Salim Najjar: The 5 Best Tools To Improve Your HRV And Reduce Stress | MMP #313

Salim Najjar is an entrepreneaur, investor, and HRV (heart rate variability) expert. Salim discovered HRV after undergoing extreme surgery and then mental and physical burnout. He advocates for the education of HRV to better manage your stress and reduce the chance of chronic diseases. 

Key topics discussed include:

• The crucial role of HRV in measuring stress resilience and nervous system health
• Optimizing sleep, nutrition, grounding, and light exposure for improved HRV
• Navigating environmental toxins and EMF exposure in the modern world
• The power of bodywork, meditation, and somatic practices for releasing stuck emotions
• Exploring the potential of psychedelics and plant medicines for nervous system regulation and healing

Timestamps:

(00:00) Health Transition and HRV Mastery
(10:17) Managing Stress in Modern Society
(24:27) Exploring HRV and Spiritual Connection
(32:13) Optimizing Health With Biohacking Practices
(38:47) Importance of Hydration and EMF Protection
(42:15) Healing Through Body Work and Psychedelics
(46:28) Where to Find HRV Resources


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Brett Ender 🥩⚡️

The food system is corrupt and trying to poison us... I will teach you how to fight back. Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod 🥩

Host

Harry Gray 🥩⚡️

Leading the Red Meat Renaissance 🥩 ⚡️| Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod

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Full_Ep_Salim
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[00:00:00] I'm pumped to have you on just to talk about, you know, like I said, like you have that calming presence. Like as soon as you got out of your Uber, I'm just like, Oh, this guy's just like, even like even keeled steady Eddie.

So um, having known a little bit about your background through some podcasts that I've listened to, you've just become this master of HRV and all the things that come with that. But before that you have this, this backstory of being an engineer, nuclear engineer in New York, and then transitioning into the world of health, which.

I always love these stories where people end up in the health world because they always have this rich like aha moment where they feel Empowered to go spread something that isn't really aware to a lot of other people So I'd love for you to maybe just start off telling that story of you making that transition to the health and wellness space Absolutely.

Yeah, and before I do thank you so much for having me on the pod really really appreciate it and the time So my health journey really began Um When I was seven, my father passed away from cancer, [00:01:00] and I never really, at that age, you can't process or fathom that, and after I graduated college, my grandma, who was like my second mom, got breast cancer.

And that was the first time, like, I was like, what the hell is going on in the world, right? That, like, I knew so many other people that were impacted, but those are two, like, crucial people in my life impacted through cancer. So I started doing my own research and I came across this Dr. Tulio Simoncelli, who's, have you heard of him?

No. He's cured hundreds of cancer patients with, uh, baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, which is a natural alkalizer. And he believes that cancer cannot thrive in an oxygen rich alkaline environment. And most of us, especially in America are pretty acidic due to the processed food we eat, the sugars we eat, right?

Um, and so I was just so mind blown after I did the research and seeing like testimonials of like him, you know, healing people, curing people through their cancer, that like, wow, it was, it was clear that we see what people want us to [00:02:00] see and there's so much other things out there. So, um, I went to school for engineering at the time I graduated and I was working at a nuclear power plant.

It just like, stem the curiosity in my engineering mind to like go down rabbit holes of health and wellness, which started with diet. So, you know, I tried vegan, loved the energy, but didn't love the diet, and that was essentially elimination, right? Eliminating all that stuff. I landed on pescetarian for about like three and a half, four years, um, and then my body was really starting to crave meat.

So, uh, this was maybe 15 years ago, I stumbled across ketosis before, and The industry, the consumer package goods industry, I think, ruined it, and I fell in love. Fell in love with the energy, eating the right clean meats, all the things. Um, and so I cut out sugar. And it was during that time I would only drink unsweetened tea and water.

And a colleague at the power plant was, similarly, we drink unsweetened tea together, yerba mate specifically, and he loved bubbles. So he bought a soda stream, brewed up the tea, cooled it, carbonated it, and brought it for me to try. And it was like, love at first sip. Um, and I hadn't had bubbles in so [00:03:00] long.

And so we started moonletting on the side and eventually launched, um, Sound, Sound Beverages, which is an unsweetened, sparkling tea. Um, and. I had no idea what we were getting into. And ta da! Beverage space, the consumer packaged goods space, right? Oh my gosh. It is, yeah. Um, and did it though, really the mission was to bring transparency and education to the industry.

Because it is just, I only drank water and unsweetened tea because any time I picked up anything to look at, unless it was water, there was something in it that I didn't know or didn't want. Like the term natural flavors, which is the most ambiguous ingredient in our industry. Being in it now for 10 years, like, the actual definition is a portion of the ingredient is derived from a natural source, the rest can be synthetically made, and it's really just an umbrella.

That has like, I think over 75 approved natural flavor ingredients. So a company can just say, yeah, this is a natural flavor and there's 12 other things in it. Right. Right. And so you don't know. Yeah. It's ambiguous and ubiquitous. Like every packaged good product [00:04:00] product has natural flavors in it. But.

What does it actually mean? And it's crazy because it's a consumer packaged good industry, but the consumers don't even know what they're consuming. And one step further that we found along our formulation, that like, even an organic flavor, right? We had an organic peach flavor in one of our products, and after like doing a lot of digging with the supplier, organic is also a whole nother like, we won't go down that rabbit hole, but um, Only.

95 percent of the ingredient needs to be organic. The rest just needs to be organic compliant. And in that organic flavor, there was with other natural flavors. And when we asked them what the other natural flavors for it, they're like, that's proprietary. We don't want to disclose to you. And I'm like, but I'm selling this to people.

I need to know where I'm putting it. And we discontinued the flavor. Um, so that journey started over a decade ago, crazy to think. And it coincided with the, um, the biohacking movement, right? The Dave Aspreys, the Ben Greenfields of the world. And at the time I was living in New York City, and again, my mind was [00:05:00] so, a very, had a very extreme pit of mind, like, addicted to things I thought were healthy and good for me, right?

Um, and so I fell in love with biohacking because of the energy, and to the point where I was literally showing off I was sleeping five hours a day, running ten miles every other day, raising money for this business, like, just go, go, go, do, do, do, right? Um, and after about four years, four and a half years of that, my I mean burnout.

My body gave out. I actually ended up like blowing out my knee and I was so addicted to the sweat release, the endorphin release. Um, I needed to find a way to get that and I found Bikram Yoga. And that was the first time my mind was forced to shut the f up. Oh, right. Um, and it was then through a series of books, uh, and it was actually Dr.

Joe Dispenza's book, Becoming Supernatural, that it was the first time, like, I really, like, comprehended what this word HRV means, heart rate variability. So he talked about it in the book and it, like, it gave my mind a little taste that, wait, this has to do with stress. So I started doing, my [00:06:00] engineering mind started doing more research on it and at the time from how extreme I went in biohacking, Um, and especially, specifically by NeuroBeats, this company, Newcom, which I love.

Um, I, I knew on a cellular level, we all age, get disease, and die from stress. Mm. Period. End of story. Unless you die in an accident. Like, the root cause of death is stress. Because stress, when you're in a sympathetic high beta state, you're causing inflammation over extended periods of time on a cellular level, right?

And inflammation on a cellular level is what leads to all. diseases. So it's like, okay, well, I know stress is the most crucial thing to grasp and handle. And as I started doing this research on HRV I was like, wait, this is actually measuring your relationship to your stress, right? So heart rate variability is measuring the variance between each heartbeat.

Which indicates how your heart is managing its perceived changing reality. So essentially, your relationship to your stress, a snapshot of the health of your autonomic nervous [00:07:00] system, which is the most important system that we still know so little about, governs 90 percent of your voluntary and involuntary functions, and its agility to go from a sympathetic, Like, stress, fight or flight state, to a parasympathetic, rest and digest, calm state.

So I'm like, why? And I had an Oura ring at the time, and I saw the HRV on it, I know Whoop had it, but nobody was talking about, like it, that, you were more concerned about your readiness score, your sleep score, right? It's like, how is nobody, like, what is going on? This is the most important thing. So for the past five years, my intention in all the biohacking or anything I've done has been, like, I want to optimize this metric.

In my opinion, it like, just clicked. This is the most important metric. Mm. And so I've taken my HRV from when I started, the average nightly was like 32 to now, like 1 60, 180. I've gotten 2 45 after like a medicine journey, um, as an average nightly HRV, um, which people think are like freak numbers. They're, they're not freak, like one of my favorite things about HRV.[00:08:00]

is there is no range, right? Um, and we love comparing and knowing, and like, there is no range for HRV because I believe there really is no ceiling, right? That's the other thing. You want a higher HRV, which is kind of counter, people think, no, you want a lower score. The reason you want a higher score is you want more variability between that heartbeat, so that your heart is more malleable and can handle more of the perceived heart rate.

That we are giving it every day, right? So the higher the variance, the more resilient the heart is, right? Think about it, like, you don't want a heart that's like, DUDUDUDU Cause what does that mean? That's what happens right before you die, right? So you want that variability, Um, and so It's important to not compare HRVs As an analogy I like to give Because you wouldn't compare two different languages, right?

You don't compare, uh, English and French, and one is not better than the other. They're just different. And the intention of a language is for an ecosystem to communicate in, right? And [00:09:00] HRV is a language in which your heart is communicating with you. Your nervous system is communicating with you. And so your role is to listen to that language for your own body's ecosystem.

That is it. Right? And so my opinion is, is it's more important to understand your baseline HRV and then get up in the morning and listen to what your nervous system is telling you you did the prior day. Right? And I define baseline, um, I'm launching a whole website about this, as your average HRV over the last 30 days, I think, is a good indicator of, you know, what, and it's changing every day.

It's not like, your, your HRV changes 40 to 60 times a minute, right? It's every heartbeat, so, um, and it's not just what you eat, or how you work out, it's like, what you see, what you listen to, your geographic location, the people around you, every energetic thing in this quantum reality that we live in, Impacts how your heart is perceiving its environment, right?

So it's a totality of Everything, which is why I find it like there's a lot of, you [00:10:00] know, very health conscious wellness people out there But that it's it's one metric that people haven't cracked yet because you can't crack it by Doing you can't like you can support it with these things, but how you improve your HRV is Is, I mean sleep is one of the most important things, right?

We talked about that a little bit and the reason for that is because when you're sleeping you're in your deepest parasympathetic state Right, your brain is actually oscillating in Delta, which is 0. 5 to 4 Hertz and that's like the deepest parasympathetic Uh, Theta is that like meditative state between conscious and unconscious.

That's when your brain is oscillating between four and eight hertz. That'd be like a Bikram yoga class or even deeper? You could get to it in Bikram yoga. Usually eyes closed is more theta. So a Savasana at the end of a Bikram yoga class, right? Bikram and, um, and like running or jogging or like an athlete in their flow state is known as the alpha state, which is a parasympathetic state.

That's between 8 and 12 hertz, and that's when you're awake, you're conscious, but the monkey mind is off and you're kind of [00:11:00] focused on one thing, right? Another great example of that is TV. That's why commercials are so good, because when you're in an alpha state, you're a sponge. You absorb everything. So they just hit you, like, 11 minutes in when they get you in the alpha state with a commercial, and boom.

Yeah. Um, and then beta is the sympathetic fight or flight state. And there are three different, like, levels. There's like low, mid, and high beta. And we are right now in a low beta state, which is healthy, but you don't, Want to be in a high beta state for too long because I go back to evolution We evolved creating this sympathetic state because we were living in nature and there was a tiger that came and In the middle of the day or even at night, and we had to all of a sudden like turn on and either fight, freeze, or run, right?

So our body, in this state, takes all of our vital oxygen away from our, uh, takes all of our vital oxygen away from the vital organs in the body and sends it to the extremities so that we could run or fight or do something, right? You're only supposed to be, well, we evolved only being in that for maybe an [00:12:00] hour or two and then we're safe and we, Relax, right?

And it really clicked to me. I was recently in, um, the Serengeti, um, for the Great Migration, uh, and seeing, like, the animals out there. They are in a rest and digest, parasympathetic state 95 percent of the time. Lions, literally, I had, I don't even, I didn't get to see a hunt, but, like, they're lying, relaxing all the time.

The only time they're in that sympathetic fight or flight state is when they need to be, right? So, we're, we're Animals, we evolved similarly until the industrial and agricultural revolution and the perceived stressful state when we get up and look at our phone or at our work. So it's a mind made now state that our body still reacts to as if we are dying, but we're actually not dying and staying in that state from when Get up after your deep parasympathetic state of sleep till you have a drink after dinner or go back to sleep day over day, week over week, month over month.

That's what's leading to the inflammation on a cellular level that's leading to these chronic diseases [00:13:00] and aging and death eventually. Wow. Yeah. I'm pumped to unpack all that because there's so much, there's so many little nuggets in there that I feel like people drive a ton of value from. But I think just like as a starting point, just this idea that like.

In today's environment, we're living in this world that is constantly stimulating us. And so I'm curious from your perspective, what, like in today's world, what are the biggest stressors on our nervous system that are actually affecting our HRV? Like, what do people need to be mindful of? In terms of avoiding like screens are obviously one you just mentioned, but there's so many stimulants out there that are pulling us in and out of these states.

And you said the natural world, it's kind of like 95 percent of the time we're supposed to be more relaxed in that rest and relaxation state. So like, how can we actually navigate this world in a way where we're more consistent with our evolutionary design, but [00:14:00] also still able to, you know, operate in the world that we live in today?

Okay. Yeah, man, uh, that is such a uniquely individualized answer for each person and how I do it, how I work with that answer in terms of coaching is like, I want to shift this perception of stress. Stress is not a bad thing, right? I believe there's no such thing as good or bad, there just is, and it's your perception of it and your intention in it, right?

It's not what you do, it's why you do it, or what is the intention that you are infusing in anything that you do, right? And so, um, When you talk about improving your HIV, sleep, obviously one of the most important and something evolution hasn't gotten rid of, but the real way to move the needle on it is actually treating it like, um, Right.

I, I say like I, I work with my clients to be an emotional athlete and when you're working out at the gym, you don't go to like where you think you can go to and stop, you push it past that brink, right? You, you break [00:15:00] the muscle and then you relax and recover. And so similarly, You improve your HRV by putting yourself in perceived stressful situations.

And I say perceived because I believe on a quantum level, right? This is the matrix and we create it with our thought and our senses and our conditioning over hundreds of thousands of years. And so all these stressful situations that we are creating with our phones or other things, they're not bad, right?

They are doors and opportunities to actually improve your HRV. Your HRV and regulate your nervous system because when you go into that perceived stressful situation And then you turn on your agency you turn on your consciousness you breathe into a parasympathetic state now You're telling your heart that oh, this is I'm not actually running from a tiger and gonna die Like this is an email that like triggered me and that's okay that it triggered me and now I'm okay So the next time I see that email I'm not gonna be as triggered and now you've increased that malleability and resilience of your heart to handle more perceived stress.

You're, you're increasing the vessel to actually do more [00:16:00] in the world by having the ability to not react to things that you perceive are happening because everything is happening for you. I believe, I believe this is like an educational simulation that is always supporting your evolutionary growth. And if you go in it with that perspective, you really start seeing that nervous system more regulated and that HRV starting to increase.

The connection that you're making is making me think of, We're obviously talking about the heart with heart rate variability, but the perception is coming from somewhere else, right? Like, our heart is reacting to something that our mind is reacting to and perceiving. So, there's something deeper there, or along the lines of belief, honestly, where it's, it's um, you know, what you believe is happening to you, whether it's a stressful email or a situation where like, You know, some technology isn't working and you're, you know, stressed out.

It's like, these are all kind of rooted back to the lens in which you're looking at what's happening. Um, like when I look at people who are stressed out, a lot of [00:17:00] times you can tie that back to like more so like this, this, uh, fundamental foundational core aspects of their being, their beliefs that, you know, things are maybe working against them as opposed to your view.

Which is, you know, these things are working for you. Um, it's interesting that the heart is kind of, um, subject to just our perception. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I have two things for that. First, um, is, um, I believe any time there is a perceived, like, stressful situation out there, or, more importantly, an internal, like, dialogue conflict, because the most important conversation any of us will ever have is the one inside our heads, because to your point, that's what's forming and creating our reality, right?

Your thoughts do create your reality. And so, what's actually happening if you were to map out the body during this internal dialogue or external manifestation is beneath that trigger that happens, there's always [00:18:00] an emotion. Indirectly connected to that emotion is a physical somatic sensation that is stuck in the body because our body is an Akashic record of all of our perceived traumas and triggers and past lives, generational conditioning, all the things, right?

It's an incredible book, The Body Keeps Score. I'm not sure if you've read it. No, I haven't read it. I've heard of it before. Oh, man. So it just talks about that. So we literally are, to your point, like grown ups living in this meat suit. Reliving the imprinted traumas of our childhood, because actually, Dr.

Joe talks about this, between ages of 2 and 7, your formative years, your brain is actually oscillating an alpha. Right? Which is that sponge, right? So when you come out of the womb, you're in delta. You're asleep, basically. Then, like they say, between months 3 and like 18, you're like in theta, like a baby can't necessarily follow that conscious, subconscious.

And then, really, those formative years are the most crucial years of forming our egos, our beliefs, our thought patterns, right? And so, If you can, in that moment of perceived trigger [00:19:00] or stress out there, or whatever mind dialogue you have, drop into your body, get out of what the mind is labeling it, and feel somatically in what's happening in your body.

That's the foundation of the work I do with my clients, somatic feeling, somatic trigger work, somatic meditation. Magically, what ends up happening, we think that, oh my god, I'm about to get on stage, but like, I have anxiety and my stomach's starting to hurt because I'm about to get on stage. Actually, the stage that you created is a result of this unprocessed somatic sensation in your body that hasn't been felt.

So you're reliving and repeating this pattern because you haven't given attention to what your body is asking you to call. Because emotion is just energy in motion. It's stuck energy that doesn't, it's not good or bad, it just is. And at some point in your life, there was a traumatic experience that your nervous system at that point couldn't handle, so it splits.

It goes into this sympathetic state and this emotion. Right? Gets stuck. An emotion is sent. It actually gets stuck in the ectoplasm of your fascia or of [00:20:00] your body. And it stays there until you give it the attention it needs. But most of us don't because we perceive it as uncomfortable. Right? Or we're too much in here that we're not even feeling it.

Right? That's another thing HRV is. HRV is a measure of how much are you in your body. How much are you in your heart and out of your mind? Mm. Right? Yeah. Um, which is crucial because our bodies, again, are always speaking to us. At, we have 700 trillion cells. Like, the amount of things that are happening that we are so busy in here and not in here listening to.

Mm. Um, that's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What I appreciate about the way you're painting this picture, for anyone who's worn a whoop or worn an Oura ring, they've seen HRV as just a number on a screen. But the way you're painting the picture is that It's kind of the center spoke for the way that you're experiencing life around you and the way your nervous system is interacting with the environment.

And I think for a lot of people, like, HRV is just kind of a number on a screen, but [00:21:00] the way that you actually handle certain situations actually does come down to your body's, like, physiological response to certain things. And what you're talking about is training yourself to kind of unpack a lot of these things that have happened to us so that our bodies in the present moment can experience stresses and, you know, more varieties of different types of, um, experiences that might come across us on a daily basis and do it in a way where we're operating from almost like a clean slate, or like a.

Just a place of strength as opposed to always kind of being reactionary. 100 percent that like, that childlike curiosity in a situation rather than the mind's power. projecting its expectation, right? Because how can you ever grow if you stay doing the same thing? Didn't Einstein say like, it's crazy to think you'll, um, you'll solve a problem with the same frequency or I forget the exact quote.

I shouldn't know. But yeah, like you, you need the unknown is where all the [00:22:00] magic happens. Right. And if you stay stuck in the thought pattern and loop of what you think is going to happen, rather than just like, trusting, right? My favorite quote is in the Bhagavad Gita. Um, and, uh, it states, you have a right to your actions, but never your actions fruit.

Act for the action's sake and don't be attached to inaction. So essentially, like, don't be attached to doing nothing. We came here to do. Do solely for the sake of doing, for your intention, for your purpose. And don't be attached to the outcome of that doing, just trust, right? And if you could go about life doing that, and like, being centered and aligned with your purpose, with your nervous system, and like, listening, It's the magic that unfolds is yeah, beautiful.

Is there any are there any studies out there on groups of people? That, that we've tested their HRV, and maybe they have like an extraordinarily different or just different level of HRV. Maybe [00:23:00] what comes to mind is just like people who are more spiritually grounded, um, in pockets of the world where maybe faith or spirituality is more practiced and revered than kind of in the West where I think, you know, a lot of times we're, you know, kind of absence of that, that feeling of, um, faith and spirituality, um, like I would think that maybe there's some, something there.

I'm curious if you've come across anything in your research. Man, it's, uh, there's, I haven't found anything specifically, although I'm supporting, and I can't talk about now, one that we're trying to do in the blue zones of HIV for that reason. And I could say based on my own, um, experience and like asking and knowing a lot of people's HRVs all over and people who are like, you know, some of the most fit athletic people in the world that are still in their minds too much compared to some people that maybe don't physically look as healthy, right?

However, um, [00:24:00] are more spiritually connected, right? Uh, uh, You are spot on, right? What another thing I believe HRV is is a measure of your consciousness of your of your agency It's actually like that's the easiest way It's it's a measure of your agency because your agency is your ability to like just be aware of what is going on and be Non reactive right which correlates with like having a faith and spirituality And so yeah, absolutely and also It's a placebo like everything is right and that's the first thing I say like the clients I end up getting end up being the typical like I was like type a extreme go go go like extremely successful people on the outside yet inside You know, they haven't started that journey yet or maybe I'm starting it and and so they They, like me, like, want that score to be better, and want to compare it to mine, and want to do all these things, and, um, and I say, listen, yes, it's a number.

It's a number for me that has always correlated most with how, like, I feel energetically. Like, I'd wake up, sometimes my aura ring is, like, you know, a bad sleep score, but I feel great, or it's a good sleep [00:25:00] score, and I don't feel good. My HRV score has always been aligned with how I'm feeling, right? And, when you look at, like, the centenarians in Italy, these older women, Live to be a hundred plus, smoke cigarettes every day, and drink coffee, right?

And we believe cigarettes are bad for you, right? But also cigarettes are just an energetic frequency, and I'm by no means am I saying go smoke cigarettes. Our condi my conditioning and pattern is way too challenging to overcome that belief, right? Theirs, how are they doing it? Because they are happy and actually Don't think it's bad for them.

And so at the end of the day, happiness, right, outweighs what we, our minds and the patterns that we think will necessarily lead to better health. So that's why I said, like, my extreme mind would think doing all these things was great, but I wasn't actually listening to my body, right? I was fulfilling something my mind wanted and not what my heart wanted.

And when I started listening to my heart, which that's what HRV is, the [00:26:00] happiness, the health, um, the vitality just started, you know. Um, I kind of, I kind of see two doors or two windows to look at this HRV topic through one. And I, it sounds like you've experienced both. One is the biohacker lens, which is, I'm just going to get this score as optimized as possible.

And the other one is much more of the feeling of, you know, the spirit, the spirit led lens, which is, um, rooted more in kind of just your own experience, um, and understanding of like the piece that comes with it. You know, not, uh, necessarily reacting to everything that's happening to you. So it's almost this evolution of you starting out through this biohacking lens, figuring out what this actually is.

And then there's this whole second half of the story, which is really feeling and understanding the differences that you're experiencing in heart rate variability in its actual, like, physical flesh form. A thousand [00:27:00] percent, and I believe HIV is the bridge between biohacking and spirituality. Like, you just nailed it, and I got lit up, I got what I call the tooth bumps as you were saying that, because It's a language in which you can, we love in this modern world, to know, right?

It's, we're not monks anymore and can sit and for hundreds of thousands of hours and just be like, Oh yeah, this is, this is, like, we want the data, we want to see, right? And yes, it's a placebo, and yes, it is a data and reflection of the health of your nervous system, right? And I believe, I'll go a little on the spiritual side, because I went extreme on biohacking, and then I went three or four years extreme on that side, and I found this kind of middle ground, because We are here to have this experience like all this technology things again.

They're not bad. They're happening for us There's a reason for evolution does not make a mistake right even with the perceived chaos We're seeing in the world. Like there's a reason for it all right? This doesn't mean you don't have emotions or empathy or stuff like that. Absolutely not. You're supposed to feel it all right and [00:28:00] Anytime I get too much in my head which happens a lot my mind I when I become aware of it I snap out and I ask myself My favorite question, which is what is systematically responsible for the electric signal that causes my heart to beat, that causes your heart to beat, that causes everyone's heart to beat, right?

That, that signal, that electric signal that gets that heart to beat. And science It's not the brain, right? Science hasn't necessarily found exactly what is causing that, what is creating that electric signal. My truth to that answer is Source, God, Love, Consciousness, Awareness, Allah, whatever you want to say the creator is that we all come from, because I believe we all come from the same place and we go back to the same place, right?

Um, that is what is sending that signal and creating this beauty that's around us. And so that means the heart is the seat of our soul and the heart also is the center of the nervous system. So then this nervous system, which [00:29:00] is an electric system, is the bridge between where we all come from and our manifested reality that we create with our thought and our senses.

And all our roles in this carnation is, in this life is, is to clear this electric bridge to allow our soul to come through us. Right? And what's in the bridge? Stuck. Emotion, energy and motion and the traumas, right? So if we can simply continue regulating our nervous systems and doing the work for ourselves, then magically, to your point, you will start to impact the people around you because you are operating now at a higher frequency.

Um, and you become a light for others to see. So I think nervous system regulation is It's, as you could tell, I love it. And my, my sole mission is simply to just educate and bring awareness around it. And why I love HRV is it's been a way to, um, not just hit the, the spiritual side, but actually, to your point, like really tap into what I think are people with massive desires.

And the larger desire, the [00:30:00] bigger impact you can make. It's just a matter of where you're steering that desire. What is the intention? In your desire, and I was very guilty of having the intention in the beginning of my journey to money and do more and this success that our culture has conditioned us to believe what success is, right?

And, um, and since then my intention has been to regulate my own nervous system and to, you know, be of service to community and the people I love and, um, and as soon as you flip that intention, you always get what you want, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, uh, The beautiful part about what you're talking about is really the connection between like the physical and spiritual, which I think my introduction to HRV is through the apps that track all this stuff from a data perspective.

So it's like this overly scientific lens into this world, which I think is, as you're saying, still needed. We need it geeked out. Yeah, we need it. But then there's like, almost like getting your, [00:31:00] uh, like graduating from that in some senses and being able to use it. As something that actually changes your experiences, um, in the world, I would, I would love to just do a bit of a deep dive on what you've done to rewire and just support HRV as this health metric.

Like, where should someone start? What are kind of the basics? We mentioned nutrition kind of at the, the top of the show where. Nutrition is playing a vital role in, you know, how our bodies are able to handle stress, but, you know, there's so much more to stress and our nervous system than just the fuel that we're giving our body.

So we'd love to unpack that a bit. Like, what are kind of the key pillars that people should be thinking about? Yeah, great question. First and foremost, and we don't need to get too much into detail on it, but sleep, right? Mm hmm. And again, ties back to evolution and really our circadian rhythm and supporting our circadian rhythms really impacts your HRV.

So that means like the consistency of sleep [00:32:00] and the times you sleep and the routine you do around sleep and blue light, right? We talked about blue light and um, you know, as we evolved, We never got light after the sunset, but now we're staring at screens and doing all these things. So reduction of blue light, um, and, and, and that routine for sleep super, super crucial is one.

Then two, when it comes to food and diet, um, and I have tried them all, I believe there's not one diet that fits every single person, right? And so it comes back to listening what your body and how your body's reacting to the food you're given. So, I now, even though I lean more like paleo keto, but that's just because I've been listening to my body and it's what's My body has been telling me because of my epigenetics and my, you know, um, my family, like how it just, it works well for me.

So, really important to not do a diet or eat because someone else is telling you or you think you want to look like that person and it's worked for them. Like, To actually listen to what your body's telling you, and again, that's what HRV [00:33:00] is, like, how much are you listening, right? So, feel into how you feel after you eat a food, and are you getting gas after you have this vegetable, and like, that's, that's your body speaking to you, like, it's not an accident, right?

Things are happening for you. Um, and then, like, some, some very simple ones, um, grounding, you know, grounding, uh, which people think is, like, a woo woo thing, but, like, again, going back to evolution, we evolved, Barefoot on earth right and we are electric beings we are a battery So anytime we get stressed or have a thought we're actually producing a positive charge Right and not positive as in good just positive as an opposite of negative on a battery in the earth When lightning strikes that trillions of negative ions get put into the earth and the water And the Earth is a magnet too, so it has a negative charge.

And so when you're grounded, when they say go put your feet in the sand, it's because you're actually getting that negative charge to counteract the positive charge to get the homeostasis, right? But fast forward to today, we live in concrete jungles with shoes and padding between, right? [00:34:00] So grounding is so simple, and if you live in a concrete jungle like I did, there are now Biohacking technologies, that's the beauty of all these technologies, right?

I still do all my biohacking things, but I do them with the intention to support balance, right? Not to not sleep. You know, and so there's a company called Earthing, and there's an incredible documentary that they made, um, about it. And what they've done is every house has two prongs and a ground outlet.

That ground outlet is just meant to close the circuit in your house, and it's actually connected to the ground outside. And so they, all their material, Has you plug into that ground and it's like you are outside. So I, I work and stand on an earthing mat, I sleep on an earthing mat, I have an earthing pillow.

And then I walk around with earthrunners or ground that chew. So I'm grounded like 90 percent of the time. Which is how my body hundreds of thousands of years ago evolved grounding, right? Yeah. What's cool is it sounds like in the context of the modern world, you're doing These things that allow you to [00:35:00] pull kind of these natural forces into the modern world, whether it's a grounding mat or maybe like a red light that allows you to mitigate some of these things.

Almost like simulate like you're in nature and nothing beats nature, obviously, but if you are gonna be living in a city, if you are gonna be exposed to some of these things, just knowing a grounding mat and a red light and eating the right thing. Blue cloth and glasses. Yeah. Eating the right things.

There's so many little things like that. And it's so funny you say that. You're right, nothing beats nature. And we are choosing to live these incredible active overstimulating lifestyles that have a lot of joy and fun. Like it's a human experience, right? Where I'm here for it. All right? Yeah. And so. There are technologies out there that can support getting you back to as if you were in nature and some of them can be cheap and also some can be, I mean, I have a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber in my home, right?

I have a red light sauna. I have cold. So I have all the things. I love all the things when I'm in California and in it. And I traveled, um, for three months last year. Didn't do any of that and had an [00:36:00] HRV at times higher than my normal baseline without doing those things, right? So, but when I'm home, those things support me because I'm putting those other perceived stresses on and it gets back to the last thing I'll say in terms of like the checklist is really just intentionally at least at some point in the day or in the middle of the day Getting your body into a parasympathetic state, right?

Like, the biggest, I think the biggest needle that moved my HRV and why, how I was able to get mine so high is, I consciously put myself in, arguably one of the most stressful businesses you can be in, the beverage business, right? And for the last five years, Being in that trustful business, raising capital from over 180 investors, trying to keep this thing alive, I would consciously in the middle of the day, pause to do a parasympathetic reset.

And for me, I could wake up in the morning, go sit on my altar and meditate. That was fine. But I couldn't do it in the middle of the day when the calls and everything were happening, and so I'd use technologies, and actually that, that [00:37:00] NuCom, the binaural beat technology was the foundation of it, because binaural beats is the phenomena of essentially entrapping your brain into a desired state through frequency, and I'd stack it with a PMF mat, pulsed electromagnetic fields, with a hydrogen inhalation machine, in a thermal blanket, so, it's called, some of my friends call it the Saleem Experience Alley, actually, who connected us, and it's a 20 minute, Non sleep, deep rest, NSCRs, Huberman, you know, has made, like that, no matter what I'm doing, like, totally stops the mind and gets me in a parasympathetic state, and then I'd go back and do all my calls.

So essentially, 1, 2, 3 o'clock, I'd go from a beta sympathetic state, I'd do 20 minutes to dip, and then go back out. And that exercise is, what is it doing? It's increasing the malleability and resilience of my heart, right? Because again, we didn't evolve staying for 8, 10, 12 hours in this high beta sympathetic state.

So, the biggest thing is being conscious and dropping into that state. Whether it's through a technology, or even just one minute between a call, breathing, [00:38:00] right? Or meditating, or jumping in a cold plunge, or a sauna. Something you can do in the middle of the day to fluctuate, That nervous system, the best thing you can do for your nervous system.

Yeah, just something that can pull you out of that hyper overstimulated state in the middle of it. Yep. Like, something that can just get you back to that like, calm, relaxed state. So we've talked about sleep, nutrition, some grounding, light exposure. One of the things that I think probably goes a little bit unspoken about is just environmental toxins in general.

Is there anything that you do from that perspective, whether it's like, you know, water, mold, things that we're just constantly exposed to? Yeah. The, the biggest thing outside of sleep, the second biggest thing is actually hydration water. Like we are, beings of water, 70 percent of our body's water.

Hydration is so crucial. It's like, it's insane how many people aren't properly hydrated and properly hydrated doesn't mean [00:39:00] drinking filtered water or bottled water. And it's actually usually most of the time, if it doesn't have the right electrolytes or minerals, not hydrating at all, because again, tie back to evolution when we used to drink water.

It came from a river, and that river was full of the magnesium and the potassium and the sodium, right? And now we've removed all that. So our body actually, on a cellular level, we receive hydration into the cell because of the negative and positive charge in those electrolytes, right? So when you remove that, you're just drinking water and then like pissing it out and not actually fueling your cells, right?

Yeah. So, proper hydration. One of the biggest indicators and impacts on HRV. Really? Yeah, so, very important to stay hydrated. And good hydration means you're pissing clear. Right? Your urine should be clear, which is crazy because at least for me, growing up, like, it was always like, no, your urine is yellow, like, that's what it should be.

Right. And yellow urine is, is not hydrated. Right. Um, So, hydration, absolutely massive. Um, and what was the other question that? Um, some [00:40:00] other environmental toxins like mold and things like that. Oh my god, yeah, yeah. So, and also EMFs and all of that. Um, yeah, I mean, I have air doctor at my house to just keep Um, air circulating, very, very important.

Um, but in terms of EMF, you know, I have, I have a necklace. It's called Qi One. It's a German company. Um, and it, it supports, um, basically EMF protection. I have a Soma Vedic at my house that kind of harmonizes, um, and, and supports against 4G, 5G. Um, the Leela, quantum Leela technologies. There's a lot of technologies out there.

Um, that I could happily share and, and post that. Um, for me, even though I have a home in Venice, like, even when people walk into my home and it's like, in it, they're like, oh, this feels like so zen and like, calm. And so I've kind of created this like, Faraday cage, essentially, um, using these technologies because that's, you can't escape that.

I mean, we all, at least here in America, very tough. There are places to go, but you'll have your cell phone towers and all the stuff happening. Yeah, right. [00:41:00] How worried should we be about 5G as it relates to, you know, our body's ability to handle stress? Yeah, I, my answer to how worried we should be about anything is, for me personally, again, I, I, I think if you get worried about it, you make it a problem, right?

Um, so I'm not one, like I don't even own a TV, so I don't watch news, I don't listen, I, I know enough of what I need to know. And I don't feed the thought more because then I'm creating it, right? And again, I don't think any of these things are bad because they've happened, right? Um, and if you look back in history, like everything's always happening for a bigger reason and it's tough to see in the micro, but on a macro, it always ends up being for you, for us, for civilization.

Um, so it just ties back to like, you should be worried about, Your own nervous system and ensuring you're doing the things to support it, maybe against 5G. So if you could get some things to maybe protect [00:42:00] your body, um, great. And if not, that's also okay. Thinking that it's doing something bad for you will then get it to do something bad for you.

So I feel like we've, we've kind of covered what people can start to layer in and implement in their day to day lives. But one aspect of this is kind of like what's happened to you. Like, where some of these energetic emotions are stuck in our body. Are there things that you think about, whether it's like body work or meditation, that can help rewire some of the things that have already been baked into our physical flesh?

Yeah, um, body work, absolutely. Like, crucial acupuncture, um, deep tissue, all those muscles. Because again, that's all moving things in, so that's super important. Meditation, in my opinion, is super important. non negotiable. And I know it's challenging for people, um, to, to start and get into that pattern. But I talked a bit about the somatic meditation.

That's really the foundation [00:43:00] of my work, how you get any of that stuck emotion or energy to move is literally like bringing attention to it, bringing awareness to it, right? So if you get some sort of practice that you could just start feeling into your body and there's technologies out there to support that.

Um, I'm actually working on something that I hope, like, I can really get delivered to the masses to get, you know, an app, more people in their body. Um, but, yeah, and then, I mean, I, I've been transformed through plant medicines, uh, and that have really helped move some of my, like, core wounds and deeper patterning around.

Um, which have been around, you know, for thousands of years, um, and psychedelics. I mean, I think psychedelics are making a massive, massive, um, you know, resurgence in the world. And I think there's a reason for that because psychedelics get you more in your body, right? Psychedelics actually, when done with the right intention and in the right, you know, container, There are studies around that, um, because it slows down your default mode network, right?

And it gets you more in your body, in your heart. And that's what HRV is a measure of. [00:44:00] So when you do that, you, that's what like, you know, an ayahuasca ceremony, right? Like what is it doing? It's, it's slowing down the default mode network. It's getting you in your body. And then what's actually healing you.

In the ayahuasca ceremony is the Icaros, is the music that the shamans are playing because again, emotion is stuck energy that's actually sound in the body. And so as you are in your body, because the medicine got you in your body, the sound now is supporting that move. And that's really the magic of a, of a sound journey of a ayahuasca journey, um, which has just been so profound.

And then obviously integration is just as important. It's like, okay, so you felt it, you saw it, like. Are you going to change that pattern? Are you going to start to work to, to create a new pattern? Or are you going to go back into the cycle? How would you articulate a healthy relationship with some of these psychedelics?

Because obviously they've gotten popularized in the past and Then got cracked down on [00:45:00] and I I do see and have a experience through people talking about it Just the positives Aspects of it whether it's like coming back for more and using it using these psychedelic tools as a way to like handle with PTSD But you know, when does it become?

Something that goes too far and like how can people actually use it as a tool? Yeah, it comes back to truly intention. Intention. Intention and integration. Um, and what is your intention in using the psychedelic, right? Are you using it? to escape or using it to suppress, right? Which is ends up happening. If you look at anybody who has been addicted, usually there's some form of not wanting to feel what is being called in the body.

Right. Um, whereas if you use it with the intention to do the work, to feel, to process, to move through, um, and then you integrate that that's where the magic actually happens, right? So, um, It's just, yeah, intention to me is, is [00:46:00] everything. Yeah. Well, dude, I love what you're doing with everything with HRV. I feel like I actually had such a novice understanding of it even before this conversation and really it being a metric to so much more than just, you know, kind of a biomarker that you might kind of like step on a scale and weigh yourself and think of it in a similar way.

So I really I love the way that you're using it as this tool to tap into something much deeper in our health journeys Where can people find you learn more about what you're doing? If people want to take a little bit of a more deep dive, what kind of resources would you point them to? Yeah, my my social media, which is that HRV guy THAT HRV Um, and it's on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, all the things.

Um, I bet by the time this goes out, my website should be up, which will, I'm, I'm very excited for it's going to be kind of like HRV decoded. A lot of the stuff we talked about, some good [00:47:00] like PDFs you could download for like quick tips and everything. And, um, so, and that's just going to be that HRV guy.

com, um, would be, I'd say the two biggest ones. And I think, uh, Awesome. Well, Salim, thank you so much for coming on the pod. We had to cut this a little bit short, but we'll have to do it again and run it back so we can go even deeper on some of these topics, but truly appreciate your time and, um, just thankful to know you now and call you a friend.

Yeah, likewise, man. Thank you guys so much for the opportunity. Would happily run it back and appreciate you guys giving people like me a platform to share, um, because that's what I think the more we can make people aware of, um, all these things, I think all of us have such a unique, um, Imprint on what we can bring into the world and if all of us are sharing that it's going to continue guiding Uh the magic that we're seeing happening.

Yeah I love it. All right, brother. All right. Appreciate you.