focus on some of the ways that you can mitigate some of that stress. And I certainly like using heart rate variability and then using any number of the stress relieving tools that come with pretty much anything that I just mentioned. The athlete, The Sweetpeat, the Mwave 2, or the Izumio app. They all have little biofeedback tools that teach you how to control stress and manage stress. And I think that anybody who travels a lot or is stressed out a lot or is working out a lot, would. Would benefit from having, you know, any of them. So.

Awesome. Okay, well, let's move to the next question from Kathy. Kathy says, Ben, I heard you mention that you've been swimming with a snorkel after a podcast guest said he uses one for training. I was in a bike accident not too long ago and fractured a couple of vertebrae. I get a little achy from the twisting motion of breathing while I swim. So lately I've been doing most of my swimming with a snorkel. I've noticed I have more feel for body position, but I've also found that I'm slower by about 5 seconds per hundred meter, which I find surprising. Perhaps I'm not rotating enough since I'm not breathing to the side. Any thoughts on that or additional advice on training with a snorkel?

Yeah, I have been training with this snorkel with the. I use the Finis swimmer snorkel.

Is that the one that goes like, sort of up between your eyes rather than off to the side?

Mm, exactly. It allows you to swim freestyle while you're breathing through a snorkel. And as Kathy kind of alluded to, it lets you focus more on your stroke technique, more on what your hands are doing underneath the water, without having to think about turning your head to breathe. And it still lets you move through full range of motion because of the way that the snorkel kind of just attaches to your head and sticks up straight out in front of you. So you can work on your body alignment, you can work on your stroke efficiency. And for example, one of the ways I'll use a swimmer snorkel is I'll use it in my warm up. Like, I'll get in, and my warm up will be 10 by 50 meters with my snorkel on. There are a few things to consider when it comes to finding that you're slower with a snorkel. One would be that fluid dynamics are kind of effective when you've got this big thing sticking out the front of your head, and that's enough right there to slow you down a little bit. So I wouldn't let that bother you too much. The other thing to think about is that when you're using the snorkel, you do have a little bit lower oxygen availability. It's not quite as bad as breathing through a straw, But I have noticed that my inspiratory and expiratory muscles feel like they have to work a little bit harder when I'm using that snorkel. Which to me is great, because, like Jess and I, in one of these episodes that we did while you were gone, we talked about this altitude training mask and how breathing through a smaller surface, or even breathing through pursed lips kind of forces your lungs to expand a little bit more and increases the surface area of your alveolar, which essentially can improve the strength of your inspiratory and expiratory muscles and your ability to extract oxygen from your lungs and into your bloodstream. And so I almost consider using my snorkel as not just a way to work on my form, but also a way to work on my oxygen availability. The other thing is that when you've got this thing attached to your head and you're swimming in that front position without breathing, breathing. I've noticed that you also tend to thrash in the water a little bit less. You tend to have a little bit less acceleration. It's almost like you swim a little bit more safely. And as counterintuitive as it might seem, the messier you swim, sometimes the faster you go, you know, the more your hand accelerates into the water the more you thrust your hips forward. And sometimes it's not quite as easy to do when you're swimming with a snorkel. So that might be another reason that you find that you swim slower when you swim with a snorkel. Snorkel. However, I think that the benefits outweigh any risks of you swimming a slower 100. If you're going to try to swim a fast 100, take off the snorkel and do speed work without the snorkel on. But do form work and do some lung training with the snorkel on. And I'm a fan of it. I'll link to the finis snorkel that I've been using in the show notes, but I've been using this thing for about eight weeks now and just toss it on about once a week. I gotta admit, I haven't touched a pool or touched any water since we got back from Thailand.

Me neither.

I just completely quit swimming for at least a month every year. I just stay away from the pool, stay away from that black line at the bottom of the pool. But up until that point where I quit swimming going into Thailand, I was using a snorkel about once a week, just kind of experimenting with it. And really the best way that I found to use it was just as a real focused way to warm up the lungs and warm up the stroke mechanics with like a 10x50 wearing the snorkel before the swim.

Well, and it sounds like Kathy isn't in the same boat as you or I. She doesn't sound like she's necessarily training for any races or anything like that. And so the achiness that she's getting in her neck from doing the twisting motion when she, when she tries to breathe and it's, it would be advantageous. Every once in a while, do some speed work until your neck starts to get sore and then just put the snorkel back on.

Yeah, yeah. So hopefully that helps you out, Kathy. Yeah.

All right. Now Trisha asks. I have neuromas in both of my feet that only bother me when I run. I've been seeing a podiatrist for about four months and have been getting a series of alcohol based shots. I also have custom orthotics for my running shoes. I've had some improvement from the shots but still have some discomfort. Surgery is my next option. And I wanted to know your thoughts on neuroma surgery, surgery and recovery. And if I could do both feet.

At once, you know, it probably wouldn't surprise you that I'm not a huge fan of going after surgery in this case, until you've tried some things other than just alcohol shots. Alcohol injections. Alcohol injections are just a form of prolotherapy. So you can inject, like, sugar water, you can inject specific amino acids, you can inject alcohol into an area. But these are all kind of alternative medical forms of prolotherapy where you're trying to increase inflammation in an area to enhance the healing response. So essentially, you're stepping up inflammation short term so that you can basically remove metabolic byproducts that might be contributing to inflammation or irritation in an area.

So by injecting that, you're sort of like angering the cells in that area so that they sort of fight back.

Yeah, it's mild amounts of irritation. Whereas surgical treatments might involve actually excising the neuroma and perhaps transferring some nerve tissue without cutting the nerve. It could be a little bit risky. And surgical complications can include not only some scars on your feet and some scar tissue formation, but also worsening of nerve symptoms and sometimes, like a numbness or always kind of having this weird feeling in your foot, like, almost like you walking around constantly with, like, a lump in your sock.

You know, we should probably talk about what a neuroma is. We sort of just glossed over that.

Yeah, that's true. It's just sensory nerve irritation in the bottom of your foot that's typically caused by nerve compression due to, like, arch tightness. It can be from, like, a collapse of the long arch in your. Your foot, putting a lot of pressure on the involved nerves. It can be due to poorly fitted shoes, too much time on your feet, weighing too much, wearing high heels or not very supportive shoes, using insoles that are too soft or too hard. But basically, the nerves in your feet get irritated, they get swollen, they get inflamed.

Some guys can grow, like, a bit of a tumor or growth.

Yeah. And a lot of times you can lose sensation between your toes, like, usually between your second and your third or your third and your fourth toes. And a lot of times you get, like, this constant burning sensation in the bottom of your foot. So pretty annoying thing. The first thing that I would consider, even before you go into prolotherapy, and especially before you consider something like surgery, would just be looking into, like, a metatarsal button or an orthotic that has a metatarsal relief pad or a metatarsal button built into it. And this essentially spreads the head of your metatarsal bones and allows for relief of that nerve pressure. And, you know, even if you've got a custom orthotic that a podiatrist made for you, it doesn't necessarily mean that they built in a metatarsal button into the orthotic. An example of, of like, there's a cycling orthotic made by Specialized. It's called the Specialized Body Geometry orthotic. And I had some issues with numbness in the bottom of my foot a couple years ago, and I switched to that orthotic and it relieved the issues. And I now use another. It's a Louis Garneau custom molded cycling shoe. And same thing, it's got a metatarsal pad built into it that keeps the heads of my metatars, metatarsals spread out and keeps me from getting like, that burning foot sensation after I've ridden my bike for a few dozen miles. So I'll link to a page on Amazon for you that shows you any number of different metatarsal pads, metatarsal gel cushions, metatarsal sleeves, and metatarsal orthotics that can relieve pressure on these nerves in your foot. But that's one thing that I would look into before I look into a pro or especially before you look into surgery. So that's where I would start. And then I would also definitely make sure that you're wearing properly fitted shoes and staying away from high heels and just being careful with the type of pressure that you put on your feet from that standpoint.

Okay, that brings us to our final question from Jim. And Jim says, hey, could you talk about in an upcoming podcast about what the prescriptions Prilosec for acid reference, reflux and Vivants for ADHD do to athletes? I'm mainly a road bicycle racer, but I do do athlon and triathlon every so often as well.

Yeah, I mean, the Prilosec, the acid reflux drug, and the Vivanse for ADHD are two completely different things. We should probably address them separately. Acid stopping drugs are not that hot for you. It probably doesn't surprise you to hear me say that, but there's four things that Prilosec or any acid inhibitor can do when you take it. The first thing that you need to consider is that you can get a lot of bacterial overgrowth in your stomach anytime that you decrease stomach acid, which is what an antacid is essentially doing. And when you get bacterial overgrowth due to low stomach acid conditions, that makes it so that you're not able to digest carbohydrates properly. And when you're not able to digest carbohydrates properly, they ferment in your digestive tract, and that produces gas. That gas causes pressure in your stomach, which essentially puts pressure up against your lower esophageal sphincter and allows acid from your stomach to enter your esophagus. Esophagus. And produces this vicious cycle of more heartburn. When you're using, ironically, an acid inhibitor.

Yeah, it sounds like it's doing exactly what it's supposed to not be doing.

Exactly. So it creates this vicious cycle. And bacterial overgrowth has a lot of other kind of nasty effects, too, in terms of creating a lot of the symptoms of GI distress and irritable bowel syndrome and things of that nature. Nature. So the other issue with shutting down stomach acid is you get impaired nutrient absorption. A lot of the breakdown and absorption of nutrients is reliant upon a certain range of ph in your stomach. And so if there isn't enough acid in your stomach, the normal reactions that are required to absorb nutrients become impacted. So, for example, when you eat food, your stomach is supposed to secrete hydrochloric acid, and that triggers the production of something called pepsin. And that's one of the enzymes that's required for you to digest proteins. So if you suppress your HCL levels through an antacid, you suppress your pepsin levels. So proteins don't get broken down into amino acids. And so that can lead to things like amino acid deficiencies. And interestingly, you know, I'm guessing that the listener asked this question about both ADHD and an acid inhibitor, because perhaps they're using both of these things. But amino acids are used for neurotransmitter production. And if you've got impaired amino acid absorption and impaired neurotransmitter production, that can be linked to depression and anxiety and insomnia and a lot of neural disorders, including adhd. So that's something to think about, about that. The fact that you're on both of these things may be related. So once these proteins that escape digestion actually enter your digestive tract, they can end up in your bloodstream, too. So your body can mount an allergic or an autoimmune reaction against undigested protein particles in your bloodstream because you didn't digest them in your stomach. There are a lot of other nutrients that. That whose absorption becomes impaired when you're on an antacid. Some of the main ones are iron, which obviously is very important for people who are exercising B12, which is very important for Your brain function and also your normal neuromuscular activity. So that also can affect your exercise capabilities. Folate, which is important for keeping your cardiovascular system healthy. So that's another one that can affect your exercise capacity if it's not getting absorbed properly because of antacid intake. Calcium is another one that can get impaired. When you're given an HCL supplement, for example, that brings your stomach acid back up, it can go hand in hand with improved calcium absorption. And then finally zinc, which is very important for hormone formation. It's a good testosterone precursor. And it's been shown that most antioxidants, acids, significantly reduce your absorption of zinc. So that's another. That's kind of a second thing to consider is not only bacterial overgrowth, but also impaired nutrient absorption when it comes to being on an antacid. Another important thing to consider is you might get sick more if you're on an antacid because the high acid environment of your stomach is one of the main defense mechanisms in your body. When the PH of your stomach is low, bacteria don't last very long. As the ph gets higher and higher, and as acid starts to disappear from your stomach, bacterial species, many of them, including harmful ones, can avoid acid in your stomach and start to thrive. And basically, a stomach that doesn't have enough acid is creating this environment that harbors potentially pathogenic bacteria because you've got this dark, warm stomach that doesn't have necessary acid in it. And a lot of times you get what's called bacterial overgrowth. And so you may find that you have risk of, like, giardia, salmonella, cholera. H. Pylori is another one that tends to be kind of common. And this stuff can not only result in GI distress and poor bowel function, but can also affect your. Your mood. And that's again, another reason that I suspect that if you're on a heartburn medication, it may be one of the reasons that you're also having to be on an ADHD medication.

Yeah, it'd be interesting to know which one came first.

Exactly. And then the final thing to think about is that one of the leading causes of what's called atrophic gastritis, which is a major risk factor for stomach cancer, is H. Pylori. And acid suppressing drugs can really worsen H. Pylori bacterial infection and increase your risk of stomach cancer. And so that's something else that you really want to be careful with. The other thing that you should consider here when it comes to exercise is that if you're getting acid into your esophagus. There is a significant drop in the ability of your lungs to take in and breathe out air. And that's the reason that a lot of doctors won't even put asthma patients on antacids is because it can significantly impair your lung function. And so that's something else to consider when it comes to exercise. So, obviously, a lot of issues here when it comes to being on an antacid, and I think we've discussed on the show before some of the ways that you can get rid of heartburn without actually going on ant antacid. But it's kind of sort of simple. What you want to do is reduce anything that could be potentially promoting bacterial overgrowth, which, remember, produces this gas and this pressure up against your esophageal sphincter, and also reduce anything that could be contributing to low stomach acid. The other things that you can do is replace stomach acid. You can replace digestive enzymes, you can replace a lot of nutrients that help out with digestive digestion and kind of restore your beneficial bacteria, your levels of beneficial bacteria in your gut. So essentially, we're talking about kind of like a gut healing protocol. I'll link to a lot of the stuff that I recommend to kind of heal your gut in the show notes. And I know the podcast is starting to get a little bit long, so in the interest of time, I'm just going to kind of gloss over a few of these things. But some of the stuff I would recommend would be controlling the amount of carbohydrates and the type of carbohydrates that you take take in. I would recommend that you try out something like a specific carbohydrate diet, which limits the type of carbohydrates that tend to cause fermentation and heartburn. And I'll link to a free book in the show notes that kind of goes over what the specific carbohydrate diet is and shows you how to start that. So a few of the other things that I would recommend would be that you look into getting on like an actual, as ironic as it may sound seem, an actual acid like HCl. I like an HCL with pepsin supplement that you can literally take in the early part of each meal. And that's just a capsule that you swallow that has both pepsin and HCL in it and will start to rebuild the healthy levels of stomach acid and the healthy levels of pepsin in your stomach.

HCl is hydrochloric acid, right?

Exactly, exactly.

That stuff's really powerful stuff.

Yeah. You don't need mice of it. And another way that you can stimulate acid production in your stomach is by taking herbs that are called bitters. And you can literally get, like, bitters, tonics that are like these liquid shots that you can use prior to consuming your meal and that can help out as well.

And they also go really well in cocktails.

That's great. In a cocktail. Yep. A little bit of bitters added to some Beefeater gin is. And an olive, preferably a blue cheese stuffed olive. Yum. But stay away from that until you get rid of your heartburn either way, because alcohol can contribute to that. So bad advice. Brock Down, Brock. And then also probiotics can really help with restoring proper balance of stomach flora. The other thing you may want to consider that your gut lining may be damaged and that can contribute to heartburn is getting on, like bone marrow broth, or if that's too time consuming for you to make, just buying like a gelatin supplement which you can mix up in water, that can have a similar effect in helping restore the mucosal lining in your stomach. So those are some of the. You know, I know I just went through all that stuff really fast, but I'll put a link to all this in the show notes as well as on the my list for this episode over@facebook.com bgfitness but those are some of the gut healing protocols that I would look into.

And actually, if you go to Endurance planet, I know Dr. Minkoff went really in depth one time about exactly this stuff. So if you did a search for acid reflux, probably on Endurance Planet, you'd find that as well. And he's quite a genius.

Yeah. Over@EndurancePlanet.com for sure. And then the other thing when it comes to the ADHD medication is that Vivance is basically a psychostim amulet. It falls into a class of amphetamines, and it's certainly an approved treatment for adhd, similar to an antiacid. There are a lot of side effects, from dizziness to nausea to anxiety and diarrhea to headache, insomnia. And there's also a very, very kind of addictive potential of this stuff in terms of. Of the potential effect on exercise. The main thing that I would be concerned about is cardiac dysrhythmia, which is abnormal electrical activity in your heart, which can cause sudden cardiac death if you're not careful. And that's one of the main issues with an amphetamine that I would want you to be really careful. About there was a really interesting study that came out last year, early last year, on treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder disorder with basically amino acid precursors. And this is something I just hinted at, that amino acid deficiencies can be associated with neural issues. And in this particular study, they were able to mitigate a lot of the effects of ADHD by using amino acid precursors, specifically precursors for dopamine and precursors for serotonin. And there are specific natural amino acid derivatives out there that can be synthesized into serotonin and dopamine. 5 HTP, L DOPA, L tryptophan and L tyrosine are the main neurotransmitters that are used in kind of natural neurotransmitter treatment for adhd. And there are certain supplements that have these particular components in them. And I'll put a link in the show notes, but basically there's one called Neurorepleat that's used to increase serotonin level levels. There's one called CIS Replete that's used to increase what's called catecholamine synthesis. And then there is one called L Dopa that you can use to improve your dopamine levels. And then you can also just take straight tyrosine and 5 HTP. The problem is that when you're experimenting with neurotransmitter therapy for adhd, it's very easy to create imbalances if you're not careful with this stuff. And so you could get, for example, too much serotonin or too much dopamine, and that can kind of create issues. So I would recommend that you work with someone who is licensed in this type of stuff when it comes to using natural neurotransmitter treatments for fixing this type of issue. Anybody who's been through what's called the Kalish method, and you can check that out over@kalishresearch.com but this is a guy who's really, really good at natural treatments for adhd. He has a practitioner program that physicians are able to go through. And I would be looking into a physician who's certified in the Kalish method to replenish neurotransmitter levels rather than playing around with this stuff yourself. If you just have a little bit of trouble with mild depression, stuff like that, a lot of times you can fix it just by using, for example, like some 5 HTP and some tyrosine. And in the show notes, I'll put some ratios and some links and stuff for you. But if you're going after a full on clinical condition, you may want to consider working with a certified practitioner to address these type of things.

We should probably drop in the little audio clip about Ben not being a doctor here.

Boom.

Put it Ben is not a doctor and the content provided on this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or healthcare or advice. Okay, back to it.

That's probably a perfect place to kind of end the discussion, but what I'll do is I'll put a link in the show notes to this study on treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder with amino acid precursors, if you want to check out exactly what they went into in that study. But it really kind of, in my opinion, beats the risk of drug dependence and some of the other risks of using an amphetamine to treat adhd. Anyways, speaking of neural issues, this weekend I'm going to be releasing a pretty interesting podcast I did with hypnotherapist named Chris Guyer. He's a hypnotherapist and a personal trainer who specializes in hypnotherapy for sports performance.

Did he make you act like a chicken?

He's going to hypnotize me next month and we're going to record it and release it on the podcast podcast. But for this first episode we just kind of talked about hypnotherapy and what it is, so it's pretty cool interview. So stay tuned. That's going to come out this Saturday. Make sure that if you get this in time that you get into the VIP Text Club by texting the word Fitness to 411247 check out. We talked about a lot of stuff on this episode, so be sure to check out the show notes@bengreetwldfitness.com episode number 222 and also the Miles list for this episode over@facebook.com bgfitness and if you realize that Brock completely sucks compared to my wife and you want my wife back because you don't like Australians.

Canadian, dammit. Canadian.

That's too bad because Jess is not coming back. No, seriously, we I'm talking to her about maybe doing an episode every now and again in the new year and kind of having like a little bonus episode for folks with Jessa. But we'll see. We'll see if that happens. For now though, Brock and his banjo are with us to stay. So thanks for listening folks. And until next time, this is Ben and Brock signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com get the inside edge from Ben Ben Greenfield.

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