Unlocking Your Health Potential: The Power of Heart Rate Variability and Wearable Technology with Greg Elliott

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  0:04  
Hello, and welcome to Your Health Moment podcast. I'm your host Max Sturdivant better known as Dr. Fitness. On this podcast, I want to give you the tools to start, continue and never give up on your journey towards health. Now, whether you struggle with your weight, eating the right food, hydration, exercise, or even time management, you're in the right place, and I'm here for you. Now, let's dive right into this episode. 

I'm really happy to be here today. And the next guest actually kind of said, You know what, I'm glad you're doing what you're doing. So that's kind of helpful because people that do wellness, I mean, we really do it because we have a passion for it. And my next guest is definitely in that same boat. Mr. Greg Elliott is going to be my guest today. Now Greg is on a mission to educate and inspire everyone to take hold of their own health and to take hold of their well being so that people can live a long and healthy and happy life, you know, as a health care practitioner, and long time thought leader in the area of HR V. Now, a lot of people probably won't know what that is heart rate variability. Greg put all of his knowledge to into his practice. And besides leading a very busy, busy life as an osteopath, entrepreneur, husband, father of two, I don't know if it's a boy or girl yet, but Greg's I'll fill us in on that. He understands the frustrations of navigating this mess of healthcare information system that we find ourselves in. So don't think Greg is just a great big old brain, there is more to him to that he has an infectious personality and contagious enthusiasm, which truly sets him apart. Hey, Greg, welcome to Your Health Moment. And thank you for being here to share your insights with us today.

Greg Elliott  2:12  
Of course, thank you for taking the time as well. And again, as we talked about beforehand, this collaboration is really what is what's going to make this move and push this movement to, you know, to the message to every individual that in fact, they have a lot of control over their health and well being and, and take health ownership. It's exciting. And thank you for doing all this.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  2:32  
Yeah, I agree with you. A lot of people don't realize the power that they do have in their hands. And it's funny. Today, let's I'd like to get right into HRV. Can you explain what is heart rate variability? 

Greg Elliott  2:47  
Yeah, this is something that I got first introduced during my master's thesis, I was doing some validation around non invasive ways of measuring heart function. And some validating technologies introduced this concept. And we'll dive deeper into some of that. But just to get off, you know, to define it, what it actually is how I explain it, as everyone's very familiar with heart rate, right, 60 beats per minute, 90 beats per minute. But what we find to be significantly more important to understand the overall health and well being of the individual is the frequency of which those beats occur. So Max UI can have a resting heart rate of 60 beats per minute, where mind beats like a metronome, super consistent, every second on the second, or your various it goes up and down in a nice kind of, you know, wave have a pattern up to 70, down to 50. What we know now is that you are in a healthier, happier state than I am, which is very counterintuitive to what people think because we think of homeostasis, we got to be consistent, we got everything's got to maintain a specific balance. If something's introduced, we got to make sure that we maintain a specific environment. But this is actually the opposite. When it comes to vary, we want more variability in the heart rate. And what we have found is that through all areas of health through biological, psychological and social determinants of health, we want reader heart rate variability.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  4:08  
Is that crazy. Um, like you said, most people don't even realize that but you know, even from the wellness standpoint, we need that variability we need, we don't grow into we're challenged to the point of growing, and I think and that's spiritually that's mentally that's physically that's in every way. So if homeostasis if we stayed the same, there's really no growth. So I had no idea we could connect that with our heart rate variability as well. So that's pretty powerful point.

Greg Elliott  4:39  
Yeah, one of the things that I save every variabilities is it seen as as a as a marker for homeostatic capacity. So our total ability to maintain homeostasis stasis in the presence of a stressor like overall so the higher variability we have the greater ability to maintain the stable, internal and environment through all structures of our body. So that's that's one way that I kind of utilize it from a when I talked to various doctors and other type of practitioners of saying, hey, you know, from a scientific ground this is kind of where we see this metric trending and understanding this metric is, can your patient can your clients deal with a lot of stress right now? Can they take on a lot of stress or there's something already stressing their their body?

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  5:27  
And so can you give us an example of something or someone that the variability is has really been helpful for them, when they're encountering a certain level of stress or change?

Greg Elliott  5:44  
Totally. So a lot of the research early on was looking at already relatively stressed, or poor health individuals, people with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, people with any type of cancer so that, you know, very objectively measurable type of conditions. Where I found the value significantly, was what we call the invisible illnesses, right, you talk about the the chronic pain conditions, you talk about chronic fatigue, you talk about anxiety, PTSD, these conditions that don't have a pure objective measurement to determine progress or diagnosis. This is where I found to be super powerful. So primarily, a lot of my clientele, and in our clinic that we see are people in this area, these kinds of invisible functional type of illnesses. And it's a phenomenal feedback mechanism, because we know people that suffer from these type of conditions, their nervous system, and stress is a gigantic factor, and it plays a huge role into their condition. symptomology. So this provides us an objective feedback into that area. So, you know, there's a lot of examples of the last decade of me doing this clinically into that side of things, people, you know, not, you know, relying on alcohol as a coping mechanism for their pain anymore. People understanding that when their stress is high through the subjective marker, they have a tendency to suicidal thoughts and be able to make sure that you mitigate that as soon as possible. From there people that didn't know they had students have medical illnesses that I told them to go get checked the very, you know, and were able to get onto the right medications and be able to deal with the illnesses quicker. Wow, so many different stories around this. The one of the earliest stories that I had to kind of give you the aha moment, I'll explain that one, where soon as I started to learn about a little bit more, I wanted to be able to try this out with my friends. And at the time, I was working as a clinical exercise physiologist, before I went to my se school, and had a you'll five people that have had it. There was a there was a company that wasn't too far away. We got some heart rate straps, and the the mobile app that they had. And so we started testing these various things and started looking at various numbers of what normal was in everything. And I remember one morning, a colleague of mine, she came in and she was reading my heart rate variability low today, but it was fine. It had a great night's sleep. Well, I woke up I think everything's absolutely fantastic was my heart rate variability low and I Oh, no idea that that time I was like thinking, well, it didn't train nothing's out of the ordinary, I have no idea what's going on. Literally, probably within two hours, she was so sick, she had to go home and call the rest of the day. And it is not an uncommon thing to have that before symptomology happened from from her acute illness. This predicted her illness before she actually had any kind of subjective symptoms before it. And I was like, Oh, and this is not the first time it's not the last time it's happened multiple times from people, are they able to see these various shifts and what's going on? Now, this individual is more drastic, and it was more predictive. Sometimes it doesn't happen this way for some individuals, but there's some people where it's very much can be a predictive nature and to where the body's under stress and say, Hey, I may be going or fighting something my immune system is working. So my, my heart rate barely goes down because there's a stressor in my body. But this is a pathogen and that standpoint. And so they are starting to be able to figure Oh, okay, well, now I know that I need to make sure that I de stress today that I make sure that you could food it and make sure that I get a lot of hydration, I plan to make sure that I you know, go to bed a little bit early tonight make you prioritize recovery on that day. It's kind of like a little warning sign for them.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  9:19  
Oh, that's fantastic. Wow. Now I know, it's really difficult to have a strapped heartrate monitor on you all the time. That's just wouldn't be practical. So what's your workaround? Because I would think the best way to do this is to monitor over a long period of time.

Greg Elliott  9:39  
Completely agree. Yeah. So how it used to be done in the in the commercial setting would be the fact that you would wake up in the morning, you'll put a heart rate strap on, you would open a couple applications at a time. This is back in the early 2010s. Open up an application you would take anywhere from about a minute to you know typically about three minutes of a measurement that time and then you would go about your day had significant limitations, especially when it comes to you know, compliance with my with patients and clients were there, whether they would forget, they would go travel, they get their heart rate strap, they went out the night before, so they didn't want to wear it and wake up in the morning and do that at different times of the day. And so it was, it was a little bit of a mess at that standpoint. So what I always knew that was on the horizon, or whatever, when we stayed at that point that the gold standard would be if we can get heart rate variability measured through the nighttime, right, so that was kind of like everyone's like, Oh, that would be the goal. But there's nothing out right now that we can do that unless you want to buy a Holter monitor. Exactly. And this is where wearables start to be able to come more predominant. And at the time, you know, it was funny. I was I was at a medical clinic for a while there. And there were a lot of people were Fitbit exploded, everyone started getting Fitbits. And the amount of consults that I had with people where they go, I want to stress test, I was reading a book and my Fitbit said my heart rate was 180 beats, I think I'm having heart problems, I need to get a stress test done, I'm very concerned. And so you get them on the stress test. And then it was happen more and more and more with these these false readings of heart rate. And so if you couldn't get heart rate, right, you're not going to get the little nuanced Heart Rate Variability values that you need to be able to determine the true heart rate variability. So I didn't put a lot of emphasis into wearables at that point, because I didn't think they would be able to get the information. Fast forward to today. And as you have the Apple Watch on various wearable technology, the technology has has exponentially grown to where now we're, the summon wearables can actually be very cool, especially nocturnally, through the night, very close to an ECG to a gold standard holter monitor, and you get some pretty accurate heart rate variability values. And so this really changed a lot for me where people now it's passive capture, they don't do anything, they wake up and they sync it to their phone, and then they're good to go. They don't have to put a harvest strap on, they don't have to open an app, you know, do this type of stuff. And rather than have one single number, we now have 6080 100 numbers depending on the wearable device. So we can be able to look at all the specific values for for individuals and see where things are going or they're going in the right direction. So I completely agree this kind of continuous measurement from a nocturnal standpoint was definitely a game changer. In regards to to measuring and monitoring heart rate variability,

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  12:35  
this kind of data is just gold. I mean, it is gold, you know, clinicians have been wanting this kind of data forever. Can you imagine it's like, man, it's like all they're at your fingertips from afib. Now to your how much they're moving to, you know, what's going on with their heart rate, what's happening while they're sleeping, like all day collecting data. Wow, do you see? I mean, there, I can definitely see some good there. Do you see any challenges with this new technology as you move forward?

Greg Elliott  13:11  
Yeah, so So when it comes to, and this is where I've run into, and you'll everyone that I've talked to Susie here about heart rate variability and dig into a little bit to get very interested in and using it. So I've done a lot of consultations with other practitioners, medical doctors, facilities, pay with loving up the heart rate variability monitor in and be able to kind of see this type of stuff, which is great. The difficulty, honestly, in heart rate variability is it's actionability. I love it, the fact that it's simple. If something's going on in your body, it will let you know pretty darn acutely, practically, it will let you know exactly what's going on whether your body is stressed or we're not stressed to fighting something, is it a good spot or bad spot? The difficulty is, where is that coming from? That's the hard part, right in the way that we deal with things now. And again, with with everything that we're trying to be able to push just like yourself is that we have to look at the person, right, and not the symptoms and what a equals b, we can't have a siloed health and wellness approach. You can't you can't just have one specific area and be like, Oh, this is going to solve the problems. You know, I'm sure you and I graduated with our degrees and be like, Oh, we now have all the tools to help anybody we want to be able to do we just and then we get into practice you realize, Wow, I have this much of a tool set. And either to the point that I gotta educate and kind of help around or I've surround myself with other practitioners that are know what's what's going on. And so that's when I early on I got in and looking at heart rate variability that you know, the the physical activity, exercise, nutrition and sleep only have a certain impact in certain individuals where there's other areas of health and well being and also need to be able to dress you know, like the psychosocial aspects from there. There's a lot of great stuff that we can do from those big three, the more the biological factors that I kind of I call them but if we don't necessarily address the mentality of the individual, the emotional regulation, the the amount of interception or mind body connection, do they have purpose itself acceptance to the you know, are they surrounded themselves with good people have good relationships and feel supported, all of these things will play into heart rate variability. So we have a practitioner that says, a physical therapist, or podiatrist or, you know, a dietitian, you know, they have their scope and whatever. But to really improve heart rate variability, you cannot ignore the other factors, you know, I saw the gigantic shift in heart rate variability during COVID. When it pretty much the only thing that really changed is our social interactions, like with other things, but that was a gigantic piece of what's going on for that long period of time, you couldn't meet with people, you couldn't see your friends, this was our only form of communication with anyone that we loved. And you see that social experiment and how that impacted our physical and mental health and well being. So if you don't have these strong relationships, you know, I have a handful of people that I deal with that is, that is why that they're going under certain, having, you know, poor hubby variability, why they have these continuous invisible illnesses is that it's the relationships with people, friends, family, that are keeping in this in this kind of poor health cycle that are is the drivers into everything that's going on. So unless that's addressed, I'm not gonna be able to move Heart Rate Variability very much, or to the state that we want to be at, because we have to look at the whole person. So that's from a practitioner standpoint, that's the complication. And then a whole other topic is, is now we have this all this health data that's out there that people now own all these major companies. And then you talk about what are they going to do with that and selling your data? It's one of the biggest conversation points right now, when it comes to med tech and health tech, is, you know, who owns we get this a lot is, well, who owns this data? There's the wearable on this, Do you own this data? What are you going to do with this my data from that standpoint, because they want to make sure that, you know, this can't be used against them. And so there's with this growing excitement, of wearable technology, and what it can do to health well being you start to see some of the side of, well, what could this possibly lead to, if it's in the to the wrong hands?

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  17:19  
I don't even know where to go. I'm excited about the technology. I mean, I just I think I'm more excited about it than I'm fearing it. You know, I do know that there's that going on. But I think you're just hitting so many fantastic points. And I kind of want to get some of our listeners who are a little slower when it comes to maybe understanding some of the stuff that we may be speaking about. So I just want to backpack a little bit so we don't lose anybody. Because I'm like so enthralled in the conversation. Like we're like loving it. But I want to make sure everyone else is getting that same great experience from listening to Mr. Greg. Greg, like you touched on so many really cool points, let me go back to say, one of the points you touched on, I think is really amazing is the wearable is gonna give you some information, but it may not give you a diagnosis. So you're going to need support, when it comes to diagnosis, the information is very helpful. But there's going to be a lot more involved to really get that information to a place where it's really going to be usable for you. And having support and having an expert, like Greg, for example, is going to be a really good way to go with someone that you could take the data to, who can help you to make to make the best use of it. And I think that's going to be really important, really having a confidant or a wellness strategist that can help you to do the work, because unfortunately, we do it ourselves. It doesn't really work that well. Because none of us can be really that objective when it comes to ourselves. And it's really great to have an objective person, look at the data, not just you. So be okay with reaching out to support when it comes to this. So I am a believer in wearables. But I do believe not to get to the point where I'm trying to even diagnose something about myself because of it. The data is helpful because it'll let me know Oh, you missed that workout. This is what happened. You need to get back in it. So there are there are easy ways that you can use it. But I mean when it comes to like diagnoses, Greg, you were I mean, I would do that I would really go somewhere for a professional to help me with it, to help me to really use the data in a way, that would be more helpful. So as you move forward with this or getting a wearable, I think I would recommend making sure you find it health expert that's comfortable with dealing in this area of wearables, HRV, and behavioral change, they can actually help you to look at all the data and make some really great decisions, with their support on what to do with it, as you see it. So, so don't panic as you're hearing all these conversations, but just know wearable is good. But it's great. When you have a health expert that's comfortable in this area supporting you on this journey with him.

Greg Elliott  20:55  
There's some things that are not within your control. Right that you have to be able to address. And, you know, I have this, this number one thing when people want to do consults with individuals, then say, hey, my heart rate variability is lower than I would like, if they look at, you know, various statistics based on the wearable and over the the app of where, you know, people their age, and sex are like, kind of have an idea of of that and say, hey, it's lower than I want it to be, you know, what do I do? Right, and the first thing I always say is, is I need you to get a detailed amount of blood work done by the very minimum to start. And the reason why is because I get I don't, I don't want to gigantic red flags from that standpoint, they got they have this point, they go see a doctor, they get the bloodwork done, they may find something from the bloodwork do interpretation, say hey, maybe this is a little bit off, maybe let's investigate to that standpoint. This is, and this is one thing I want to make sure, you know, majority of people are I've had blood bloodwork done in the past or a few years ago, I just want to make sure that that's, you know, we're sending the right right framework. From there, I always kind of look at health, physical health, absolutely first, as a, as a fundamental, making sure we rule out with the big red flags, there's no autoimmune conditions, there's no you know, any kind of pre diabetes, or there's no people have hypertension, there's something that needs to be addressed from medical standpoint that they have great tools to be able to provide. And then we started going down the rabbit hole to be able to address those.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  22:16  
That's fantastic. I have a little bit of a cold. So I apologize, go off camera every once in awhile and get this little cough out. But you know, getting the data is really cool from the wearable. But is there an app or a software that can actually help with helping you to process that data is well, what are your thoughts on that?

Greg Elliott  22:45  
Yeah, there's, the wearables are starting to go that route, where they're starting to, to drive people to figure out different areas and what they can calculate and everything like that. And, but there hasn't really and there, there wasn't, and this is one of the big reasons. So I started the company in 2018. And it was made to solve my problem. As a practitioner, the fact of, you know, when people come see me as an osteopath, more in the, say, the physical component of it all people want a physical solution, right, they want some sort of whether it's scratched, or some sort of supplementation or alterations, you know, from that biological side of things. That's what that's what they're looking for. When the grand scheme of things, you know, you look at the entire will be called the bio psycho social model of health, all of the areas, major areas that impact our health and well being. They weren't necessarily looking at those. And it was a hard conversation to bridge the gap, to say, hey, you know, there's other areas of health and well being that are influencing your condition that we aren't necessarily addressing, whether it's past trauma, whether it's, you know, their work environments, their home environment, whatever necessary that it may be, is that they weren't addressing certain areas in but the expectation was coming to me is the fact that there's some sort of physical assault, I'm like, How do I have this conversation individual? How do I get everything? You know, can I have a way to look at this person as a whole from various factors and start to be able to have a standardized way to prioritize lists of saying this, these areas need to be addressed more than others? And so, we developed in 2019, we developed a preliminary software to start to look at that stuff, started, do some formal research around it all. Originally, our baseline timeframe was 35 days of the wearable, used to gather data. And then we had about 30 assessments. That'd be one to run through, quite extensive, and it was through through an app so it was it was dripped out every day. So it wasn't like all at once and things like that happened like we had different assessments at different times. We had a gigantic report and and luckily we had a phenomenal data science research team and started to piece through the information to figure out okay, well what are the big ones that impact and we started look primarily at the chronic pain to start Because that seems to be a very underserved population that the biopsychosocial model can really help with. And then from all the information, we found that if we gather 10 nights of information, or 10 days niceties of information from the wearable, and we ask 10 factors around the biopsychosocial model that comprise major factors that we know that people that suffer from, you know, health and well being conditions don't do score very well. And for people that are healthy score well, and can we can we have this you know the system in place and actually show that it could be a benefit. So we, we now have a 10 factor biopsychosocial assessment that looks at 10 different areas of your health well being. And it pairs with your wearable product, we don't have a wearable, I never want to be a wearable, it's a software. So we've integrated with a company called Bio strap, or ring, Fitbit, and they were going through the list as we go forward. We're adding more and more wearables in every month to be able to add that in so people can pride that. So if you have one of those wearables, if you look at our websites, it's our company called Health Qb, you go to your health tv.com. If you have a wearable two pairs, you get onto our app, you can take this assessment and see where you're at. And to give some direction of saying what area of my health and well being and my maybe neglecting that would have a big impact into my you know, aging well.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  26:21  
Oh, wow. Um, what is the website address?

Greg Elliott  26:25  
Yeah, it's your health qb.com. Okay. The company's called Health qB. And, yeah, it's Megan, mainly, it stemmed from the fact that we want to give people a true whole health assessment. You know, it's not super, you know, crazy in depth. But we want to look at the 30,000 foot view, as you know, with nutrition, it can be extremely nuanced. Same with exercise, all that. If we wanted to say, hey, is this a major problem? Right? Are you doing the basics from here, and then we look, we look at that from all areas of health, and then we start to be able to drive and then we can start to dig in. So someone like yourself, you can start to be able to piece that information saying, hey, hey, your sleep is you scored really low on your on your sleep, subjectively, the wearables lifted off, let's talk about a little bit more what's going on with that and start to dive in. And this is where supporting mechanisms around that conversation can be had a little bit more a little bit easily, because this impartial software looked at, hey, this is a prioritized list, it may not be exactly what they want to work on. But at least we have to be able to address an epic conversation around to what's going on and maybe dig into the to the reasons that that that's there.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  27:34  
Oh, that's fantastic. And it's a nice way that doesn't feel that you're attacking them either on lifestyle or behavior, it's a very gentle approach to your behavioral change.

Greg Elliott  27:50  
That's, that's one of the biggest things, you know, he said that I say that all the time is, is when I'm dealing with somebody in front of you say that's it's someone that has chronic fatigue syndrome, and they're looking to say maybe get back to exercise or they're looking for anything from nutritional supplement or, or that type of area, that's what their expectation, and I started talking about, you know, their mindset around their, their condition, or, you know, the way that they, you know, deal with varying emotional states or the reactions to start talking about those things. And in more, it's like more of a psychological type of conversation, they do feel judged like it is they take it personally, it's like, well, you know, then you're saying, It's me, that's the problem, right? And so this, which is a difficult thing, sometimes to have that conversation as a practitioner, and I just want to be able to have that data view where it's not just me saying it's my opinion versus you don't think it is and so we're not going to get anywhere. But if we have some sort of assessment, some sort of tool that says, hey, you know, you answer these questions, let's take a look at them, hey, we scored here, which is not where we need to be able to be. This is what it means. What do you think about this and have a conversation they, you can, like I said, bridge that conversation a little bit more about addressing certain areas, which makes it you know, way more digestible, I think for the patient to say, Okay, I never thought of that's it's not just someone's subjective opinion. There's some sort of hard data that's based rooted in validated questionnaires and surveys that can give some legitimacy to this conversation.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  29:25  
I love it because I love when clients are better or patients are able to really get the awareness on their own from the data. And you just can go well, what do you think it means? And, you know, and they can dive right into everything you would have wanted to say, and they're leading the conversation. I think this is one of those tools that give you the opportunity to have the self awareness as a As the, you know, as someone who's wearing a wearable device, I think self awareness is like, huge. No, you know, doesn't matter what I think to be, it doesn't matter what, hey, what my opinions are, but when it comes down to your own, and when I reinforce it like, yeah, what do you think? I think you're probably right. You know, when it's when your opinion is reinforced, I think people tend to take more action and be willing to, oh, my god, take more action.

Greg Elliott  30:32  
You're absolutely correct. And, you know, we started, we said this early on where we're doing this, a lot of research the information from the HRV side, the wearable side was blinded so that people wouldn't actually be able to see their data, they only can say that they're, you know, when to charge their, their wearable device. So they, you know, during the 35 days, they had no feedback at all, based on anything. The best intervention that we had, for people that have no idea what was going on the best information was awareness of where they're at. Right, they come back and look at their heart rate of heart rate variability, and be like, Oh, my gosh, I didn't know is this this low, you know, comparatively to where I should be that the staff and you see the exponential increase, after 35 days of having a specific value, you would see all of a sudden, boom, you know, HRV, you go up into that, and just they became aware of what their information was after the fact. And then we track them for four or five weeks afterwards, you start to see that that exponential increase into HRV. Just the fact of being aware as to where they're at. So you have like, you know, what you said, like so many gems, even what you're saying, and that sort of stuff. And I, you know, I passed over some of the stuff in that. But you're hitting the nail right on the head and everything that that you're stating is is absolutely true.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  31:48  
I'm really excited. I'm more enthusiastic about wearing my wearable and setting it up in a system where I can even use the data to be more helpful. And I bet other people are too. So Greg, what do you think the first step is, like, I want to, I want to find this data, I want to have it in a format that it can be more useful for me, what's the first thing I need to do?

Greg Elliott  32:14  
Yeah, the first thing is we talked about is if you don't have a wearable, smart people to track it. So get one in depends on the wearable of what you want to do out of it, right. So there's there's two primarily wearables that are there, there's the smartwatches, which is like the the app, watch the Garmins. And, you know, some of the Fitbits, where they have functionality to them. Then there's other wearables that are purely just about the data and information. So the the ones from the smartwatches, way more understandable, and they're all getting significantly better. Fitbit. Yes, as a doc in the past their their heart rate was on the map, they're definitely getting better to where they're higher quality vices are getting pretty, pretty good. And that's that point, as you as you alluded with Apple Watch, they're even getting FDA approval for detection of of afib. So the smartwatches are getting there, the only thing that's been difficult is the fact because of the display and the functionalities, the battery life tends to be a hard component of it all. So it's hard to have the higher quality sensors which drain the battery life significantly. So it's always a fine play between the quality of the sensors and the functionality that device. So there's that kind of give and take, that happens with those. So if you want something that's more functional, that standpoint, something you want to be able to use a little bit more. But you also want the data, you know, smartwatches are a good option. But if you're really into the data and data quality is is what you really want to get out of for a specific reason. The wearable route is a little bit more because it's purely about the sensors and the information that's that it provides. And so this is you know, companies like Google and companies like aura ring, which is a ring based wearable, which I have right here. I do I must admit I don't have to get I would have I have no benefit for any of these companies just these things. This is purely from my experiences with them. There's another company called bow strap but they're more of a business to business but yeah,

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  34:09  
in the world ring is waterproof. Yep. Okay, wow. Okay, so shower with it sleep with it.

Greg Elliott  34:16  
Don't have to take it off only to charge about once a once a week. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then quality from the ordering is probably one of the best that's out there. And the reason why I love them is the fact that they produce a lot of research from the wearable looking at to be able to be the gold standard and various areas. So they produce there's, you know, they show their sleep algorithm versus this PSG? Yeah, but the polysomnogram the gold standard, they look at, look into heart metrics through, you know, ECGs and so they're really trying to be as you know, the high quality data coming through them. They're a phenomenal company from that standpoint. That's why we'd like they're very transparent with their information. That's why like them a lot. But yes, you get the wearable side, which is more about the data that they have smartwatch is more about functionality. So it's about start gathering that. And then just seeing where you're at, you get some of these numbers that come from wearable devices, take a take a look. And and then from there, you change a couple things, right? You can change your diet, you can change your exercise routine, you could change your sleep patterns, you can start meditating, and just see what your information does is as a result, it's a great new behavior feedback loop to determine it. Because I mean, how many times have you heard that you talked about this in one of your podcasts? When it comes to meditation? People try it and they're like, yeah, it's not for me. Oh, that's how do you how do you know? Right? And I always use the example of this. You say, you've never heard of exercise? Really? You've seen people do it. You've never really experienced exercise before. Right? You You okay, exercise is great for you go exercise, you go exercise, what happens? Your blood pressure goes up, you get exhausted, you're tired. You know, next day, you can't move all that stuff. It's like, yeah, I've stopped for me. That's not good. Right? I didn't respond to well, it's like, well, that's really is that if you look at the research, is that the best thing that that is for you, it's just not exercise you how do you know that it's not good for you really. And so it's very similar to these you know, meditation or body scan, positive imagery, all of these areas, it's you need that feedback mechanism. And wearables provide that feedback mechanism, then start to look at your sleep quality, or your your biometrics and if these things are going the right direction, you can determine if you're doing the right type of intervention, or the right amounts or things that you want to change. Or if you're doing the right thing is great feedback and see your behavior change.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  36:41  
That's fantastic. I want to thank you, we're running out of time, I want to thank you for being here. And this has been incredibly informative, and helpful about wearables. I think we have your email addresses, we're going to add things to the show notes. So whatever you put in the show notes, there'll be there. So if you have any more questions, for Greg at all, you'll be able to find them on Greg's show notes, you'll be able to reach him with his contact information. So thank you, and Greg, is there anything that we missed that we should definitely touch on?

Speaker 2  37:17  
No, I think you're again, the main thing to me is, is understanding if you don't have a wearable to great way to determine the right health and well being choices that you're utilizing, I think it's something to get into, you know, 40% of people are in the US have some sort of wearable device. But I think, you know, it's probably, it's gonna be better. But no, it's, it's to me, it's there's a lot of free resources out there, but wearables now. And if you want to, if you want to dig deep a little bit more, there's professionals out there that that now do it remotely these consultations. And if you don't know, one specific area, whatever it may be, if you had to gregelliott.ca and you go there and you do a quick discovery call. We'll talk about any type of of area you want people to focus on, I'm happy to point in the right direction from that standpoint. So no, my hope is, is people understand that they have a significant amount of agencies have control over their health and well being and, and wearables helped them enact the right ones for them.

Max Sturdivant/Dr. Fitness  38:16  
Great. Hey, thanks again. And you are listening to Your Health Moment. 

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