Coming up next on passion struck.

So when I look at health optimization and we're trying to help someone optimize their health for high performance and longevity, I have a framework to make it easy to remember called shift. So how do I shift into optimal health? And that stands for optimizing your sleep, your hormones, gathering the insights, which is a combination of lab and wearable data. And then the f is, how do I fuel my body? And for that, there's an acronym, flow. Because it's not just food. It's not just a food we eat. It's food, light, oxygen, so how we breathe, and water, hydration. And then the final piece of shift is the t. How do I train? But I don't just mean physical activity. How do I train my body and mind?

Welcome to passion struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions. On Fridays, we have long form interviews the rest of the week, with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEO's, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 464, passion struck. Consistently ranked by Apple as the number one alternative health podcast in the world. A heartfelt thank. Thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week, eager to listen, learn, and discover new ways to live better, to be better, and most importantly, to make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that.

We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to passionstruck.com starterpacks or Spotify to get started. I'm thrilled to share an incredible milestone we've just achieved. Together, we've officially crossed 40 million downloads. This isn't just a number, it's a testament to the movement we're building, the conversations we're sparking, and the change we're inspiring across the globe. I'm also excited to announce that my book Passion struck won the gold medal at the Nonfiction book Awards and is also the winner of the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Additionally, we also just launched the audiobook version. You can find it on the Passionstruck website, Amazon, or wherever you purchase books. In case you missed my interview from earlier this week, I had an intriguing conversation with Alex Edmonds, who's a luminary in finance and economics from the London business School. In this episode, we delve into his compelling new book may contain lies how stories, statistics, and studies exploit our biases and what we can do about it.

Discover how Alex dismantles the minefields of misinformation that bombard our daily lives, from fabricated tales to flawed studies, and provide strategies to thrive in a world awash with misinformation. And if you liked that previous episode or today's, we would so appreciate you giving it a five star rating and review. They go such a long way in strengthening the passion star community where we can help more people to create an intentional life. I know we and our guests love to hear your feedback. Today, I am thrilled to host Angela Foster, an award winning nutritionist, health and performance coach, and the dynamic voice behind the global podcast high performance health. Angela's journey is as remarkable as it is inspiring. A former partner at a large law firm, she's no stranger to the brine of high stakes environments and the unique challenges faced by women striving to juggle career excellence with their family life, all while maintaining optimal health and longevity. However, Angela's life took a dramatic turn when she faced burnout and a major depressive disorder which culminated in a life threatening battle with pneumonia. It was through this crucible that Angela discovered the transformative power of biohacking, holistic health and spiritual practices, and she used them to rebuild her life from the ground up.

Today, Angela is not just a practitioner, but a pioneer having creating biosyncing, which amplifies health, vitality, and performance without compromising one's well being. In this episode, Angela will dive deep into the science and strategy behind her methods, discuss the unique health requirements of women, and share practical, actionable advice for anyone looking to enhance their life through optimized health. Thank you for choosing passion struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin. I am absolutely honored and ecstatic to have my friend Angela Foster on passion struck. So great to see you again, Angela.

So amazing to be here. Thank you, John. I loved the episode we recorded together on my show, and super excited to be here with you today.

Yeah, it was absolutely one of my favorites on the podcast where I just wrapped up. So thank you again for having me.

Amazing. It was very popular.

I think it's a great opportunity for us to dive into a little bit of your backstory. Can you talk about your childhood, how you grew up, and what led you to want to pursue becoming an attorney?

That's such a great question. And I don't know that I have the most ambitious or exciting of answers in relation to that, because when I was growing up, I guess I was conditioned, in a way, to look for profession, right? That was the thing in our house, and that was a stable career. And I used to watch LA Law, which I think an american program, and loved it. And so I was just really enamored by this idea of becoming a lawyer. And when I then started doing my training, I went to law school and then did go on to become a lawyer. I took a keen interest in corporate law and absolutely loved all the mergers and acquisitions, the negotiations, the height of the deal, pulling it through. But as you can imagine, it was a very fast paced life. It was a play hard work, hard mentality. And while I enjoyed it, I wouldn't say that it was what you call passion struck. I definitely don't think that law was my purpose, if you like, in life. And so after doing it a few years, I could really notice the impact that it was having on my wider relationships, on my health and various things.

And it was then when I went on to have my children, which we can talk about, that things got a little bit messed up. And that's when I switched direction. But definitely, I think as a young child, I was watching lawyers, and it looked like a fun job, and it was. But it definitely has its demands.

Clay, I always loved the m and a side of things when I was doing my career, but you're right, it is full on. And during my time when I was at Dell, we did somewhere between twelve and 15 acquisitions. But what people don't seem to realize when you tell them that number, and that's a lot in a two, three year period, is that if you get it down to that list, you've actually looked, in our case, probably five or 600 companies, many of which you go out and visit, etcetera. So it is very high paced, especially as you're trying to complete a deal and you're doing your due diligence and trying to get it across the line. So it's exhilarating, but after I did every single one, I was also really burned out, because you were just burning both ends of the candle. Did you find the same thing?

100%. And I think the thing about getting that deal through is you need that sense of urgency, don't you, in order for it to take place. And so many weekends are lost to that, so many all nighters, and we would just push through. That was the expectation. I think even the bankers used to go home earlier than us. But as a corporate lawyer, you were expected to really get it over the line. But as I say, I mean, the same as you. I think it was fun, but often, and I'm not sure of your experience, but I imagine it was the same at Dell for me as a corporate lawyer, it was usually multinational. And so I think the most crazy deals I did was when we did the merger of Hewlett Packard with compact computers back in the day, because that was between California, London, and India. And so there really wasn't a time when anyone was in bed on that deal. So, yeah, definitely burning the candle at both ends.

Yes. Most of our deals were global as well, and the largest one I worked on was when we acquired Perot systems, and that was about a $5 billion acquisition. But they had 28,000 employees in Bangalore, so it was a lot of going back and forth going to India, and then I got put in charge of that after the deal was done. And so I had to go to Bangalore almost every single month and spend time there trying to bring the two entities together. So one of the things I often talk about, because I experienced pretty profound burnout in my career, is people often think that burnout just happens overnight. And my experience is it's almost like dysthemia, the depression that you can develop over time. And for me, burnout probably started way back in the periphery, and I didn't even know it was there. And I think it just kept building upon itself over time until it reached a medium grade, and then there was an event or two that really caused it to hockey stick. Did you find the same thing for you, or was your experience with it differently?

Mine was exactly the same. And I think the issue here, isn't it, is that now actually, we have wearables and things, and I think we could talk about HRV and things you can track and sleep and things in a moment, but in those days, there wasn't really anything to track it by, so you were just checking in with yourself. And the kind of typical type a personality that I was is to just push through and carry on with it. But there were definitely signs along the way. And I think it's almost. My experience really with it is the same as if you were to drink some alcohol. You're not drunk on one drink or two drinks. But there is a tipping point, right? That just takes over the edge. And I think that's the same with burnout. For me. There were signs along the way. I was having a whole host of hormonal issues. I was having repeated chest infections, which ultimately gave way to hospitalization with pneumonia. But there were certain signs along the way that I would get better and just keep on pushing through. I think what I experienced was ignore them at your peril.

Thankfully, now I think things look a lot different and we can do lab testing much more easily. People can do that at home to see are they picking up any kind of nutrient insufficiencies, what does their blood work look like, their energy levels? But also we have wearables that we can use at home that help us to have that independent metric. And I'm definitely not saying we should hang everything on that data. I still think intuition and how we feel is important, but for the type a's among us who will push through that, I think it can be really helpful to see, because there are things that we can do that don't necessarily require a lot of extra time, but can bring our nervous system back into balance. And that's where I focus much of.

My work, and I want to hit on that in just a second. I wanted to come back just for a second, talk about the burnout a little bit more. Just so people who may be going through this and dont understand all the signs can learn from us. So at this point in time, can you talk about what was going on in your life? You had kids at this point. How was your life manifesting itself at this point? And then was there a singular moment or moments that caused you to wake up and realize you needed to make a shift?

Such a great question. So I was busy on the partnership track, and I was ambitious. I wanted to make partnership, but at the same time, I was 30 years old and I wanted to start a family. And so in my mind, I was like, why don't I go for these two things and I'll see which one comes in right? And they're probably not both going to come together, but I went for it and I ended up making partnership at eight months pregnant, which I think is an amazing progression in many respects for women, because if we look back decades before that, just wasn't possible when I made partnership. It comes with a whole new host of responsibilities in terms of then not just being involved in the transactions that are going on, but also the marketing and really having more influence in the business. When I had my first son, it was on the back of some hormonal issues, pcos and endometriosis. And so I was then advised to not leave too big a gap between the two children because I'd had some surgery, and those things can regrow. So I ended up having my two boys very close together.

They were within 18 months of each other. I had two c sections, unexpectedly. And I think that what happened was, like you were saying a moment ago, these things start to build upon each other now. My body was under increasing strain, but what was also affected was my mental health. So I experienced, quite surprisingly to me, postpartum depression. And it got more entrenched after my second child. And then I went on to have a third child a few years later, having recovered from that experience and put in place many measures, like a night nanny and different things to try and protect my sleep, to help me. But after my third child, my mental health really took a dive for the worse. And that's when I experienced quite debilitating postpartum depression that was later diagnosed as major depressive disorder. And when my daughter was two years old, that's when I was really struggling. And I was on multiple medications, both antidepressant and antipsychotic medication, to control for what were bipolar episodes. And so I was really struggling with both the highs and the lows of my mood. And at that point, John, honestly, it felt like I had created this prison in my own mind because I didn't want to be with my thoughts.

I wasn't quite sure what to do. I was having therapy, but I wasn't really progressing. But I also had these three beautiful children that I didn't want to leave without a mother. And so I felt very trapped. And that's when it then had an effect, I believe, on my immune health. And so what started as flu turned into pneumonia and eventually ended up with hospitalization. And that, unfortunately, was the rock bottom for me. Although in many respects, now I look back on it with gratitude, because actually, it was probably the most fortunate thing that happened, because it gave me that opportunity to reflect and think about where I was and how I really wanted to live my life with intention and with passion, which is what you talk a lot about. At that point, I couldn't see the passion side of it. I just knew that I wanted to live with intention and to be there for my children and to see them grow up. And that sparked the career change and change in direction for me.

Thank you so much for sharing that. And to me, it's really interesting, because I liken it to you're standing there on a chasm, and you see this life ahead of you and the dissatisfaction it's going to cause you, and you see this life that you could have on the other side. But oftentimes we don't see a bridge on how to go from point a to point b, and it gets very difficult. So people get stuck because they can't muster the courage or the self introspection to really learn who they are to make that leap. What would be some of your recommendations to the audience for what you did and what you might recommend to others to do if they're in that exact position?

I think that one of the biggest things that I found, and I find through working with people that helps success in every area of life, is to really connect with what is valuable to you, with your highest values. For me, in that moment in the hospital, when I was faced with potentially, actually what they thought was they were preparing a bed in intensive care, I was neutropenic. My white blood cell count was so low, I'd had a ct scan. I had viral and bacterial pneumonia across both lungs, so the outcome at that point didn't look good. And I remember looking at my phone because I was on my own. The crazy thing was, I'd been trying to run away from myself, and then here I was only with myself. And ultimately, that's who we're going to end up with, right? That's who we spend time, and that's where the end is. And so I looked at my phone, and I was looking at photos of my children, and I connected with such a deep sense of love for them. They were my guiding light. And I realized what I valued the most. And I was like, I want to see my children grow up.

I want to stop these crazy thoughts of suicide and things in my head and reconnect with my family. And it was this overwhelming sense of love. And so that then became my guiding light. I'm going to get really well mentally, physically, spiritually well for my children. And I think if you can find what you truly value, that becomes your compass to guide you and that helps you then take the next step. I couldn't see the full path at that point to healing myself, to ending up launching the business that I have today in the podcast. But it was just taking that next step that was really fully in alignment with me and what I valued in life.

Thank you so much for sharing that. And one of the things that I often talk about is people ask me, what do I mean when I say you need to be intentional about what you do. And to me, it's this whole concept that you have to be conscious and how you're aligning the actions that you're taking, the choices that you're making with your values, your ambitions and your aspirations. And people think that they're, each one of those is on its own island. And I have found that you have to get those aligned and that they're actually interdependent on each other. Do you find the same thing?

Yeah, I absolutely do. I think you made such a profound point there. And I love your work. I loved interviewing you. I love, I love your book. I think they need to come into alignment. The way that, you know, I talk about this concept of biosyncing, it's very similar. But insofar as it's syncing with you, with your goals and dreams, the things that you value the highest, and the future, you, if you like, who are you stepping into? Because the, the present is very quickly becoming the past. So we need to look ahead, sync with that person, and ask ourselves the question, am I being or am I at least becoming the best version of me? And I think that when those things begin to line up, you just feel so much more in flow and you feel more congruent with things. And that in turn helps your health and your nervous system. There's also lots of things we can talk about that you can do from a health and nervous system perspective. But that, in my experience, brings you into balance, because otherwise you're pursuing one thing potentially at a cost to another. And so for me, on that journey, it was about how can I make things come into alignment so that I can focus on myself and my self care and value myself and my children, and still go on to have a career, enjoy life to its fullest.

And I truly think when you bring those threads together that you speak about, John, that it's possible, and also it's just the most fun way to live your life.

Yeah, I completely agree. One last thing before we go into more about biosyncing, I did want to ask is when you were at this lowest point that you found yourself, what was your sense of personal significance? Did you feel like you mattered at that point? And was it? And if you didn't, how did that manifest itself, because I think unmattering is something that so many people feel right now.

I didn't. Esseka is quite an emotional question to ask. I didn't feel like I mattered. I realized I mattered. When I was in hospital and my kids came to see me, I realized how much I meant them and how much they needed a mother. And my relationship with my husband, who I met at university and I'd been with a very long time, unfortunately, he's my soulmate. And so I. Then it started to bring things back in perspective. But at the time that I was really struggling with my mental health, I honestly felt that if I could release my family from me, they would be better off without me. And that was a hard place to find myself in, because I felt that I was the broken peace, if you like, and I think that I wasn't valuing myself and I'd lost my way. So at that point, I didn't. And it was something I had to find again. And I think that for anyone who's listening to this, who's feeling that way, just connecting back with you is the path through it. And finding that sense of purpose in you, it may not come immediately, but just reconnecting with yourself and just realizing just how precious you are, you're not here by accident, and how much.

How important you are and how much you have to give. And I know that for anyone listening who's experiencing this, it can feel, like, so far away. And that's why I say initially, in the early days, it's like baby steps to get back on track.

Yeah, I experienced the same thing that you did. And I think everyone wants this easy panacea to get to the other side. And the reason I brought up the whole question about burnout is I have just found that it takes a long time to get to that state that you and I were both at, but it also takes a period of time to relearn how you want to function in life and how to get your body back into the sink that it's supposed to be in. And I love that you have gotten so involved with biosyncing, because I think it's such a natural way for people to approach things in an alternative health manner. But some of the audience might not know what we're talking about when we say biosyncrasies. So could you talk to them a little bit about it?

Yeah, for sure. I'd love to. So biosyncing is something, essentially, that I've created to help people understand the three pillars that really can optimize your health, your happiness, and your longevity, as well as your performance at the same time. And the three things to sync with your most empowered version of you. Right. So your future self. So that's the psychological pillar, to sync with your bio individuality, because we're also different. And yes, you can look to things like genetic differences, for example, but also we have different goals, different lifestyles. So it's like, what is important to you and what is your physiology, and what are your goals? How does that line up together? And we can dive deeper into that in a moment. And then the last one is to sync with your biorhythms. And so for women, this will include hormonal cycles, depending at what stage of life they're in. For all of us, it involves syncing with the circadian rhythm, which is one of the cornerstones of health and longevity. And when you start to sync with these three areas, what I found is not only does your nervous system come into balance, but you also have more purpose around what you're doing.

And you're able to get these things to line up and experience life more in flow as opposed to encountering resistance. Now, I'm not saying we don't encounter resistance. I know we all have that along the way. But what we're really trying to do is to break through those barriers and overcome any resistance and bring ourselves into balance. So those are really the three. Your bio individuality, your future self, and your biorhythms.

It's interesting. As I was researching this before I came on the show, I was surprised to find that there are some really famous people who have implemented biosyncing into their lives. And I'll just name a few. Meryl Streep, Orlando Bloom, Cher, Sasha Cohen, your former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, Willie Nelson, Sting, John Travolta, and Madonna, just to name a few, have found value in the work that you're doing. So what you mentioned those three components. If someone wants to start using this, where do they find their starting point?

That's such a great question. I think the best starting point is to first think about what do you really want? What do you really want? And not hold back and look at yourself in the future. Stephen Covey talks about this. Many people have talked about this over the years. Is really understand, what do I really want? Not what do I think I can have, right, or I think I can achieve what do I really want in life, what's important to me, and not hold back. And sometimes that takes a few drafts right. Because almost we have been conditioned to hold ourselves back and not believe things can be possible or that they're for someone else. And so once you establish what you really want your life to look like, the second step then is to think, okay, who do I need to become in order for that to be true? Because if it could be true right now, you would be that person. And so we want to close the gap between who you are now and who you're becoming to help you get there. And in a sense, we're always becoming, right? Michelle Obama wrote a book on it, fact.

So we're always becoming and we want to up level ourselves. And so if you have that goal of what you want to achieve, and it doesn't have to be a super long term goal, you can have shorter term goals if that feels easier for you. But then it's about looking at, okay, who do I need to become in order for that to be true? And then how can I sync with the other two pillars in terms of optimizing my health in a way that's individual to me and in a way that syncs with these biorhythms so that I can be the best version of me? So it all starts with that first question, really, of what do I really want?

Yeah, it really comes down to what you and I talked about during our interview is self discrepancy theory, which is we have three versions of ourself, our actual self, our odd self, and the ideal self, who we could be. And so many people find themselves in the trap that they become their odd self. And once they get there, there's so many things that keep them there, primarily the monetary kingdom that you've built up in your life and not seeing how you can break away from that to make that change. So, to me, I've always found that you've got to pick one of the areas you're most decrepit in or lacking in and put extra focus in that area. For me, it was really overcoming some of the post traumatic stress that I had in my life. And I found by concentrating on that first, it then opened the door for me to start working on other areas in my life. But if I didn't get those past stuck points fixed, I wasn't going to be able to move forward in other areas. But for someone else, it could be they've got to fix their diet, or they've got to fix their sleep habit, like you were talking about, and getting their rhythm back in place and etcetera.

Do you find these things to be true with the people that you coach?

Yeah, 100%. I really do. And I think that what you're speaking about there is in, it's such a great book as well. The one thing by Gary Keller, I think it was where he talks about the domino and the lead domino. And I always think that we each have a domino in terms of starting to become that person, that if we can put one habit in place or fix one thing first, it's going to be the domino that knocks down the others. So when I look at health optimization and we're trying to put to help someone optimize their health for high performance and longevity, I have a framework to make it easy to remember called shift. So how do I shift into optimal health? And that stands for optimizing your sleep, your hormones, gathering the insights, which is a combination of lab and wearable data. And then the f is how do I fuel my body? And for that, there's an acronym flow, because it's not just food. It's not just the food we eat. It's food, like oxygen. So how we breathe and water hydration. And then the final piece of shift is the t.

How do I train? But I don't just mean physical activity. How do I train my body and mind? And that was the missing piece for me as a lawyer, right? I wasn't training the mind. I wasn't focusing on that and that connection with myself. And so when you look at shift as a whole, you don't have to do it in order for many people, actually sleep is going to be that lead domino, because if you sleep better, you're going to eat better, you feel more positive, you're more productive, you're more likely to work out, for example. But for others, it will be something different. It might be if I wake up early and I exercise in the morning and I start with that t of just training the body, I can move my psychology through, starting with my physiology. And when I do that and I boost my mood now, I eat better, I feel more tired at night, my nervous system and my hormones, because we're not looking at just sex hormones here, but stress hormones, that all comes into balance. And so I think it's about sitting with yourself and maybe even just taking a pen while you're listening to this and writing across the top of a page.

If you're not driving, how do I make the shift? And then deciding which one of those is your domino that you can start with and just bringing in small behavior changes and focusing just on that one, because chances are the others will start to just flow from there.

So right now, biohacking is all the rage. But I think that there are some common misconceptions about it. How does biosyncing address these misconceptions?

So I think biohacking is fun, isn't it? It's almost like having you go on the ski slopes, right? You could have all the gear, but no idea. There's lots of fun technologies that can elevate our life, that can step in. For example, if you look at red light therapy, amazing for mitochondria, right, the energy powerhouses of our cells. The red light can be great for collagen production. It can help with circadian rhythm. So if we don't have access, like here, where I am in the UK in the winter, we almost have no light. We have about 8 hours of light in a day, but now we're really enjoying the long days and nights for summer. So these biohacks can come in to really elevate parts of your health or to step in where we want to make up for deficits or things that we are beyond our control. And I think they're amazing and they're also super fun. Biosyncing is really actually getting the framework behind that in place and actually bring us back to a more kind of ancestral practice of syncing with the things we need to. You can start biosyncing without spending any money at all.

And most importantly, just syncing with yourself. That's so important. And practicing, because really biosyncing is a practice practicing these areas to help you become better. And then the biohacks can come, right, because they're like the icing, if you like, on top of the cake.

And from the work that you do, do you incorporate any spiritual practices into your coaching? And if so, what impact have they had on your clients?

That's such a great question. I do incorporate spiritual practices because I think for me it was a really big part of my own healing and my own journey, and through things like meditation and mindfulness and breath work, that's really. And journaling as well. That's really how I've gotten to know myself and to understand that inner me. And what's really interesting, John, is that when we work with clients, we give them technology by the finnish company called Firstbeat. And Firstbeat produces an ECG grade medical device that you can put on the chest area and start to take measurements of your heart rate and heart rate variability. And it will give you stress scores and recovery scores. But what's really interesting is that when you practice spiritual practices, when you practice things like resonance, frequency, breathing, for example, even when you start to engage in activities that are in alignment with your highest values. So, for example, we have example where a mom that I worked with recently, she has five kids, and she's trying to get them off to school in the morning. But she's dedicated her life at this point to raising those children that is in alignment with her highest values to what might seem stressful to one person.

Actually, what we saw was her heart rate variability goes higher than it does during sleep because she's syncing with what's important to her. And so it's really interesting what we see as spiritual practices, but also syncing with your values brings that nervous system into balance. Yeah.

And as people are doing that, I'm betting that they have a ton of limiting beliefs that they have to confront and self confidence issues, etcetera. How do you recommend people transcend these.

Things in terms of if they. When you ask that question, do you mean insofar as if they have limiting beliefs around whether they can achieve the goals that they're looking at, for example?

Yeah, exactly. Because I think oftentimes we see this thing in front of us, we might manifest that we want it, but we still sometimes don't believe that we're entitled to it or that we're good enough or that we have the courage to get there.

Yeah, that's so true. And that programming comes from, often from childhood, but also in adulthood, right along the way, we can be programmed. There's some research, I think, around a question, which is, what if? And that when you ask the question, what if it disengages the amygdala? Because when we want something, and then we look at the gap between where we are now and where we want to be, that's when fear can set in and you can start to really think, can this really be possible for me? When you flip that on its head and actually ask the question of what if? So maybe you've never had wealth in your family before. No one's ever successfully generated it or not been able to hang on to it, even when you reframe that question and say, well, what if I could be the first millionaire? Or maybe you're in my family, or even billionaire. What about if you? People often who are overweight, a common term will be, but I've always been overweight, and my family's been overweight. This is just how we are. Well, what if you could be the first person who is truly healthy.

And I think by asking that question, what if it can help bring us back to that childhood state where we start to dream again and go, well, yeah, what if this could be possible for me? And once we can get you there, we can start to make the shift and then help you to overcome any limiting beliefs that may be holding you back and no longer serving you.

Well, Angela, thanks for sharing that. And one thing that we mentioned earlier was health rate variability, and it's something that we really haven't covered too much on the podcast, surprisingly. So can you explain what HVR is and what is a healthy HRV?

Yeah, of course. So I'll come back to what's a healthy HRV? In just a moment, and I'll explain what it is first. So if you imagine your heart rate is eating, everyone knows, right? And they can feel their pulse, and they can take it and see, let's say the average heartbeat is beating at 60 beats per minute, right? Just as an average, it's not going to be beating at one beat per second. The heart is not designed to beat like a metronome. It's actually designed to have more interbeat variability. And that is what heart rate variability is looking at, is to look at that as a metric. Now, often we correlate, generally speaking, higher heart rate variability with better health. And this would indicate that the autonomic nervous system is functioning well and we have good engagement between that sympathetic drive and the parasympathetic rest and digest system. However, this is where, when we look at what is a good level for HRV, people can get competitive with it. Because what you should never do is look at somebody else's HRV to determine whether or not yours is good. So once you have a look at yours and establish a baseline, it's then about understanding, okay, when might I be pushing the envelope too hard?

And I'm not having sufficient recovery? Because what I'm seeing is my HRV is dropping. And also, as a long term thing, am I achieving my kind of genetic potential, or could I improve that over time through lifestyle practices, spiritual practices, exercise, for example. In particular, aerobic exercise can improve that. But what you also want to see is, do I have the ability to modulate my HRV? Because you could have somebody who has a really high HRV because they've done a ton of endurance sports, but actually, they don't know how to modulate it. So when they're doing breath work, when they're doing meditation, we're not seeing any variances. And so that ability to be able to modulate it and have good kind of vagus nerve optimization is an important part of that. But the key thing here is don't compare to others, because everybody has an individual HIV. It's affected by age, it's affected by lifestyle, and it's also affected by genetics. But establishing your baseline is what's important, so then we can understand and get better insights into you and how to support you.

Yeah, thank you for giving that explanation. And what are some of the activities that you would recommend to a listener for improving their HRV?

So, in terms of looking at improving it, things that basically don't cost you anything. So one of the ways that you can improve heart rate variability would be through resonant frequency breathing. And that's where you have heart and lung coherence. For most people, this is around an in breadth of four and an out breath of six. But there are variances, and there are some great free apps that you can use. There's one by, I think, a company called awesome Labs, where you can like, program in, and it has like a bubble, so you can breathe in and out and help you to find your resonant frequency. And if we look at the work of Doctor Leah Lagos, what's most important here is actually understanding how you feel. Do you feel that you're coming into balance? If you then have the ability to track it with something like the first beat device, which is on the heart area, so it's reactive enough to see those changes immediately, then you can actually see as well. Is that moving me into the green? Is my HRV improving? But your intuition really comes first. And what you'll notice is that when you have, when you found your resonant frequency, you feel like you're coming home to yourself.

You feel in sync and imbalance. And it's really interesting because I was doing this with a client the other day who, very successful entrepreneur, and he was very like, what we would see when he would go to sleep is a high level of sort of red activity on the graphs. In terms of, he was quite sympathetically driven, and this wasn't being picked up by other wearables that he was using. And so he then wanted to improve this metric. So I taught him how to find his resonant frequency. And what we saw is that when he found it, he went into the green, his resting pulse was lower, his heart rate variability improved. But what was really fascinating was just how quickly that improved his sleep, because that night, he was then mostly in the green that had just deactivated that sympathetic drive so he could have deep, restful sleep. So one of the most powerful ways that I found is to practice resonant frequency breathing. And there are apps like, I think it might have changed the name now, but Elite HRV, that can help you to do this. It used to be called, and ideally you would do 20 minutes a day, but what I'm reporting there is this was literally just a few minutes of it, and we saw profound benefits.

Lots of different forms of breath work can help you to improve this. Becoming more present is also really important, so you're not under too much strain. What I've seen is that sympathetic drive can be very high individuals when they're doing a lot of task switching. So there's been some really great work done by James Hewitt around cognitive gears and looking at low gear, medium gear and high gear. A bit like when we're looking at fitness, if we want to improve our aerobic health, we can look at heart rate zones. And if we were always in that middle zone three of just going out for a regular run every day, we'd have a high stress burden. We wouldn't necessarily be making that many adaptations, unless endurance was the goal. When we look at splitting between different heart rate zones, so sometimes we're doing hiking and zone two, which also improves vo two max. But then other times we're in that top end sprinting, for example, top end of zone four, or high, even zone five, we see adaptations, but we can counter that with long periods of recovery. And so what we're doing there is switching effectively between high and low gear.

It's the same cognitively, and that's what James Hewitt's work indicates. So if we can have periods of work where we are in deep focus and flow for a period of time, and then we switch out and we go into low gear, the mistake I think many of us make, and this is what leads to a really high sympathetic drive, is that we're constantly task switching between. It's like open tabs on our computer and we're in that medium gear, responding to emails. Your inbox is full of other people's priorities, going from one meeting to the next, going onto social media as a break, supposedly, but actually that, again is just a high cognitive demand without seeing those adaptations. And just to finish off, there's some great work done by Microsoft on this, where they put EEG caps on individuals and monitor them going from one meeting to the next. And what they found was that by introducing a ten minute break between meetings helped to reduce that high beta brainwave activity and give them that rest and recovery. So there's many simple things, and then there's also, if you want to talk about them, some sort of biohacking things as well, that can have an impact.

Yeah. And I just wanted to make a call out that previously we've had two great interviews talking about white space. What you were just referring to, one was with Juliet funt and the other was with Dorie Clark. But as you were just saying, we don't make room for that white space. I know that it was the case for me. It was as if during my workday, I was constantly just going from one thing to another. And to me, what it really deters is the creativity that we need as well as the relationships we need to foster. And when you don't have that downtime, you don't have any reset at all. And so you're constantly just feeling that stress. I did want to ask, what results have you found when people correct their HRV and develop a healthy heart rate variatability?

So what I've seen is they have a greater capacity to deal with life's problems that throw at us. We're just more able to do that. We're able to access deeper states of work more easily, more flow states. Just life feels easier for them. And there's a whole host of health practices that sit behind this, which is really what we were talking about in terms of biosyncing. Because HRV will also be affected by hydration. It will also be affected to a degree by sleep and in particular by circadian rhythm. So you can improve HRV by going to bed and waking up at the same time. So as you start to bring all of these things into balance or into sync, as I like to speak of, then what happens is you have a greater capacity to deal with challenges. And you can be like the zebra, right? So you can be laser focused if you're being chased by that lion and there really is a challenge there, but then afterwards, you can recover and switch off again and have that psychological flexibility, if you like, which is really important. It also means that you are better able to be present, because if you're constantly task switching and having that sympathetic drive, you're never really truly present to any given moment.

And that is the generous present moment. That is where the beauty of life exists. And so you're missing out often on relationships with your children, with your family, with your partner, with your friends, because you're not being present. So I think when you start to put these things into place, and you feel really well rested, but also hyper focused when you need to be, you're at that kind of idle balance to really place yourself for high performance, but also for enjoyment of life.

Yeah. Angela, I wanted to go back to earlier in the discussion you were talking about that some of the things that we can test for are getting better sense of our supplements. Have you also looked at mineral levels in the work that you do? And if so, what are some of the best tests that you found that people could take that might be affordable and can help point them where they might be deficient?

That's a great question. And I think when you look at heart function as well, minerals play a big balance. So things like sodium, potassium, magnesium. In terms of minerals, I think as long as you're working with a practitioner who really understands it and they're not usually expensive to work with, I think hair tissue analysis is one of the best ways to look at minerals, and that also gives you some indications around any kind of toxicity that's building up, because your hair really is a representation of what's been going over a longer period of time. When you're looking at things like that through hair tissue mineral analysis, the ratios of certain things become important. And so that's why I think it's valuable to have an appointment with somebody who can really take you through it and help you understand how to make changes, because you can get very valuable insights, even into things like energy and metabolism and thyroid health through that.

Yeah, it's interesting. I did that hair test myself a number of months ago, and I was feeling at times a bit lethargic, and I couldn't put my finger on it. And it turns out that I was taking too much zinc and it was depleting my copper. And so I had to back way off the zinc, add copper, and it, after a few weeks, it completely changed how my whole body was functioning.

Amazing.

So, Angela, you've got a great podcast. I was hoping you might be able to share a little bit about it. So if the audience isn't aware, my episode is a great starting point. I'll plug that. But can you share a little bit more about your show and what got you started doing it?

Yeah, of course I can. Thank you, John. And the episode we recorded together, obviously on completely, is an amazing episode and super popular. I absolutely loved having you on, so definitely come and check that out. The podcast is high performance health, and essentially, it is me chatting to experts and soon to be launched some of my own personal content as well. But really, it's about how can we optimize our health for high performance in life? And so that's the premise of the podcast. It was something that I started back in 2019 when I was really some way down my own journey of optimizing my health and performance. And I got to this point where I'd come away from my legal career, I'd obviously had challenges with my health. I'd been very successful as a lawyer, and now I'd got my health back on track. And so I was successful in that regard. And so I really wanted to bring these two worlds together. I was like, there must be a way of having sustained high performance and optimal health at the same time. And that's when I began to learn that actually optimal health is the premise, is the basis.

It's like the tectonic plate, really, of all our goals. It is the basis of sustained high performance in business and in life. So that's when the high performance health podcast was born. And every week, I interview experts across the world on their areas to give you unique insights and the practical skills to implement to help you really optimize your health for high performance. And we did a great episode together just on that.

Thank you for sharing that. And if people want to learn more about you, where's the best place beyond the podcast that they should go?

So you can go to my website, which is Angelafoster performance, and also you can connect with me on social media. I'm probably most active on Instagram, which is Angela S. Foster.

Angela, it was such an honor and joy to have you on here again. It's always so nice to catch up with you. Thank you so much for being a guest.

Thank you so much for having me on, John. I've just, I've loved our conversation.

I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Angela Foster, and I wanted to thank Angela for coming and joining us on today's show. Links to all things Angela will be in the show. Notes@passionstruck.com dot please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Videos are on YouTube at both John R. Our main channel and passion struck clips. Go and join 250,000 other subscribers who tune into the show weekly on YouTube. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place@passionstruck.com. deals please consider supporting those who support the show. You can find me on all the social platforms for daily doses of inspiration at Johnr Miles on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, as well as you can find me on LinkedIn. And do you want to expand your courage muscles? If so, consider joining our weekly page passion Struck Challenge, which you can find by joining our weekly newsletter Live intentionally by going to passionstruck.com dot. Are you curious on discovering where you stand on your journey to becoming passion struck? Then dive into our engaging passion struck quiz, which you can find@passionstruck.com. dot. It consists of 20 questions.

It'll take you about ten minutes to complete, and it's a dynamic way to gage your path to living an intentional life. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck podcast interview that I did with Robert Breedlove, a former hedge fund manager turned bitcoin advocate. Robert brings a unique perspective to the transformative future of decentralized finance. In this episode, we'll explore his deep insights on the future of money, the ethical implications of digital currencies, and his vision for a more equitable and transparent financial system.

I joke that the debt ceiling translates into the sky as the limit, because the only thing they've ever done with a debt ceiling is raise it. That's all that happens. Debase the currency, raise the debt ceiling. A cycle as old as time. When you understand that debasing currency is violating those ownership claims between individuals and assets, you're debasing the purpose of civilization, really, which is just to preserve. What do they say? Possession is nine tenths of the law, right? I talked to a brilliant attorney. He makes the point that 100% of the rule of law grounds out in private property. It only exists to resolve disputes over resources. So we're talking about undermining the very basis of the rule of law itself, the very basis of civilization, the express purpose of government, which in a purely philosophical sense, post magna carta, is the preservation of life, liberty, property. We're undermining the preservation of property. And so this is a catastrophic cascading effect on the world.

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