#176: Dr. Leah Lagos and Joe Mazzulla: Control Your Heart, Conquer Your Stress
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And the one thing I say is, look, stress is going to happen. Let's expect it. Let's accept it. Even with training, you're going to have a stress response. But I want you to be in control of how long it lasts and be able to return to baseline as quickly as possible or as quickly as you need to be.

Welcome to The Knowledge Project, a podcast about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out so you can apply their insights to your life. I'm your host, Shane Parrish.

If you're listening to this, you're missing out. If you'd like access to the podcast before public release, special episodes that don't appear anywhere else, hand-edited transcripts, or you just want to support the show you love, you can join at fs.blog.com. Check out the show notes for a link. My guest today is Dr. Leah Lagos and Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla.

Leah Lagos is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in health and performance psychology and is known for her pioneering work in heart rate variability biofeedback. Dr. Lagos treats a broad range of disorders and performance challenges. Her expertise includes strategies to reduce anxiety, boost resilience to adversity, and enhance health.

Joe is the youngest coach in the NBA, and he's an advocate of Dr. Lagos' approach and an example of how performance psychology plays out in the real world. I've been talking to a lot of top coaches about performance and how we can do better, and one of the keys to clear thinking is managing your emotions, and this episode will help you. You'll change your narrative about stress, plan for it, and master it. It's time to listen and learn. ♪

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When I was thinking about where to start this, I think we need to start with what is HRV and why does it matter?

HRV, I believe, is a biomarker that everyone should understand and know. It is a biomarker of resilient change. So the larger your HRV, the more control you have over your autonomic response to stress before, during, and after a stressor. And so you can take someone who's top 1% of the world in what they do

And if they don't have the physiological control to operate at that top 1% consistently during stress, before the stress occurs, after it happens, they don't have that control. They're operating at a fraction of themselves instead of their best self.

HRV in and of itself, the science of it is we're looking at the time in between heartbeats. And more time is better. Less time shows a less resilient autonomic nervous system. Clinically, when a client meets with me, we use a different parameter than, say, the aura ring, which is looking at the heartbeats.

time interval between beats. And we're looking at, you know, there's something called resonant sinus arrhythmia. When you inhale, your heart rate goes up. And when you exhale, your heart rate goes down.

And we want these to be big ocean-like waves. And you take an athlete and they'll come in and, and those waves, their heart rate will go from like 40 to 100 and back to 40. But you take someone who was CEO of a company under stress and you see an HIV of like five, 85 to 90 and back to 85. And here you take someone so talented, but without that ability to

oscillate, they're not their full selves. So I look at that and that peak to trough ratio, the inhale, exhale, and the heart rate max to min is a clinically useful way to help explain heart rate oscillatory abilities to a client and for them to see in real time how this training impacts those oscillations.

In the absence of stress, is there like a default natural rate that we're born with? It's such an interesting question because everyone's looking for like the magic number. There's no magic number. And it very much depends on your body, your system, your experiences in life. There are some people just born innately with...

higher levels of HRV. They tend, it's interesting, Shane, they tend to be endurance athletes. I'll look at someone's heart and I'll say, do you run? And if you don't, you should. But more so than trying to find a magic number for HRV, you want to look at what your range is.

So you can do that in a variety of ways, tracking devices, elite HRV, or a ring, and starting to get an understanding of, I generally like to look at nocturnal HRV and tracking

the HRV on your lowest days and HRV on your highest days and then understanding, well, what could be causing that? So maybe your HRV on the highest day, according to the aura ring, is in the high 50s. But on your lowest day, it's 17. Whoa.

That's a huge difference in your body's ability to process the world, to connect to the world, to make decisions and perform at your peak. So then you want to understand why that's happening and begin to – it's interesting because you want to increase the HRV per se number, right?

but you want to decrease the disparity in between nights. So if I have an athlete who has a 17 one night and a 72 another, I want to understand why. We want to close that gap so that there's not so much variability in between nights and they're more consistently at a higher HRV. And is there a lot of data to suggest that athletes perform better when their HRV is less variable?

more variable. With athletes, we'll often see larger HRVs than the normal population because they're also doing things to push their heart, right? They're doing training, so forth. But for instance, golfers, you know, the increases in HRVs

can absolutely impact their fatigue level, their endurance. I've had golfers say to me on the PGA Tour at hole nine, Doc, I'm just not tired anymore. What's going on? And that's one of the really interesting impacts of HRV.

And did normal sort of things that people consume like alcohol or caffeine affect their HRV and how so? So alcohol has acute and chronic effects. It's really interesting. Every body has a different affinity for alcohol. So Shane, you may be able to have two glasses of wine and it doesn't impact your HRV, but the person...

across from you may have two glasses of wine and it decimates their HRV. And just understanding what the inputs are for your body is part of peak performance. So you, if you're someone who's

that we see that drinking two glasses of alcohol has a really large impact on your HRV, I'm going to say maybe you shouldn't be doing that during the week or while you're competing or making, let's say, training decisions. So we make some decisions together by understanding how the body responds to particular sensory inputs. So that's one. There is evidence, certainly, that chronic alcohol use is

chronically lowers HRV. And what's interesting is withdrawal, if someone is a heavy drinker, will also reduce HRV because it's showing the distress on the body. But that changes in time as abstinence occurs and the autonomic nervous system rebalances. So caffeine is an interesting one. And

Two cups of coffee for most people doesn't have a huge impact on heart rate variability such that if you're a performer and you have a competition, I wouldn't say that having two cups of coffee is really going to impact you. Having five cups or more seems to have an impact on that very day's performance.

Now, I've had people come in, Shane, that have low HRV and they're exceptional athletes. So what's the problem here? So I'll ask a series of questions. Sleep, alcohol use, food intake, caffeine. And sometimes there are people that self-medicate for ADHD with caffeine and they're drinking 12 or more cups of coffee because it helps them stay focused and locked in.

well there's a there's a negative impact on heart rate variability and that autonomic flexibility and how you actually at an automatic level process the world so we'll talk about that and there have been cases where i'll have that individual uh

you know, use other methods for self-medicating for ADHD along with an MD's recommendation and those sort of things so they're not sacrificing their HRV to be able to stay focused.

You mentioned sleep, caffeine, food intake. What are the other variables that you ask people about when they come into your office to better understand where they're coming from and what their baseline is? And then I want to talk next about the things that we can do to move on from that baseline and what things we control to maximize our peak mental and physical performance. Sleep.

is a big one. Certainly, HIV, high HIV is associated with better sleep. Low HIV is associated with conditions like insomnia and sleep apnea. Non-restorative sleep will negatively impact HIV. So there is this circular effect.

And, and so that's certainly a question people often want to say, I'm a, I can sleep five hours. I feel rested. HRV will tell you it really gives a robust and accurate number in terms of recovery. And I'm able to show people on the nights where they get five hours of sleep, let's say versus eight hours of sleep.

What happens to rest and recovery if we look at HRV as a metric of resilience? So it could be really, really helpful to have that kind of data.

The also interesting part about HIV and sleep, as people increase their HIV, a common sleep problem, and it's not insomnia or sleep apnea, it's just busy brain. They can't turn it off. And so you'll have CEOs that can't fall asleep because they're thinking, thinking, and that's what they're great at in the world. But if you don't have the ability to turn off your brain, you're

you don't have deep recovery and it will affect your REM sleep and even your deep sleep. This allows the body to turn off and it's not turning off to make you like you just came out of yoga. You're in control. When you need to be on, you can be on, but now you can be off when you need to be off. And that can be good too for people who have multiple wake-ups during the night because their mind is racing and that they're able to go back to sleep with

with some of the breathing. So talk to me a little more about the breathing. What is it that we can do specifically? You mentioned sort of turn it on and turn it off. What is it that we control that allows us to do that like a light switch almost? This process, it takes 10 weeks and I've done this for 17 years, Shane. I've sliced and diced it. I've had people call me from India. Can I please come, doc? I'll train with you for seven hours a day for 10 days and then go back. They say it doesn't work like that.

It's the chronic activation of what's called the baroreflex. The baroreflex is a reflex in your autonomic nervous system that controls heart rate and blood pressure. We identify a rate of breathing that strengthens this reflex. So think about it. As an athlete, you train every part of your body that has a muscle, but most people aren't training their heart, right?

we do calf raises we do arm raises why because with a certain amount of frequency we strengthen that muscle and we have control over that body part that's increased and you're able to do that so to speak with the baro reflex as you stimulate the baro reflex with resonant frequency breathing a rate that we identify in my office

But everyone has a different rate. It's generally between 5 and 6.5 breaths per minute, but everyone is slightly different. And we're able to maximize HRV on each breath. So

15 minutes, twice a day, 10 weeks, they've actually created a reflex where during stressful moments, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and helps to moderate. Well, that's kind of cool, right? Because now you have an automatic, automated response to stress. And in my training,

with elite performers, we do a 10-week protocol. The first four weeks is really focused on optimizing that baseline. So by the fourth week, I can see that you've strengthened the baroreflex. And what you would say to me is, gosh, I can feel like I just let go faster. I feel like the world, the things that used to irritate me, it's not that stress is gone, but I have more control over it.

And that's the first piece because what happens, the baroreceptors, when you have a moment, I was talking to Joe about a car ride he had yesterday into the city and you have these moments in gridlock, right? And what that does to most people is it creates a sympathetic state as it should. That's how the body is wired. But sometimes we stay in that state, right?

When the stressor is gone or even during the moment of stress, when we have to do something or make a decision or give a public talk, you want to be able to shift to homeostasis where the parasympathetic and sympathetic are balanced or even better. And this is what I teach, being able to optimize into a parasympathetic state.

And so the sympathetic is associated with fight or flight. The parasympathetic is associated with flow. And I wanted to find that it's not being calm. Okay. It's being open, engaged, aware, and able to be receptive to the needs of the moment. So if you needed to accelerate, you can, if you need to decelerate, you can, but you are in control. So for the people that can't work with you, what can they do at home to, to train their heart better? Um,

that'll make the sort of biggest bang for the buck, if you will? The first piece is identifying resonant frequency. It's the rate of breathing that maximizes the heartbeat oscillations. And you can use tools from elite HRVs, sensors, core sense is very good, Oura Ring.

can be used. And what you're looking for is the highest amplitude of changes when you breathe at these different rates. So you'll do five breaths per minute, 5.5 breaths per minute, six breaths per minute. I generally start at 6.5 and work my way down. And then once you identify the rate of breathing that has the highest amplitude of heart rate oscillations, you go on. Here's

Here's the trick. If you can't get a hold of feedback, physiological feedback, 90% of the time, the rate that is someone's resonant frequency is the rate that just feels good. So out of, out of, if you do six breaths per minute, 5.5 and five breaths per minute,

I'd have you try those three and for two minutes using a pacer could use Breathe Plus, awesome breathing, easy air. There's an assortment of breath pacers that you can set the timing for.

and then identify which one just feels most effortless. And then from there, you go through a process, you commit to breathing 15 minutes twice a day. I generally have my clients breathe in the morning upon waking and 15 minutes before breathing.

This is awesome for increasing deep sleep and helping with any type of sleep issues. We're just enhancing deep restorative sleep as well. And the first four weeks is really focused on consistent regular practice, adding in abdominal breathing,

And then we do things starting in week five, and I describe it in my book, to learn to actually navigate stress in the moment. So I'll give you one. It's a very simple example, but...

Everyone has experiences, Shane, and I'll ask you yours just as an example, an experience in your life that moves your heart. It's something that physiologically, when you think about it, produces a feeling of inspiration or gratitude or love. Can you think of a...

a moment in your life. And tell me just a little bit about that for just a minute. Oh, I think the one that came to mind is actually maybe quite sad, but it was inspiring in the Simtukin when I was holding my grandmother's hand as she passed away. Beautiful and moving and a moment of deep connection and something that

When you think about, I mean, even your voice changed, right? It had just a moving, I mean, I could feel the emotion. And so I have people pick about three of those, okay? Three different experiences that move their heart. Common ones or holding a baby for a first time.

for athletes, you know, winning their first trophy. Another one can be a nature experience. I had someone who looking at the stars was their amplifier.

And, and so anyway, so on the inhale, if you're breathing at six breaths per minute, four second inhale, six second exhale. And on the inhale, I'm having you connect to that feeling, that feeling chain of just deep, pure love with your grandma, that connection that just, just it transcends through time and the way it makes your heart feel.

And connecting to that, it's not a mental thing. It's not going through the mental conversation or what you're doing. It's getting to the feeling and on the inhale, connecting to it. And on the exhale, letting go of the rest of the world.

We can train the heart. The heart imprints experiences and we can train the heart to activate those experiences on demand. And then the next piece is being able to use specific experiences in specific moments of stress or to calm down or to change your physiological state.

And you mentioned the Oura Ring can be used for this. You mentioned another tool. I didn't quite catch the name of it. What other tools can people use to sort of monitor their... Sure. Elite HRV has something called CoreSense, where you put your finger in. And I actually have an app through Elite HRV that you can go through my 10-session program using their app.

If you download Elite HRV and just click on Dr. Lagos HRV. But they have, it's just a little sensor you can order online. I forget the cost, but it's reasonable in terms of these kind of gadgets and very accurate.

You don't have to use the physiological feedback all the time. In fact, I recommend not because people get obsessive and then they're not allowing their physiology to change because they're hypervigilant about the outcome. Using it from time to time, right?

once a week or once every few weeks can be really great. In my book, I recommend doing tracking every day for weeks one, four, seven, and 10, and then putting it away. So you're able to look at changes about every three weeks at your baseline level and when you breathe.

So, obviously, we want to optimize baseline HRV for each individual. But then there's a second piece, and this is really important for elite performers,

which is being able to shift your physiology in the moment from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state in just a few breaths. And so those are some of the things that we work on along with the breathing and layer in. There's another piece where I look at

training them to identify when they're in a fight or flight state versus a flow state. Well, why is that important? Because if you're going out to a competitive event or making a, let's say, a big decision about how to spend money or invest, you want to be doing that from a parasympathetic state, not a sympathetic one.

So there's a little bit of somatic awareness training that we do in my work with clients and then helping them to identify what state they're in and then being able to shift that state on demand.

And so you mentioned running, you recommended people run. What additional tools, aside from the breathing, is it sort of like when we eat or when we exercise, or is it specific types of exercise are better to sort of maximize our HRV than other types of exercise? Yeah.

So to clarify, sometimes someone will come in with just a really large HRV and they're not athletes. And then I will say, you're an endurance person. Do you run? If not, you should. But any kind of endurance sport will increase and maximize HRV. And along with the HRV, I like to work with a person to create...

essentially vectors in their ecosystem that lead to internal state changes. So I'll give you a few kind of fun examples. Sure, sleep maximization and finding the rhythm for sleep. You know, some people need nine hours, some people need seven. But when we track, we're able to see how...

different amounts of time impact sleep. There are things like looking at how eating within three hours before bedtime impacts sleep, looking at alcohol like we talked about use, caffeine use,

What else is interesting? Music, for some people, can really produce a heightened HRV effect. And, you know, Joe and I can talk with you later about some of the things that we did along with the breathing to maximize HRV in real time for specific performance states. But you have to find certain songs. Not every song will amplify HRV. My friend Josh Waitzkin

Eminem is the song without breathing, like gets his HRV on fire. And so I try and find that with different performers, the songs that move their heart. There are other pieces when you monitor someone's HRV daily, you ask kind of about their daily routine and habits. I'll give you a personal one. I love to monitor it.

my HRV from time to time. And I found a really curious effect. On the days I took my daughters to school, my HRV was higher to 1 p.m.

It naturally moved my heart. But having the data that made further supported and, you know, and, you know, I was taking the girls to school anyway. But it was just really interesting to see the impact on my physiology. Everyone has these pieces. So other pieces that people respond to from behavioral change is eating.

eating at timed intervals. So there's a lot of people that are adhering to intermittent fasting. Okay, for some people, I see HRV increases, but not all. And in fact, what I see more frequently is that when we time

The expected time that you eat, irrespective of what you're eating, but that you eat generally at the same time, let's say seven o'clock, one o'clock, six o'clock, five days a week, the body feels safe. It can predict the inputs and it creates a sense of safety. And I always say safety is a precursor to flow. Safety in the body, also that feeling of safety maximizes HRV.

That's excellent. One of the things that I was excited about today was often these conversations are theoretical, but we have Joe here. And Joe, I'm curious, what led you to HRV and to start working with Dr. Lagos? You know, when I got the job, I understood and realized the arena that we're in, the variables, the physical, the mental, the emotional, spiritual variables that

are present in every game, especially as you head towards the playoffs. And so, you know, it being my first year, you know, as a head coach, I wanted to work on myself. I wanted to build an awareness of myself, how my body, how my mind, how my heart reacts to stress so that I could be a precursor for our team, so that I could be the spearhead for what our team needs at that particular time. And I had never been in a playoff situation, and I knew it was a high, high level

of everything, stress, anxiety, physical, mental pressure. So I thought breathing and HRV was how I could kind of bring myself to peak performance to then try to lead that for the team.

Was there a difference between how you felt before and after your training? Oh, sure. And I think, you know, Doc mentioned something of like, I think as performers or leaders and when we're in decision making processes, for me personally, I always felt like I had to act, quote unquote, calm or always had to be a certain way in order to make good decisions or you can't make decisions if you're not

And what I learned and something we really started working on was the oscillation process, you know, the ability to fluctuate your heart rate.

so that you can operate under different levels of stress. And then when you do get into those levels of stress, how quickly can you recover back down? And so it really opens up my mind to it's not about being one way. It's about how can you manipulate your environment? How can you manipulate the momentum? How can you fluctuate your energy in order to have a positive effect on the environment around you?

Can you talk to me a little bit more about that? You mentioned environment and momentum as two of the variables that you want to have an impact on because they determine behavior in a way. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, for me personally, the beginning of the year, as you're trying to figure it out, you feel change.

for lack of a better term, you can feel what you're giving off, the energy that you're giving off or the you can feel the momentum of the game going a certain type of way. And, you know, as I got a little bit more experience this year, I was able to see how I can affect that, you know, through my breathing, through my awareness. And so, you know, whether there was moments of the proper time to,

act a little bit outside of yourself or if you had to oscillate and to get a little aggressive, if you had to in the aggressive moments be a little bit calm. And how can you just fluctuate into different levels of energy that can maybe spearhead a small run, that can maybe spark energy, that can maybe change the momentum? And so using that, how you present yourself on the sidelines, how you operate during a time off. So all these little areas of oscillation and

opportunities for momentum all came back to breathing, you know, because you're able to keep yourself at a baseline. You're able to build an awareness. You're able to build a connection to your body and mind. And you know exactly, you know, how you can operate during each of these different times. And then you start anticipating them. Like you can start seeing those moments ahead of time, preparing yourself for those moments. So walk me through that a little bit. Like take me back game seven, Miami Heat.

The first few minutes of the game, your best player gets injured. Are you thinking in that moment about breathing? How are you managing? Let's take it back even further. And again, I'm by no means an expert at this yet. I'm still learning a ton. So there was moments even during this offseason, there's been moments where I'm like, man, I could have...

I could have worked through that better. So we go to the beginning of the season and what I started to feel personally was like in these moments of decision making in these moments of opportunity, you go back to the, you know, fight or flight. For me, it was like fight, flight or freeze. Like you just kind of get into situations where you don't do anything, you know, where

It may be analysis by paralysis or you have four or five options and you don't know which option to pick and you end up not picking one, which is also a decision. Right. And so at the beginning of the year, when you're you know, you're working through all these variables, you're working all through all these experiences and situations, you're trying to figure out what is the best option.

mindset or approach towards that situation, but you end up not doing one. And so as we started to work, I was able to get away from those. And there were a few games in the beginning of the year where it's like, I felt like I could have helped the energy and the momentum of the game by oscillating if I knew how to at that time. I just wasn't there yet.

And so as the season goes on, there was more few games where I was like, man, OK, I can feel this. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to I'm going to have this conversation or I'm going to use this time out or I'm going to call this player. I'm going to, you know, strike this chord with a player or, you know, I'm going to use the ref in this situation. I'm going to use one of my assistant coaches at a time out and you start learning how to.

you know cultivate that learning how to manipulate that and then you know in the playoffs I had a much better feel of my physiology of my body mind awareness doesn't mean it was right all the time it doesn't mean I made the right or best decision but what I felt you know through the the year of us working together in the 10 weeks and just my experiences of ups and downs was like I felt on that sideline I had the ability to oscillate I had the ability to

navigate the momentum and the energy of the team, of the arena, of the game, and trying to come up with the best decision possible. So when you say oscillate, do you mean sort of like stop negative momentum or is it to amplify positive momentum? What does oscillate mean in that context? I think it can be both, right? I think it can be both. And a perfect example was game seven of the Philly series.

So the game seven of the Philly series, I think we're down 35-28 in the first quarter. And we call a timeout, and I just walk out to half court.

And, you know, those were the moments that at the beginning of the year I was a little bit scared of because like what did it show? I didn't have the emotional intelligence that I showed. But it was a it was a predetermined act to to grab back the momentum and to grab the energy of the team and to to oscillate to a certain point where the people around you could feed off of that. And, you know, I think that was a small piece that I felt like our players were able to

connect with me and we were able to kind of change the momentum of that. So like, you know, opening and finding small, you know, abilities to do that because as soon as right after you do it, you got to come back and then you have to have a technical

approach to a timeout and so you have to you know bring your heart rate down you have to oscillate back down to baseline and so that's like an example and do you use this with your players too is it something that you've sort of talked to them about without maybe getting into the specifics of hrv but just in terms of oscillating moments yeah i mean i think just the conversation in general uh i think just understanding the importance of breathing you know i think

for athletes and really just people that are in. It's not even about athletes for me personally or coaching. It's about people that are in that are trying to be peak performers and high level athletes.

stressful situations that have to make decisions over and over again. You know, in a basketball game, you have to make a thousand decisions within a game. If you're a CEO, you may have to make a hundred decisions. So it's more about what's our body and mind like at the point of decision-making under stress. And that's kind of the, the,

my passion, you know, being in, you know, in the NBA and in professional sports, it's like, can we open our mind to different things that are having an impact on our performance and the ability to make it better? And breathing is one of them. You know, you can, at stressful moments, you can really feel if you're breathing at the proper rate or like shooting, like Doc said, if you're holding your breath, you know, like that, there's tendencies, feelings,

for people when they get to a stressful moment to hold their breath, which then tenses their body, which then, you know, doesn't allow them to make the proper decision. Then you have people that are able to oscillate. And so I think it's just opening up that space of peak performance, you know, and how you can work at that. What sort of things did you do before a game to maximize your HRV? You know, I think the two biggest things, and I'll go to this side first, and then we can have a deeper conversation, was music.

And the other part I started to realize was like, I think we're on autopilot about how the things in our environment really affect our physiology. We just don't know all the time. We're not aware of it. And for me, one of those was music.

And so, you know, music is a tool that you're constantly being surrounded by, whether you're working out, whether you're working, whether you're driving. What I didn't realize was how certain songs can have an impact on my heart rate, can have an impact on my stress. And so just by listening to a song subconsciously, you're putting your body into a different level of stress than you would even realize. And then that may have an effect on a decision that you make 45 minutes later.

And so one of the cool things that we got to with our biofeedback was like, we made a playlist of songs that keep me in a flow state.

that keep me at the level that I need to be in, that give me the opportunity to oscillate. They don't put me in a sympathetic state. They put me in the ability to be in a parasympathetic state. And so it was a list of like five to eight songs. And I got to the point where that's what I was doing an hour before the game, was just kind of listening to that music, putting my body and mind in the right space for the game. And I think the second piece of that was recovery.

which I think is something that is huge, you know, for our environment because, you know, we play –

late, late into the night. We're in an arena where the lights are on, it's bright. Your eating habits are much different because of the schedule of the game. You may not have dinner until 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night. You may not have lunch until three o'clock because you're sleeping in to travel late at night. And so the other piece that we really wanted to attack was like, how can I recover my body to keep my HRV at a certain level to where

You know, I'm standing in the middle of an arena for three and a half hours with all this light and it's my body doesn't recover. I'm not able to get to bed till 132. And, you know, I'm in this state. How can I get my body to a parasympathetic state by nighttime so that I can get, you know, even if I'm getting five hours, how can I get the best five hours?

So like those two were really the components that we attacked. What was that routine? Like you get back to the hotel room or did it start before the hotel room in order to maximize that rest period that you had, whether it was five hours or eight hours? It started kind of right after the game. Really, I kind of met at the point where now we're like my residence is four and six out. So I have the ability to kind of just do that whenever I feel like.

you know, I'm in a certain state. And so that kind of happens a little after the game. I wasn't perfect with it. You know, if it was a big game, I would still go out and have a glass of wine and have dinner, but at least made me think and build an awareness. Like you get home,

You take a hot shower to be able to bring your body back down, go through a stretching routine. I saved my 15-minute breathing routine for after the game so I was able to get your body there. And then just what you eat, so steamed vegetables, stuff like that. So going towards a little bit more of a diet that would help me not have a negative impact on my sleep right after.

there's a lot of scientific things there's a lot of technical things that hrv helped me with but i think the piece that i wasn't expecting it was how it changed my heart how it changed my emotions how it changed how i experienced love uh i think that had the biggest impact that i didn't know it was going to have i got into it for more of a

you know, a athletic standpoint, peak performance standpoint. How can I be better on the sidelines? How can I be better as a coach? And it ended up making me a better person along the lines and really just connecting with love. Can you double click on that a little bit and go deeper? I want to hear more about that. Yeah, I mean, I think we started kind of going to that towards the end of the season and into the playoffs. And, you know, we started just kind of saying, like, when do you feel like

at your best, you know, when do you feel at your most flow state? What are some of the things in your life that kind of make you who you are? And as we would go through our breathing routines and she talks about, you know, how we would do our visualization and what kind of connect my heart to. I know you mentioned your grandmother. The two things I was able to connect my heart to was my dad passing and then my relationship with my wife and kids. And like, you know,

for me initially it was like i don't necessarily i love but i don't feel the love i can't connect to the love i know it's there it's an action but it's not yet a feeling or an emotion it's more of just an action and like can we shift that a little bit to where you know i can express myself the way

My mind is telling me I should, you know, and how can we do that through the heart? And so a lot of our visualizations came into like my best moments with my wife, my best moments with my children, my best moments with my dad before he had passed and what he's done for me since he's passed and how I was able to connect to those things. And, you know, with the breathing, it like forces you it forces you to sit in it.

that love that you have for your wife. And you got to sit in it for 15 minutes and you have to feel it and you've got to embrace it. And then you have to let it go and then you have to bring it back. And then it forces you to just sit in the moment, which for me, healed my heart in some areas and opened up my heart in other areas. There's a science behind that, Shane. And the science from my perspective is this is a pathway for emotional integration.

So as someone increases their ability to operate from a parasympathetic state on demand, meaning you can be open, receptive, you can let go. It's as if the body says, great, now I can feel more deeply because there's nothing to fear. And so at the same time, you know,

Joe was taking more risks on the court, so to speak, making calls that he wanted to make more quickly and without hesitation.

That abundance of love for his wife, his kids. And I mean, it is so clear and so awesome from a, from a kind of physiological impact or his dad and being able to connect to those moment by moment and let them go. It harnessed and unleashed it like unlocked him. So we think of, you know, love is a soft emotion. Not at all. This is, this is about love.

Being able to be really connected and kind of dance along the emotional spectrum to empower you in each and every moment without restriction. I'm curious if, I mean, love is a great example. Did it have any impact on how you...

had developed relationships with your players, with other coaches, or even family members who might not be in the same category as your wife per se? Yeah, I mean, I think for me to get to the love, I had to first get through self-expression.

And, you know, I, you know, you talk about taking risks on the court. Like I had to take risks in life emotionally, which is something that I don't necessarily do all the time. And that's where the breathing and the HRV kind of helped me with that. And so like, you know, it all goes back to when you get into these, this arena is like, how do you self express? You know, like how do you express yourself? How do you express what you're feeling? How do you have an impact on the people around you? And so like this, this,

Once I was able to, you know, quote unquote, unlock and you can just...

you know, feel the freedom to self-express, it leads to that love. And then it leads to that taking risks. And then it leads to, yes, you try to, you're able to connect more with people. You know, I'm not saying I'm the best at it by any means, but I felt the ability to just be more empathetic. I felt the ability to just kind of go to where that person was. You know, when you go from the transition of where I was to where I am now, as far as that is like, a lot of it is like, how quickly can you make yourself comfortable?

in those moments. So it definitely just kind of helped me understand myself better to where I could be more authentic. So walk me through in practice how that played out. You guys mentioned earlier a conversation that you sort of got into traffic yesterday. Well, I think for practical, I did my breathing session before the game. I had my playlist. And she had mentioned doing small resonant breathing before every timeout. So we have 14 timeouts every game.

And so I started to ask like, how many of those are on autopilot? How many of those are you like bringing yourself back down to a certain level? How many of those are you aware to like what your team specifically needs at that moment? Maybe it's a time out of nothing. Maybe it's a time out of a little bit aggression. Maybe it's a time out of a tactical conversation. So getting to that three to five of resonance breathing, like as soon as the time out started to then I was able to kind of, you know, put myself in the proper space, you know, to make the best decision.

Leah, I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about mastering sort of shifts in momentum and oscillation and the relationship between those two, perhaps with environment mixed in there too. Being able to know when to engage or not engage is such a, such a

common plight. And it could happen to an elite athlete. It could happen to someone in business. It could happen to someone in home life. Do I go all in with intensity or do I stand back and just do nothing?

Um, and this becomes a process by virtue of gaining control over your physiology to be able to do that, to be able to pause things that used to be automatic and say, is that what I want to do? Uh, right now, the mastering shifts in momentum is, is a piece of that. So it's

being able to recognize the kind of internal state. Some people can be really intense and on fire, but I mean, you take an NBA game of three hours and, and, and, you know, there are, there are oscillations in that, um,

time and being really clear on when the oscillations are occurring and being able to catch it sooner to intervene. And sometimes it's breathing. Joe talks about the power of three. He would take four and six out, focusing on a desired state on the inhale and letting go of the rest of the world. But there can be others too. And sometimes it's connecting with another person. It could be a spouse. If you're a coach, it could be a player that you're really close to.

There are other ways to move your heart. Oscillation in the moment as well. So that ability to master momentum and being really attuned to that internal state to make the decision on whether to engage or disengage, I think is really important. And it's interesting how much our physiology controls decisions. We think of decision-making as such a mental process, but your physiological state is

prior to making that decision and even during making that decision will impact several different pieces. One, it will impact the kind of context you see. If you are in a highly sympathetic state, you are much more likely to be myopic.

Okay. You're in, you're in a survival state. And by virtue of survival, it's like one track and, um, and the body intensely, um, restricts blood flow. And there are physiological reasons. You're just one kind of one track minded by,

But really, in these kind of critical situations, whether you're on a basketball court, you're making training decisions, decisions about life, you want that cognitive dexterity to seamlessly look at different options and analyze what's best in the moment. That actually comes from blood flow and oxygen to the brain. So it's really interesting from a science perspective.

my colleagues at Rutgers looked at what happens to the brain during resonant frequency breathing. And what they found through MRIs was something called vasovagal constriction. So during stressful moments, the blood vessels would constrict to shunt blood flow and oxygen to the brain. Well, makes sense why you would have myopic thinking then.

And with the resonant breathing, what they found was the diameter of blood flow, or excuse me, of blood vessels was larger. It stayed open, much more like the baseline state. So you were much...

more likely to not have a cognitive manifestation of stress, that myopia. And so I'll have decision makers that are world leaders or CEOs or people that run hedge funds say to me, I'm in my most creative place. I can just kind of seamlessly see different things as opposed to just

Just having one answer. And that's the part from a decision-making and cognitive perspective I love about this process. It doesn't happen instantly. It happens around week seven. So if you are going through this process, weeks one through four, you optimize your baseline. By week four, you start to feel the significant ability to let go and relax.

But by week seven, the cognitive changes are happening. Why? There's a baroreflex game, okay? The way your autonomic nervous system at baseline is moderating blood pressure and heart rate in response to the rest of the world is much tighter and much more precise. And then with about three to four weeks of compounded practice, the 15 minutes twice a day, and then meeting with me for the training,

my clients start to experience the cognitive gains around week seven. The cognitive gains are increased focus, increased creativity, increased authenticity, and increased cognitive dexterity. And that dexterity is the part that people from many walks of life say is the most unexpected but most appreciated part of this process. When you were talking about how your physiological state affects decision-making, for me, that spoke to sort of we are animals, right?

But what separates humans from other animals is that we have the ability to reason. So we don't just react, but our default state is almost to react, right? Fight or flight, call it what you want. But most animals just instinctively respond to a situation without reasoning about it. And it sounds like the blood flow to our head, the scientific sort of, um,

element of this, but also just the breathing and centering yourself in the moment. And I want to tie this to that gives us more reasoning ability, but it also gives us more focus, which is really interesting because basketball players, for example, I bet you everybody on the Celtics bounces the ball the same number of times before they shoot a free throw. It's a ritual. There's like a ritualistic element around the game.

John McEnroe, you know, he used to bounce the ball the same number of times before he served it.

What I feel like people are doing in that moment is using that ritual to calm down, to center themselves. The last play doesn't matter. Could have been your best play. It could have been your worst play. But all that matters right now is this moment, the shot. And that ritual is what brings people back. And it sounds like, Joe, for you, it's that breathing going four in, six out. That's the ritual to bring yourself into that moment.

Walk me through where I'm wrong with that and where you think I might be right. No, I mean, that's 100% right. That's where you can recenter yourself, especially when there's a stoppage of play. It goes back to what Doc was talking about, the cognitive dexterity and the ability to handle transitions. And the game is you're constantly transitioning. You're transitioning from offense to defense. You're transitioning players. There's runs within a game.

You have to make decisions that affect transitions. And so like, how can you just make the best possible decision at the best physiological state and then do it again a second later, 10 seconds later? And so what the timeout does for me is it has the ability to recenter yourself, get yourself back to baseline, open up your mind for cognitive dexterity, your focus, study the transitions of the past,

And then also anticipate the transitions of the next block of the game where you can have a positive impact, where you may have had a negative impact on it. And so like that breathing is a huge piece to that. But it's also not necessarily just done during the timeout. It's done during a free throw or it's done during the game. And I just keep going back to like the cognitive dexterity. It's like you have the ability to just see more, to focus and to instinctually make decisions.

a decision over and over again. There is an impact, and I hear it often from clients on risk taking. The assessment of risk seems to be more precise, gradually more precise without the cost meaning of that sympathetic activation that people can, if they need to, activate. But they also, as Joe was mentioning,

they have the dexterity to look at if this is a real risk, what can I do instead? It's a multi-strategy process and it's happening really fast. So there's something I think happening in the amygdala as a result of an activation through the 0.1 Hertz of breathing of the brainstem. So there's a circuitry and more research needs to come out, but it's fascinating to

The assessment of risk, the ability to take more calculated and intentional risk, and the ability to see other opportunities that one might not see if you're in that sympathetic only state. One of the things that we had sort of talked about before is how

We can use this training to change our self-narrative. I'm a big believer in the fact that the story we tell ourselves about ourselves is the most powerful story in the world. And while telling yourself a positive story doesn't guarantee a good result, telling yourself a negative story almost inevitably leads to disaster.

Can you walk me through how we can use this to change our self-narrative? These are all physiological processes at the very core.

And sure, there's mental layers to how you see yourself, how you interact with the world. But at a physiological level, Shane, that ability to inhibit negative self-talk, inhibit noise, inhibit fear is physiologically mediated where you can choose it.

And so the concept of, oh, just think positive or have positive self-talk is very hard for even the most elite of performers under high pressure if they don't have physiological control. When you have more ability over how your heart responds, how your brain responds, your level of muscle tension, your galvanic skin response, these are kind of global physiological parameters, but you have greater control over those such that

You're not reacting in those ways without wanting it. You are able to make changes in how you speak to yourself. And so I...

I can say to someone before they've gone through this that you having more positive self-talk affects dopamine secretion, okay, which you need for focus and motivation, especially during a, you know, a three-hour game, whether it's golf or basketball or so forth. But they just, they may not be able to do it if their heart reacts or doesn't.

They have panic that they can't control and their physiological disequilibrium then dominates how they talk to themselves. So once they're able to have control over that ability to be in physiological equilibrium or even better, that parasympathetic dominant state, they also get control over the narrative they say to themselves. And it is such an important shift in

And it's so it's such a beautiful kind of circle, right? The way we speak to ourselves, the way our body responds, but they interact with each other. So once you have more control over how your body responds, then you have more control over your self-talk that then feeds in to how your body further feels.

So it can be really, really interesting. You know, people talk about having self-compassion, but they say, I just don't know how to do it. The first place I would advise is to start with training your physiology and particularly heart rate variability, because you can gain control over your mind through your heart and, and, and training those heart oscillations.

Are there any other, you said start with HRV, what are the other sort of physiology things that we can do to sort of put ourselves in a better state? So there are moment by moment things like movement. You could do 20 jumping jacks and your physiology is going to shift. You can listen to music. Some people self-isolate and find a place where there's no noise and it's almost like a little cave that feels really safe. And so my clients will identify things

some of those tools that beyond just breathing help to shift their physiology quickly in a moment to get them back to baseline. And the one thing I say is, look, stress is going to happen. Let's expect it. Let's accept it. Even with training, you're going to have a stress response, but I want you to be in control of how long it lasts and be able to return to baseline as quickly as possible or as quickly as you need to be.

So do you advocate having a plan or I guess maybe Joe, a better way to put this into practice is do you have a plan for stress during the game? Like you obviously expect it. There's thousands of people watching you. There's millions of people on TV watching you. There's bright lights. There's all these players. How do you think about that going into a game? What do you do? Is it formalized? Like I have a plan for stress. Here's how I'm going to deal with it. Or is it, these are recurring moments of stress that tend to come up in games where

And based on that pattern, now I know how I can better control those moments. Yeah, I think it starts before the game. Just getting your body into the proper space, get your mind into the proper space. But the word that really comes up for me is just being malleable. It is, you know, HRV kind of allowed me to be more malleable. I have an understanding that like, yes, there's going to be stress, but it's going to look differently now.

at different times, but it's going to be there. And so how can we get our body, mind and heart valuable to the point where it can handle that opportunity when it comes? Because you don't want to put yourself in a box to where it's like, OK, it's going to be this. And I have I have these I'm going to do this when this happens. Well, that might not happen.

And so like, that's the word for me is like, you just be malleable, you know, be in a flow state, have the ability to, you know, oscillate, um, have that cognitive dictionary. Like, so it's more of the plan of understanding there's going to be different kinds of stress at different times. And then how can we just approach it, you know, based on how we put our physiology in the best possible state to handle it at that time. Yeah. It's almost like you're, I'm a huge fan of positioning and your position before you're in the moment, uh,

often dictates what happens in the moment. And it sounds like this is another element that we can control somewhat before we reach that point to put ourselves in the optimal state to handle whatever the world throws at us. We kind of got into it a little bit throughout the year and it's like trauma. There's obviously like trauma, first of all, I learned there's different levels of it, right?

Right. And so there's obviously like major traumatic things that people go through and that we're empathetic towards that. But then there's just the trauma that we have yet to heal ourselves. Right. And so you went you mentioned something about like the story we tell ourselves. And what I learned through HRV and going through this process was like there's so many traumatic experiences that we've all had early in our life that we haven't healed yet.

And those end up becoming the story we tell ourselves. At least that's how it was for me. It was like some of the stories I tell myself were other people's voices based on the trauma that I was involved with younger in life. And then I just haven't healed through it yet. I haven't given it the space and the time to. And so, you know, during our training sessions, when you had to sit through the love, you had to sit through. But you also had to sit through some of the trauma. We went down that path.

And that's where I was able to reshift, you know, self-talk. And it kind of started with like, I don't, she mentioned self-compassion. I have, I have like zero of that. I'm maybe up to like 10%, but I am really bad when it comes to like, you know, being compassionate toward yourself. And like, we got to the root of like myself, my lack of self-compassion comes from the trauma that we left open from earlier in our lives. So let's go back there. Let's sit in that,

in that feeling, in that emotion, and let's heal through it. And then that will end up leading towards the compassion that you have for yourself. Because as much as we say we're the story we tell ourselves, I think we're the story of all the traumatic, good and bad experiences that we've had earlier in life that we just haven't dealt with yet. Beautiful. The imprints of our life experiences, both the beauties and the traumas are all within us and create a

responding to the world that shapes us and understanding what they are, both the triggers and the amplifiers, and then being able to sit with them as opposed to run from them and feel like you can handle them because you have something that allows you to feel deeply and also let go when you need to.

lets you integrate these experiences so you can harness them as energy and fuel and passion as opposed to compartmentalize them. And it's so fascinating how often people just want to avoid and compartmentalize and how much energy is tied up in just pushing it down.

And then there's this unlocking where you feel the experience and you feel the ability to integrate, to sit with it. And it's not in a way that terrorizes. It's a way they're usually something I call a heart clearing. And it happens around week four time and time again, because that's when very reflex gain can be measured. It's interesting, isn't it? That as the autonomic nervous system measurably amplifies its ability to be more precise and

any kind of threads that want to be integrated release itself and there can be you know just an outflow and it it just happens once maybe twice of emotion but it's an integrative experience as as opposed to one that's terribly uncomfortable or or or disarming and and allows people

to feel what they've gone through and then harness it into a different experience. So the trauma pieces is really interesting and can happen to anybody.

I, you know, talk therapy is, has been regarded as a, you know, a way to go through trauma with mixed results. EMDR has that physiological component, but HRV, there's this natural process. People don't often come in saying, I need to heal from trauma. They say, I want to be a better performer, but healing from something in the past is one of the steps along the

Because that's getting in the way of being a better performer. In terms of optimizing, you take someone with Joe's innate, you know, just talent and being at that talent 99% of the time over and over and over, irrespective of the circumstances or the inputs and getting through things that immobilize people.

a person or us based on the past is part of that. Maybe this is a silly question, but how do we know when that trauma helps us? And how do we know when it hurts us? That's not a silly question at all. I mean, that was the question I had for, you know, doctor in the process was like, one, I'm building an awareness to the fact that the trauma is having an effective

is it a positive or a negative? And then where is it affecting you and how do you navigate that? You know, and a lot of it comes down to, to that. And so like, I'll give you an example. Like this job means more to me than anything, you know, one, because I'm from New England, but two,

I got hired by the Celtics. I was an assistant coach in the same month that my dad got diagnosed with brain cancer. And so like these two, this job is tied together by like a strong positive emotion and a very strong negative emotion. And then what I realized was like, I never actually really dealt with the trauma of that. And so I, and when I ended up becoming into the head coaching and you start to feel different things and you start to learn more about yourself. And as we got into the process, I was like, damn,

This is having a direct effect on this. And I haven't really dealt with this like I thought I have. OK, we need to go back and like, how do we deal with this? This trauma, how do we deal with this emotion? How do you deal with this? You have to bring it back out. And then once you bring it back out, you have to let it go. But like, you know, especially throughout the second half of the season, you know, that that became like.

this job is tied into this and it's bigger than all this. And like, how do we just navigate that, you know, into self-expression, into oscillation, into a positive? How do you navigate all that? So that's kind of an example of like us going back to a traumatic experience. Where is it having an impact on me? And then how do we move that forward? It's pretty cool, actually. I never thought I was going to.

get that deep. But it really, you know, I got into it to become a better coach and it made me a better person. There's a final question that I always ask. It has nothing to do with HRV, but I want to ask both of you, what does success mean to you? I think it changes. I think it always changes. But for me personally, as bad as I want to win and as important as, you know, winning is, I think it comes down to is like, how consistent can you be?

How consistent can you be in the things that you're trying to achieve towards on a daily basis? How consistent can you be as a person? How consistent can you be in your career as a parent, in your marriage? For me, I just try to focus on consistency and I try to be the same, if not a better person than I was a year ago. And constantly finding small things in your life to reinvent.

uh one of the things i like to do is pick a word you know um whether it's for a year whether it's for six months and use that word to have it affect every area of my life

to where I can just try to be better. And so that's kind of the definition for me is just how consistent can you be in your approach towards improvement and learning. - I look at success from an autonomic perspective and what it,

Manifest says is success, right? Joe's concept of consistency and performing as your best self consistently over time, irrespective of the circumstances, but the state, the physiological state to get there.

I see as openness, I see as attunement to those shifts in momentum and staying nimble no matter what life brings you, staying nimble and being able to also live. It's been awesome. Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Shane. Great to talk with you. Thank you. Thanks for listening and learning with us. For a complete list of episodes, show notes, transcripts, and more, go to fs.blog.com.

or just Google The Knowledge Project. Until next time.