Dr. Leah Lagos and Joe Mazzulla: Control Your Heart, Conquer Your Stress

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/74387c320145f9e7

And the one thing I say is
Look, stress is gonna happen. Let's expect it. Let's accept it. Even with training, you're gonna have a stress response.
But I want you to be in control of
of how long it lasts and be able to return to baseline as quickly as possible or as quickly as you need to be.
Welcome to the Knowledge Project, a podcast about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.
So you can apply their insides.
To your life.
I'm your host.
Shane Parish.
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Check out the show notes for a link.
My guest today is Dr. Leah Legos and Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzula.
Leah Lagos is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in health and performance psychology and is known for her pioneering work in heart rate variability.
Bio feedback.
Dr. Legos treats a broad range of disorders and performance challenges. Her expertise includes strategies to reduce anxiety,
boost resilience to adversity, and enhance health.
Joe is the youngest coach in the NBA.
And he's an advocate of Doctor Legos' approach.
and an example of how performance psychology plays out in the real world.
I've been talking to a lot of top coaches about performance and how we can do better.
And one of the keys to clear thinking is managing your emotions, and this episode will help you.
You'll change your narrative about stress, plan for it, and master it.
It's time.
To listen.
and learn.
Oh
When I was thinking about where to start this, I think we need to start with what is HR V and why does it matter?
HRV, I believe, is a a biomarker.
Um that everyone should
Understand and know.
It is a biomarker of resilient shame. So the larger your HRV,
The more control you have over your autonomic response to stress before, during, and after a stressor.
And so you can take someone who's top one percent of the world and what they do.
And if they don't have the physiological control to operate.
I think
Top one percent consistently.
During stress.
Before the stress occurs, авторис.
They don't have that control, they're operating in a fraction of themselves instead of their best self.
HR V in and of itself, the science of it is we're looking at
The
the time in between heartbeats, okay? And more time is better.
Um
Less time shows a less resilient autonomic nervous system.
Clinically
When a client meets with me
We use a different parameter than say the or ring, which is
Which is looking at the
I
time interval between beats. And we're looking at, you know, there's something called resonant sinus arrhythmia.
When you inhale your heart rate goes up and when you exhale your heart rate goes down.
And we want these to be
Big ocean like waves.
And you take an athlete and they'll come in and
And those waves, their heart rate will go from like forty to one hundred and back to forty. But you take someone who was CEO of a company under stress and you've seen HIV of like
Five. Eighty five to ninety, and back to eighty five. And here you take someone so talented, but without that ability to oscillate, they're not their full selves. So
I look at that and
Not
peak to trough ratio.
The inhale, exhale, and the heart rate.
Matt to men.
is a clinically useful way to help explain
Heart rate oscillatory.
Um
abilities to a client and for them to see in real time
how this training impacts those oscillations.
In the absence of stress, is there like a default natural rate that we're born with?
such an interesting question because everyone's looking for like the magic number. There's no magic number. And it very much depends on your body, your system, your experiences in life. There were some people just born innately
Yeah.
Uh
higher levels of HR V
They tend it's interesting, Shane. They tend to be endurance.
Athletes. Um, I'll look at someone's heart and I'll say, Do you run? And if you don't, you should. Um, but more so than trying to find a magic number for HR V, you want to look at what your range is.
So you can do that in a variety of ways, tracking devices, elite HRV, OR ring, and starting to get an understanding.
Of
I I generally like to look at nocturnal HR V.
And

HR V on your lowest days and HR V on your highest days and then understanding
Well, what could be causing that? So maybe your HRV on the highest day, according to the aura ring, is in the high fifties.
But on your lowest day it's seventeen.
Whoa.
That's a huge difference in your body's ability to process the world.
To connect to the world, to make decisions and perform at your peak. So then you want to understand why that's happening.
And and
begin to r it's interesting because you want to increase the HR V
Per se
Number.
But you want to decrease the disparity in between nights. So if I have an athlete who has a seventeen one night and a seventy two another.
I wanna understand why. We wanna close that gap.
so that there's not so much variability in between nights and they're more consistently
At a higher HRV.
And is there is there a lot of data to suggest that athletes perform better?
when their HR V is
What?
Okay.
Variable?
More variable.
with with athletes will often see larger HR Vs than the normal population because they're also doing things to push their heart, right? They're doing training so forth, but
For instance, golfers
Um i you know
the increases in HR V
can absolutely impact their fatigue level, their endurance. I've had golfers say to me on the PGA tour at hole nine, Doc, I'm just not tired anymore. What's going on?
And and and that's one of the really interesting impacts of H Army.
And and did normal sort of things that people consume, like alcohol or caffeine, affect
their HR V and how so?
So alcohol has acute and chronic effects.
Um
It's really interesting. Everybody
has
a different affinity for alcohol. So Shane, you may be able to have
Two glasses of wine and it doesn't impact your HRV.
But the person.
Across from you may have two glasses of wine and it decimates their HRV. And just understanding
What?
the inputs are for your body is part of peak performance. So you if you're someone
That we see that
drinking two lesses of alcohol has a a really large impact on your HR V. I'm gonna say
maybe you shouldn't be doing that during the week while or or while you're competing or making let's say trade decisions.
So we make some decisions together by understanding
how the body responds to particular
sensory input. So that's one. There is evidence, uh certainly
That chronic alcohol use
Chronically lowers HR V.
Um, and what's interesting is withdrawal if if someone is a heavy drinker will also reduce HRV.
Because it's showing the distress on the body.
Uh
that changes in time as as abstinence occurs and the autonomic nervous system rebalances.
So caffeine.
is an interesting one.
Um
Two cups of coffee for most people doesn't have a huge impact on heart rate variability, such that if you're a performer.
uh and you have a competition I I would
I wouldn't say
that having two cups of coffee is really going to impact you.
Having five cups or more
Seems to have an impact.
uh on that very day's performance.
Now I've had people come in
chain that have low HR V and they're exceptional athletes. So what's the problem here? So
I'll I'll ask a series of questions, sleep, alcohol use.
Food intake, caffeine.
And sometimes there are people that self medicate for ADHD with caffeine and they're drinking twelve or more cups of coffee.
Because it helps them stay focused and locked in.
Well, there's a there's a negative impact on heart rate variability and that autonomic flexibility and how you
Actually.
at an automatic level process the world. So
Well talk about that and th there have been cases where I'll have that individual
Uh
You know.
use other methods for self medicating for ADHD.
along with an MD's recommendation and those sort of things, so that they're not sacrificing their HRV um to to be able to stay focused.
You mentioned sleep, caffeine, food intake. What are the other variables that you ask people about when they come into your office to better understand?
where they're coming from and what their baseline is.
And then I want to talk next about the things that we can do to
Uh
move on from that baseline and what things we control to to maximize our our
peak mental and physical performance.
Sleep.
is a big one. Certainly HRV.
High HR V is associated with better sleep.
Low HRV is associated with
conditions like insomnia and sleep apnea.
non-restorative sleep will negatively impact HRV, so there is this circular effect. Um
And
And so that's certainly a question. People often
want to say I'm a I can sleep five hours I feel rested.
H R V will tell you. It it it it really gives
A robust and accurate number.
In terms of recovery.
And I'm able to show people in the nights where they get five hours of sleep, let's say, versus eight hours of sleep.
What happens to rest and recovery if we look at HRV as a metric of resilience.
Um, so it could be really, really helpful to have that kind of data.
The also interesting part about HRV and sleep
As
People increase their HR V a common sleep problem and it's not insomnia or sleep apnea, it's just busy brain.
They can't turn it off.
And so you'll have CEOs that can't fall asleep because they're thinking, thinking, and that's what they're great at in the world.
But if you don't have the ability to turn off your brain.
you don't have deep recovery and it will affect your REM sleep and even your deep sleep.
This allows the body to turn off. And it's not turning off to make you like you just came out of yoga.
You're in control.
When you need to be on, you can be on, but now you can be off when you need to be off. And that can be good too for people who have multiple wake ups during the night'cause their mind is racing and
But they're able to go back to sleep.
It's some of the breathing.
So so talk to me a little more about the breathing. What is it that we can do specifically? You mentioned sort of turn it on and turn it off.
W what is it that we control that allows us to to do that like a light switch almost?
This process takes ten weeks and I've done this for seventeen years, Shane. I've sliced and diced it. I've had people call me from India. Can I please come, Doc? I'll train with you for seven hours a day for ten days and then go back. Say it doesn't work like that.
It's the chronic activation of what's called the barare reflex.
Okay. The barrel reflex is a reflex.
in your autonomic nervous system that controls heart rate and blood pressure.
We identify a rate of breathing that strengthens this reflex. So think about it. As an athlete, you train every
part of your body that has a muscle. But most people aren't training their heart, right?
We do calf raises, we do arm raises. Why? Because with a certain amount of frequency we strengthen that muscle and we have control over that body part.
That's increased. And you're able to do that, so to speak, with the barreriflex. As you stimulate the barrere reflex with resonant frequency breathing, a rate that we identify in my office.
that everyone has a different rate. It's generally between five and six point five breaths per minute, but everyone is slightly different.
And
We're able to maximize HR V on each breath. So
Fifteen minutes, twice a day, ten weeks.
They've made
they've actually created a reflex where during stressful moments
The parasympathetic nervous system
kicks in and helps to moderate.
Well, that's kind of cool, right? Because now you have an automatic, automated response to stress.
And
In my
Training.
Uh with elite performers.
We do a ten week protocol. The first four weeks is really focused on optimizing that baseline. So
By the fourth week
I can see that you've strengthened the barrel reflex.
And
What you would say to me is
I can feel like I just let go faster. I I feel like the world
The things that used to irritate me, it's not that stress is gone.
But I have more control over it.
And that's the first piece because what happens the barereceptors when you have a moment I was I was talking to Joe about a car ride he had yesterday into the city.
And you have these moments in gridlock, right? That and
And what that does
to most people is it creates a sympathetic state, as it should. That's how the body is wired.
But sometimes we stay in that state.
When the stress is gone, or
even during the moment of stress when we have to do something or make a decision or give a public talk.
You want to be able to shift to homeostasis where the parasympathetic
Or s and sympathetic or
Alice or even better.
And this is what I teach.
being able to optimize into a parasympathetic state.
And so the sympathetic is associated with fight or flight.
The parasympathetic is associated with flow, and I wanted to find that it's not being cum.
Okay, it's being
Open
Engaged
aware and able to be receptive to the needs of the moment.
So if you needed to accelerate, you can.
If you need to decelerate, you can.
But you are in control.
So for the people that can't work with you, what can they do at home to to train their heart better?
That'll make the um sort of biggest bang for the buck, if you will.
The the first piece is identifying resonant frequency.
It's the rate of breathing that maximizes the heart rate oscillations.
And
You can use tools from elite HRVs, sensors, core sense is very good.
Uh oar ring.
Can be used.
And
what you're looking for is the highest amplitude of changes when you breathe at these different rates. So you'll do
Five breaths per minute, five point five breaths per minute, six breaths per minute. I generally start at at six point five in work.
My way down.
Um and then once you identify the rate of breathing that
Uh
has the highest amplitude of heart rate oscillations you go on.
Here's the trick.
If you can't get a hold of
feedback, physiological feedback.
Ninety percent of the time
The rate
That is someone's resonant frequency is the rate that just
Feels good. So out of out of
If you do six breaths per minute, five point five, and five breaths per minute.
I'd have you
Try those three.
And for two minutes using a pacer.
could use breat plus awesome breathing.
Easy air, there's an assortment of breath pacers that you can set the timing for.
And
And then identify which one just feels most effortless.
Okay.
And then from there
You go through a process, you commit to breathing fifteen minutes twice a day. I generally have my clients breathe in the morning upon waking.
And fifteen minutes before breathing.
This is awesome for increasing deep sleep and and helping
um with any type of sleep issues. We're just enhancing
And deep restorative sleep as well.
And the first four weeks is really focused on consistent regular practice, adding in abdominal breathing.
And then we do things starting in week five.
Um and I describe it in my book.
So I'll give you
I'll give you one.
It's it's a very simple example.
I
Everyone has experiences, Shane, and I'll ask you yours just as an example. An experience in your life that
Moves your heart. Something
Yeah.
Okay.
physiologically when you think about produces a feeling of inspiration or gratitude or love.
Can you think of a
Uh
A moment in your life.
Um and tell me just a little bit about that.
For just a minute.
Oh, I think the one that came to mind is actually maybe quite sad, but it was inspiring in the same token when I was um
Holding my grandmother's hand as she passed away.
beautiful and moving and a moment of deep connection and and something that
When you think about I mean
Even your voice changed, right? It it it had uh
Just a a moving
Yeah, I mean I could I could feel the
the emotion. And so
Um
I
I have people pick about three of those.
Okay, three different experiences that move their heart.
common ones or
Holding a baby for a first time.
For athletes.
You know, winning their first trophy.
Another one.
Um, can be a nature experience. I had someone who
looking at the stars was was their amplifier.
And and
So anyway
So
On the inhale.
If if you're breathing at six breaths per minute, four second inhale, six second exhale.
And on the inhale, I'm having you connect
To that feeling that feeling chain of just deep pure love.
with your grandma, that connection, that just
Just
It
It transcends through time.
And the way it makes you f your heart feel.
And connecting to that. It's not a mental

It's not going through.
The mental
conversation or what you're doing, it's getting to the feeling and on the inhale connecting to it.
And on the exhale, letting go of the rest of the work.
Hm.
We can train the heart. Heart imprints experiences.
And we and we can train the heart.
To activate those experiences on demand.
And then
The the next piece is is
Bing ab to use specific experiences in specific moments.
Of stress.
Or to calm down.
Or to change your physiological state.
And and and you mentioned the aura ring can be used for this. Um what other you mentioned another tool, I didn't quite catch the name of it. What other tools can people use to sort of monitor their
Sure. Elite HR V has something called core sense, where you put your finger in and
I actually have an app through
elite HR V that you can go through my
uh 10 session program using their app.
If you download elite HR V and just click on Dr. Lagos HRV. Um
And
But but they have it's it's just a little sensor.
You can order online.
Um
I
I forget the cost, but it but it's it's reasonable in terms of these kind of gadgets and very accurate.
Um, you don't have to use
The physiological feedback all the time, in fact.
I recommend not because people get obsessive and then they're not allowing their physiology
To change.
Because they're hyper vigilant about the outcome.
Um
Using it from
Time to time, once a week or once every few weeks can be really great.
Um in my book I recommend doing tracking every day.
So you're able to look at
changes about every three weeks.
at your baseline level and when you breathe.
So
Obviously, we want to optimize baseline HRV for each individual, but then there's a second piece.
And this is
really important for el elite performers, which is
Which is bij to shift.
Your physiology in the moment.
From a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state.
And so those are some of the
Things that we work on.
Along with the breathing.
and layer in there's another piece
where I I look at
um training them to identify when they're in a fight or flight state versus a flow state. Well, why is that important?
Because if you're going out to a competitive event or making a let's say a big decision about how to spend money or invest,
You want to be doing that.
From a parasympathetic state, not a sympathetic one.
So there's a little bit of somatic awareness that we do.
uh in my work with clients and then helping
them to identify what state they're in and then being able to shift that state on demand.
And so what you you mentioned running, you recommended people run. What additional tools aside from the breathing
Is it sort of like
when we eat or when we exercise, or is it specific types of exercise are better
uh to to sort of maximize our HR V
than other types of exercise.
So to clarify, sometimes someone will come in with an a just a uh
You know.
really large HR V and they're not athletes. And then I will say
You're an endurance person. Do you run? If not, you should. But
Any kind of endurance sport will increase and maximize HRV. And uh you know, along with the HRV, I like to work with a person
To create
essentially vectors in their ecosystem that lead to internal state changes. So I'll give you a few kind of fun examples.
sure sleep maximization and finding the rhythm for sleep. I you know, some people need nine hours, some people need seven, but when we track, we're able to see
How
um different amounts of time impact sleep. There are things like looking at
How eating within three hours before bedtime.
And back sleep.
looking at alcohol like we talked about use, caffeine use.
Um
What else is interesting?
Music.
for some people can really produce a heightened HR V effect and and
You know.
Joe and I can talk with you later about some of the things that we did along with the breathing to maximize HRV in real time for specific performance states. But you have to find certain songs. Not every song will amplify HRV. My friend Josh Waitskin
M is the song that without breathing, like gets his HRB on fire. And and so I try and find that.
with with different performers the songs that move their heart.
Um
There are other pieces when you monitor someone's HR V daily.
Your you ask kind of about their daily routine and habits. I'll give you a personal one. I live to monitor
my HR V from time to time and I found a really curious effect.
On the days I took
My daughter's to school, my HR V was higher till one PM.
It naturally moved my heart.
But having the data doesn't mean further support it and uh you know, and I you know, I was taking the girls
to school anyway, but it was it was it was just really interesting.
To see
um the the impact on my physiology. Everyone has these pieces.
So
Um
Other pieces that people respond to
uh from behavioral changes eating.
eating at timed intervals. So there's a lot of people that are adhering to intermittent fasting.
Okay, for some people I see HR V increases, but not all.
And in fact, what I see more frequently is that when we time
The expected time that you eat.
Irrespective of what you're eating.
But that you eat generally at the same time, let's say seven o'clock, one o'clock, six o'clock, five days a week.
The body feels safe.
It can predict the inputs and it creates a sense of safety. And I always say safety.
um is a precursor to flow. Safety in the body
Also
That feeling of safety maximizes HRV.
That's excellent. One of the things that I was excited about today was uh often these conversations are theoretical.
Uh but we have Joe here. And Joe, uh I'm I'm curious.
Uh what led you to HRV and and to start working with Doctor Lagos?
You know, when I
Got the job.
Uh I understood and realized the
Arena that we're in.
Uh the variables.
uh the physical, the mental, the emotional, spiritual variables that
Are present in every game.
Uh especially as you head towards the playoffs. And so
you know, it being my first year, you know, as a head coach, I wanted to
work on myself. I wanted to build an awareness of myself how my body, how my mind, how my heart
uh reacts to stress.
uh so that could be a precursor for our team.
the sparehead for for what our team needs at that particular time. And I had never been in a play off situation and I knew it was high, high level
Uh of everything. Stress, uh, anxiety.
you know, physical mental pressure. Uh so I thought, you know, breathing and and HR V was how I could
kinda bring myself to Pete Performers to then try to
Lead that for the team.
Was there a difference between how you felt before and after your training?
Oh for sure. And I think you know, uh Doc mentioned something of like I think
I was
performers or or leaders and and when we're in decision making processes for me personally I always felt like I had to
act quote unquote calm, or always had to be a certain way.
uh in order to make good decisions or you can't make
decisions if you're not
Oh.
Calm.
And what I learned and and something we really started working on was the oscillation process, you know, the ability to fluctuate your
Your heart rate.
um so that you can operate under different levels of stress. And then when you do get into those levels of stress, how quickly can you recover back down? And so it really opens up my mind to it's not about
being one way.
It's about how can you manipulate your environment, how can you manipulate the momentum, how can you
You don't fluctuate your energy.
uh in order to have a positive effect on you know the environment around you.
Can can you talk to me a little bit more about that? You mentioned environment and momentum as two of the variables that you want to have an impact on because they they determine
behavior in a way.
Yeah, I mean I think, you know, for me personally
beginning of the year as you're trying to figure it out.
Um you you feel
Uh
For lack of a better term, you can feel the
what you're giving off.
The energy that you're giving off or the
you can feel the momentum of the game going a certain type of way and you know, as I got
A little bit more experience this year, I was able to see how
I can affect that.
You know, through my breathing.
Uh through my awareness.
Um, and so you know, whether there was moments of
the proper time to
Acts.
a little bit, you know, outside of yourself or if you had to, you know, oscillate and to you know get a little aggressive, if you had to
And
aggressive moments be a little bit calm and and how can you just fluctuate into different
uh levels of energy.
Um that can maybe spearhead
uh a small run that can maybe spark energy that can maybe change the momentum and so using that
you know, how you present yourself on the sidelines, how you operate during a timeout. So all these little areas of oscillation and
Opportunities for momentum all came back to breathing.
Yeah, because
you're able to keep yourself at a baseline, you're able to build an awareness, you're able to build a connection to your body and mind.
you know exactly, you know, how you can operate during each of these different times. And then you start anticipating that.
Like you can start seeing those moments ahead of time.
uh preparing yourself for those moments.
So so walk me through that a little bit, like take me back, game seven, Miami Heat.
Yeah, the first few minutes.
First few minutes of the game, your best player gets injured.
Are are you thinking in that moment about breathing? Well like how are you managing Let's take it back let's take it back even further. Again, I'm by no means
Uh an expert at this. Yeah, so learning a time. So
There's moments even, you know, during this off season there's been moments where like man I could have
Um oscillated better there. I could have worked through that better there. So we go in the beginning of the season.
And what what I started to feel personally was like
In these moments of decision making, in these moments of opportunity, you go back to the the
You know, fight or flight.
You just you for me it was like fight, flight or free. Like you just kinda get into situations where you don't do anything. You know, where
Um it's it may be analysis by paralysis where you have four or five options and you don't know which option to pick and you end up not picking one, which is also a decision. Right. And so
At the beginning of the year, when you're you know, you're working through all these variables, you're working all through all these experiences and situations.
You're trying to figure out what is the best
Um
you know, mindset or approach towards that situation, but you end up not doing one. Right. And so as we start to work, I was able to get away from those games in the beginning of the year.
Where it's like
I felt like I could have helped.
the energy or the momentum of the game by oscillating if I knew how to at that time. I just wasn't there yet.
Uh and so as the season goes on there was more few games where I was like, Man, okay, I could feel this. Here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna
I'm gonna have this conversation or I'm gonna use this timeout or I'm gonna call this player or I'm gonna
uh you know, strike this chord with a with with a player or
You know, I'm going to use the ref in this situation. I'm going to use one of my assistant coaches at a time. I don't start
learning how to
you know, cultivate that learning how to manipulate that. And then, you know, in the playoffs it I had a much better feel.
Oh my
Physiology.
of my body, mind, awareness. Doesn't mean it was right all the time. Doesn't mean I made the right or best decision.
But what I felt, you know, through the
the year of us working together in the ten weeks and just my experiences of ups and downs was like
I felt
On that sideline I had the ability to Oscillate. I had the ability to
navigate the momentum and the energy of the team, of the arena, of the game.
And then you know, trying to come up with the best decision possible. So when you say oscillate, do you mean sort of like
stop negative momentum or is it to amplify positive momentum? Like what what does oscillate mean in that context?
I think it can be both, right? I think I think it can be both. And a perfect example was like game seven of the of the Philly series.
So the game th seven of the Philly series, I think we're down
thirty five, twenty eight in the first quarter.
And um we call a timeout and I just walk out to half court.
And you know, those were the moments that at the beginning of the year I was a little bit scared because like
What did it show I didn't have the emotional intelligence and I show I didn't have the
But it was a it was
A predetermined act to
Sure.
grab back the momentum and to grab the energy of the team and to
to oscillate to a certain point where
the people around you could feed off of that. And I you know I'm you know, I think our
That was a small piece that I felt like our players were able to
Uh connect with
With me?
And we were able to kinda change
The momentum of that.
Um so like you know, opening and finding small
you know, abilities to do that because as soon as
Right after you do it, you gotta come back and then you have to have a type of technical
approach to a timeout and so you have to, you know, bring your heart rate down. You have to
Oscillate back down to baseline and so that that's like an example.
And and do you use this with your players too? Is it something that you you've sort of talked to them about without maybe getting into the specifics of HRV, but just in terms of oscillating moments?
Yeah, I mean I think just
The conversation in general.
Uh I think just
Understanding the importance of breathing.
You know, I think
Uh for athletes and really just
people that are in it's not even about athletes for me personally or coaching, it's about
People that are in that are trying to be peak performers and high level
uh stressful situations that have to make
decisions over and over again.
Um, you know, in in a basketball game you have to make a thousand decisions within a game. If you're
CEO you may have to make a hundred decisions. So it's more about
What's our body and mind like at at the point of decision making under stress?
And that's kinda the
See
My passion.
You know
uh being in you know in the MBA and and
in professional sports is like can we open our mind and to different things that are having an impact on our performance and the ability to make it better and reading is one of them, you know.
You can
At stressful moments you can really feel if you're breathing at the proper rate.
Or like she like or like that's if you're holding your breath, you know, like that, you know there's tendencies
for people when they get to a stressful moment to hold their breath.
Wh then tenses their body, which then
you know, doesn't allow them to make the proper decision. Then you have people that are able to oscillate. And so I think it's just opening up that space
of P performance.
You know, how you can
Can work at that.
What sort of things did you do before a game to maximize your HR V?
Um you know, I think the the two biggest things and I'll go to the the
Yeah.
This side first and then we can have a deeper conversation with music.
And you know, the other part I started to realise was like I I I think we are
We're autopilot about how the things in our environment really affect our physiology, but
We just don't know all the time. We're not aware of it.
And for me, one of those was music.
And so
You know, music is a tool.
Um that you're constantly being surrounded by.
Whether you're working out, whether you're working
Whether you're driving
What I didn't realize was how certain songs can have an impact on my my heart rate.
Can have an impact on my stress. And so just by listening to a song subconsciously you're
putting your body into a different level of stress than you would even realize.
And then that may have an effect on a decision that you make forty five minutes later.
Uh, and so one of the cool things that we got to with our you know, our biofeedback was like
We made a playlist of songs that keep me
In in a flow state.
uh that keep me at the level that I need to be and that give me the opportunity to oscillate. They don't put me in a
you know, sympathetic state it would be in the ability to be in a parasympathetic state. And so it's a list of like
five to eight songs. And you know, I got to the point where like that was that was that's what I was doing an hour before the game, you know, was just kinda
Listening to that music, putting my body and mind.
Um you know in the right.
uh you know space for the game.
I think the it's
The second piece of that was recovery.
Which I think is something that is huge.
uh you know, for our for our environment because you know
We play
Late late into the night.
Uh we're in an arena where the lights are on.
It's great.
uh your eating habits are much different because of the schedule of the game. You may not have dinner till ten thirty, eleven o'clock at night.
You may not have lunch until three o'clock because you're sleeping in the travel late at night.
And so the other
piece that we really wanted to attack was like how can I recover my body to keep my HR V at a certain level to where
you know, I'm standing in the middle of an arena for three and a half hours with all this light and it's
My body.
doesn't recover not able to get to bed till one thirty two and
You know, I'm in this state. How can I get
my body to a parasympathetic state by nighttime so that I can get
Even if I'm getting five hours, how can I get the best five hours?
Um so like those two were really the components that we had.
Wha what was that routine? Like you get back to the hotel room or did it start before the hotel room
in order to maximize that rest period that you had, whether it was five hours or eight hours. It it started kind of right after the game.
Really I've had at the point where now we're like my residence is four in six out, so I have the ability to kinda just do that whenever I feel like
you know, uh I I'm in a certain state. And so that kinda happens a little after the game. Wasn't perfect with it. You know, if it was a big game, I would still go out and have a glass of wine and have dinner, but at least made me think and build an awareness like you get home
You take a hot shower to be able to to bring your body back down, go through a stretching routine, you have your
I see my fifteen minute greeting.
uh routine for after the game. So I was able to get your body there.
Um and then just what you eat.
you know, some steamed vegetables, stuff like that. So going towards a little bit more of a diet that would help me
Um not have a negative impact on my sleep.
You know, right after.
There's a lot of scientific things, there's a lot of technical things that HR V helped me with.
Uh, but I think the piece that I wasn't expecting it was
How it changed my heart.
How it changed my emotions, how it changed
How I experience love.
Uh I think that had the biggest impact that I I didn't know
it was going to have I got into it from more of a
You know.
A athletic standpoint, a peak performance standpoint, how can I be better on the sidelines, how can I be better
As a coach and ended up making me
You know, better person.
along the lines and and really just connecting the flow.
Can can you double click on that a little bit and go deeper? I want to hear more about that. Yeah, I mean I I think we started kinda going to that towards the end of the season.
And into the playoffs.
And you know, we started just kinda saying like
When you feel
At your best.
You know, when do you feel at your most flow state? What are some of the things in your life
Um
that kinda make you who you are.
And as we would go through our breathing routines and she talks about, you know, how we would do our visualization.
Where what can I connect my heart to? I know you mentioned your grandmother.
Uh, the two things I was able to connect my heart to was my bad passing.
And then
My relationship with my wife and kids.
And like
You know
For me initially it was like
I don't necessarily I love
But I don't
Feel the love. I can't connect.
I know it's there.
It's an action, but it's not yet a
uh a feeling or emotion. It's more of just an action and like can we
Shift that a little bit to where
You know, I can
Express myself the way
My mind is telling me I should, you know, and and how can we do that through the heart. And so
A lot of our visualizations came into like my best moments with my wife.
Uh my best moments with my children.
uh my best moments with my dad um before he had passed and and what he's done for me since he's passed and how I was able to connect to those things and
You know, with the breathing it like forces you
It forces you to sit in it.
That love that you have for your wife.
And you gotta sit in it for fifteen minutes and you have to feel it. You've got to
embrace it and then you have to let it go and then you have to bring it back and it forces you to just sit
In the moment.
Um which for me
Healed my heart in some areas and opened up my heart in other areas. There's a science behind that, Shane.
And
The science from my perspective is this
is a pathway for emotional integration.
So as someone increases their ability to operate.
from a parasympathetic state on demand, meaning you can be open, receptive
You can let go.
It's it's as if the body says
Great. Now I can feel more deeply.
Because there's nothing to fear.
And so at the same time
You know
Joe was taking more risks on the court, so to speak, making
Calls that he wanted to make
more quickly
And without hesitation
that abundance of love for his wife, his
kid and I mean it is so clear and so awesome.
From a from a kind of physiological impact, or his dad.
and being able to connect to those moment by moment and let them go.
It harnessed and unleashed it like unlocked him.
So we think of
You know, love is a soft emotion. Not at all.
This is
This is about
being able to be really connected and kind of dance along the emotional spectrum.
Um to empower you
In
Each and every moment.
Uh with without restriction.
I'm curious if
Uh I mean love is a great example. Did it have any impact on how you
had re developed relationships with your players, with other coaches, or even
Even family members who who might not be uh in the same category as your wife, per se.
Yeah, I mean I think
Okay.
For me.
To get to the love I had to first get through self expression.
And you know, I you know, you talk about taking risk on the court. I had to take risks.
in life emotionally. Which is something that I don't
Necessarily do all the time and that's where the breathing in the H R V
Kinda help me with that. And so like
You know, it all goes back to when you get into these
This arena.
Is like how do you self express?
You know, like how do you express yourself? How do you express what you're feeling? How do you
uh have an impact on the people around you and so like this this
Once I was able to
You know, quote unquote unlock and you can just
you know feel the freedom to
Self expressed.
It leads to that love and then it leads to that taking risk and then it leads to yes you try to
You're able to connect more with people. You know, I'm not saying I'm the best at it by any means.
Uh, but I felt the ability to just be more empathetic. I felt the ability to just kinda go to where that person was.
When you go from the transition f of where I was to where I am now, as far as that is like a lot of it is like how quickly can you make yourself comfortable.
um in those moment. So like it definitely
Just kinda
Help me understand myself better to where I can be more authentic.
So so walk me through in practice how that played out. You guys mentioned earlier conversation that you you sort of like got into traffic yesterday.
Well no, I think to the to practice
For practical, you know, I did my breathing session before the game.
You know, I have my playlist.
Um, and you know, she had mentioned
Doing small resonant breeding before every timeout. So we have fourteen timeouts.
Every game.
Um and so I started to ask like how many of those are on autopilot? How many of those are you like
Bringing yourself back down to a certain level. How many of those are you aware to like
what your team specifically needs at that moment. Maybe it's a timeout of nothing. Maybe it's a timeout of a little bit of aggression. Maybe it's a timeout of a tactical conversation. So
Getting to that three to five of resonance breathing like as soon as the timeout started.
To that I was able to kinda
you know, put myself in the proper space, you know, to make the best decision.
Yeah, I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about mastering sort of shifts in momentum and
oscillation and the relationship between
those two, perhaps with environment mixed in there too.
Being able
to know when to engage
Or not engage.
Is such a
Such a
Common plate.
And
It could happen to an elite athlete, it could happen to someone in business, it could happen to someone in home life.
Do I
Go all in with intensity.
Or do I stand back and just do nothing?
Um
And
This becomes a process
By virtue of gaining control over your physiology to be able to do that.
to be able to pause things that used to be automatic
And say
Is that what I wanna do uh right now?
The mastering shifts in momentum
Is is a piece of that.
So
being able to recognize the kind of internal state. Some people
can be really intense and on fire.
I
I mean you take an NBA game
of three hours.
And and
And
You know, there are
there are oscillations in that
Time.
and being really clear on when the oscillations are occurring and being able to catch it sooner to intervene. And sometimes it's breathing. Joe talks about the power three he would take.
Four and six out.
Focusing on a desired state on the inhale and letting go of the rest of the world.
But there there can be others too, and sometimes it's it's connecting.
with another person. It could be a spouse. If you're a coach, it could be a player that you're really close to.
uh things there are other ways to move your heart oscillation in the moment as well.
Um so that ability to master momentum.
and being really attuned to that inr internal state
to make the decision on whether to engage or disengage.
I think is really important.
And it's interesting how much our physiology controls decisions. We think of decision making as such a mental process.
But your physiological state
prior to making that decision and even during making that decision
Well impact
Several different pieces. One
it it will impact the kind of
context you see if you are in a highly sympathetic state you are much more likely to be myopic.
Okay. You're in you're in a survival state. And by virtue of survival, it's it's like one track. And
Um and the body
Intensely
Um
restricts blood flow and there are physiological reasons you're just one kind of one track minded.
But
Really in these kind of critical situations, whether you're on a basketball court, you're making training decisions, just decisions about life, you want that cognitive dexterity to seamlessly look at different options and analyze
What's best in the moment?
That that actually comes from blood flow and oxygen to the brain. So it's really interesting from a science perspective.
Uh my colleagues at Rutgers looked at what happens
To the brain.
Um
during resonant frequency breathing.
And what they found through MRIs was something called vasovagal constriction. So during stressful moments the blood muscles would constrict to shunt blood flow and oxygen to the brain. Well makes sense why you would have myopic thinking.
Yeah.
And with the resonant breathing what they found was the diameter of blood flow.
Or excuse me, a blood vessels.
was larger.
It's it stayed open much more like the baseline state. So you were much
More
Likely.
Um to not have a
cognitive manifestation of stress, that myopia. And so we'll have decision makers
And it arcs.
World leaders or
CEOs or people that run hedge funds say to me
I'm in my most creative place.
I I can s just kind of seamlessly see different things as opposed to just
just having one answer. And it that's the part from a decision making cognitive perspective I love about this process.
It doesn't happen instantly.
It happens around week seven. So if you are going through this process
Weeks one through four, you optimize your baseline. By week four you start to feel
The significant ability to let go.
And
But by week seven, the cognitive changes are happening. Why?
There's a barrel reflex game.
Okay, your the way your autonomic nervous system at baseline is moderating blood pressure and heart rate in response to the rest of the world is much tighter.
And
And much more precise.
And then with about three to four weeks of compounded practice the fifteen minutes twice a day and then meeting with me
For the training.
My clients start to experience the cognitive gains around week seven. The cognitive gains are increased focus.
Increasity, increased authenticity, and increased cognitive dexterity. And that dexterity is the part
Um that people from many walks of life say is the most unexpected but most appreciated part of this process.
When you were talking about how your physiological state affects decision making
For me that spoke to sort of we are animals.
Uh, but what separates humans from other animals is that we have the ability to reason. So we don't just react, but our default state is almost to react.
Right, fight or flight, call it what you want.
But most animals just instinctively respond to a situation without reasoning about it.
And it sounds like the w the blood flow to our head, the scientific sort of
Um
element of this, but also just the breathing and centering yourself in the moment.
And and I wanna tie this to
That gives us more reasoning ability, but it also gives us more focus, which is really interesting because
Basketball players, for example, I bet you everybody on the Celtics
bounces the ball the same number of times before they shoot a free throw.
It's a ritual. There's a like a ritual ritualistic element.
around the game.
John McInroe, you know, he used to bounce the ball the same number of times before he served it.
What I feel like people are doing in that moment is using that ritual to to calm down, to center themselves.
The last play doesn't matter. Could have been your best play, could have been your worst play, but all that matters right now is this moment, the shot.
And that ritual is what brings people back. And it sounds like Joe, for you, it's that breathing going four in, six out. That's the ritual to bring yourself into that moment.
Walk me through where I'm wrong with that and where you think I might be right. No, I mean that that's that's a hundred percent right. It's like
It's uh
That's where you
Can we sell yourself.
You know, especially
When you have to stop it to play, you have to I it goes back to kinda what you what Doc was talking about, the cognitive dexterity and the ability to handle transitions.
And like the game
is trans you're constantly transitioning. You're transitioning from office to defense.
transitioning players.
Uh if there's runs within a game.
Uh you're trying to make
Decisions that affect transitions and so like how can you just
Make the best possible decision at the best
physiological state.
And then do it again.
A second later, ten seconds later, and so
What the timeout does for me is it has the ability to
Recent yourself. Get your
self back to baseline, open up your mind for cognitive dexterity, your focus.
Uh real study the transitions.
Of the past.
And then also anticipate the transitions of the next
Block of block of the game.
where you can have a positive impact where you may have had a negative impact on it. And so like that breathing isn't
Is a huge piece to that.
Um
You know, but it's also not necessarily just done during the timeout.
No, it's done during
Free throw or it's done during the game and and
What?
I just keep going back to like the cognitive dexterity. It's like you have the ability to just see more.
To focus and to instinctually make.

Um over and over again.
There is an impact and I hear it
Often from clients on risk taking.
The assessment of risk seems to be more precise.
Uh.
Gradually more precise.
Without the cost.
meaning of that sympathetic activation.
People can, if they need to, activate.
But they also as
It it as
Joe was mentioning
They have the dexterity.
to look at if this is a real risk, what can I do instead.
There's it's uh it's a multi-strategy process and it's happening really fast. So there's something I think happening in the amygdala as a result of an activation.
through the point one hertz of breathing of the brainstem.
So there's a circuitry and
and more research needs to come out, but it's fascinating.
the the assessment of risk
The ability to take more calculated and intentional risk
And the ability to see
other opportunities that one might not see if you're in that sympathetic
Only state.
One of the things that that we had sort of talked about before is how
We can use this training to change
Our self narrative. I'm a big believer
And the fact that the story we tell ourselves about ourselves is
the most powerful story in the world. And while telling yourself a positive story doesn't guarantee a good result, telling yourself a negative story almost inevitably leads to disaster.
Can you walk me through how we can use this to change our self narrative?
These are all physiological processes at the very core.
And sure.
Layers to
How you see yourself, how you interact with the world.
But at a physiological level Shane
That ability to inhibit
Negative self talk, inhibit noise, inhibit fear.
Is physiologically mediated.
Where you can choose it.
And so the concept of oh just think positive or have positive self-talk is very hard.
for even the most elite of performers
under high pressure if they don't have physiological control. When you have more ability over how your heart responds, how your brain responds, your level of muscle tension, your galvanic skin response, these are kind of global physiological parameters.
But you have greater control over those such that

You're not reacting in those ways without wanting it.
you are able to make changes in how you speak to yourself. And so
I
I can say to someone before they've gone through this that
But
You having more positive self-talk affects dopamine secretion, okay?
which you need for focus and motivation, especially during a
You know, a a a three hour game.
Whether it's
goal for basketball or so forth.
But they just they may not be able to do it.
Their heart reacts or
They have panic that they can't control, and their physiological disequilibrium then dominates.
How they talk to themselves.
So once they're able to have control over that ability to be in physiological equilibrium, or even better, that parasympathetic dominant state.
They also get control.
over the narrative they say to themselves. And it is such an important shift. And
It it's so it's such a beautiful kind of
circle, right?
The way we speak to ourselves, the way our body
respond but they interact with each other so once you have more control over how your body responds
Then you have more control over your self talk, but that
then feeds in to how your body further feels.
Um so
it it can be really, really interesting
I you know, people talk about having self compassion, but they say, I just don't know how to do it. The first place I would advise is to start with training your physiology and particularly
Heart rate variability.
Because you can gain control over your mind.
Through your heart.
and and and training those heart oscillations.
Are there any other you you said start with HR V. What are the other sort of physiology things that we can do to sort of
put ourselves in a better state. So there are moment by moment things.
Like movement.
You could do
twenty jumping jogs and your physiology is going to shift. You can listen to music. Some people self isolate and find a place where there's no noise and it's almost like a little cave that feels really safe.
And so my clients will identify
Some of those tools.
That beyond just breathing
Help to shift their physiology quickly.
in a moment to get them back to baseline.
And the one thing I say is
Look, stress is gonna happen. Let's expect it. Let's accept it. Even with training, you you're gonna have a stress response.
But I want you to be in control of
of how long it lasts and be able to return to baseline as quickly as possible or as quickly as you need to be.
So do you advocate having a plan? Or I guess maybe Joe, a better way to put this into practice is do you have a plan for stress during the game? Like you obviously expect it. There's
Thousands of people watching you, there's millions of people on TV watching you, there's bright lights, there's all these players.
H how do you think about that going into a game?
What do you do is it formalized like I have a plan for stress, here's how I'm gonna deal with it, or is it these are recurring moments of stress that tend to come up in games.
And based on that pattern
Now I know how I can better control those moments. Yeah, I think it starts before the game.
Um just getting your body into the proper
space, get your mind into the proper space.
But the word that really comes up for me is just being valuable.
Is is you know HR V kinda allowed me to
be m be more malleable.
I'm an understanding that like
Yes, there's going to be stress, but it's going to look differently.
At different times.
But it's going to be there. And so how can we get our body, mind and heart valuable to the point where it can handle
That opportunity.
Uh when it comes.
'Cause you don't want to put yourself in a box to where it's like, Okay, it's gonna be this and I and I have
I have these I'm gonna do this when this happens. Well that might not happen
And so like the a w that's the word for me is like being malleable.
you know, be in a flow state, have the ability to, you know, oscillate.
um have that cognitive dix area. Like so it's more of the plan of understanding
There's going to be different kinds of stress at different times and then how can we just approach it, you know, based on how we put our physiology in the best possible state to handle it at that time.
Yeah, it's almost like you you're it I'm a huge fan of positioning and your position before you're in the moment.
uh often dictates what happens in the moment. And it sounds like this is another another element that we can control somewhat.
Before we reach that point.
to put ourselves in the optimal state to to handle whatever the world throws at us.
We kinda got into it a little bit throughout the year and it and it's like trauma.
There's obviously like trauma first of all I learned is in there's different levels of it.
Right, and so there's obviously like major traumatic things that people go through and that were empathetic towards that. But then there's just the trauma that we have yet to
Heal ourselves.
Right. And so you went you mentioned something about like the story we tell ourselves and
But I went through HRV
And going through this process was like
There's so many traumatic experiences that we've all had.
early in our life that we haven't healed yet.
Uh and those end up becoming the story we tell ourselves about. At least that's how it was for me. It was like
Some of the stories I tell myself were other people's voices based on the trauma that I was involved with.
younger in life and then I just haven't
feel through it yet. Haven't given it the space and the time to.
And so w you know, during the our H I our our training sessions
When you have to sit
Wrong.
The love we had to sit through but we also had to sit through some of the trials. We went down that path.
And that's where I was able to reshift.
You know.
Self taught.
Um and it kinda started with like I don't she mentioned self compassion. I had I had like zero maybe up to like ten percent. Um but I am really bad when it comes to like
uh you know, being compassionate toward yourself and like
we got to the root of like my self my lack of self compassion comes from
the trauma that we left open from earlier in our life. So let's go back there.
Let's sit in there.
In that feeling, in that emotion.
And then let's heal through it.
And then that will
you know, end up leading towards the compassion that you have for yourself because
As much as we say we're the story we tell itself, I think we're the story
of all the the traumatic
Good and bad experiences that we've had earlier in life.
That we just haven't dealt with yet.
Beautifully imprints.
of our life experiences, both the beauties and the traumas are all within us.
and create a uh
Of responding to the world.
That shapes us.
and understanding what they are, both the triggers and the amplifiers, and then
Being able
to
sit with them as opposed to run from them and feel like
You can
Handle them.
Because
You have something.
That allows you to feel deeply and also let go when you need to.
Let's you integrate these experiences so you can harness them.
as energy and fuel and passion as opposed to compartmentalize them. And so
Fascinating.
How
Mm.
How often
People
just want to avoid and compartmentalize and how much energy
Is
Is tied up in just pushing it down.
And then there's this unlocking where you feel the experience and you feel the ability to integrate to sit with it.
And it's not in a way that terrorizes, it's a way
There usually something I call a heart clearing.
And it happens around week four, time and time again, because that's when Vera Reflex
gain can be measured. It's interesting, isn't it?
Yeah.
As the autonomic nervous system
measurably amplifies its ability to be more precise.
Yeah.
Any kind of threads.
That want to be integrated.
release itself. And there can be
You know, just
an outflow and it it just happens once, maybe twice.
Of emotion.
But it's an integrative experience as as opposed to one that's terribly uncomfortable or
Or were disarming and
And allows people
to to feel what they've gone through.
And
And then harness it into a different experience. So the trauma piece is is really interesting and
Can happen to anybody.
Um I
You know, talk therapy.
Um
Yeah.
it has been regarded as
a you know, a way to go through trauma with mixed results, EMDR
has that physiological component.
But HR V
There's this natural process. People don't often come in saying I need to heal from trauma. They say I want to be a better performer.
But healing from something in the past.
Is one of the steps along the way.
'Cause that's getting in the way of being a better performer. In terms of optimizing
You take someone with
With Joe's inmate.
You know, just
Talent.
And and being at that talent ninety nine percent of the time, over and over and over, irrespective of the circumstances or the inputs.
And and getting through
Things that immobilize
A person or us.
Based on the past is part of that.
Maybe this is a silly question, but how do we know when that trauma
Helps us.
And how do we know when it hurts us?
Okay.
No doctor in the process. He's like
One, I'm building an awareness to the fact that the trauma is having an effect on you.
Is it a positive or a negative? And then where is it affecting you and how you
Navigate that.
You know?
And a lot of it comes down to
to that. And so like I'll give you an example.
Like this job.
means more to me than anything, you know.
One because I'm from New England, but two
I
Got hired by the subjects as an assistant coach in the same month that my dad got diagnosed with brain cancer.
So like these two this job is tied together by like a strong positive emotion and a very strong
Negative emotion.
And then what I realized was like I never actually
really dealt with the trauma of that.
And so I
And when I ended up
be coming into the head coaching
And you start to feel different things and you start to learn more about yourself. And as we got into the process, I was like, Yeah.
This is
having a direct effect on this. I haven't really dealt with this like I thought I had.
Okay, we need to go back and like how do we
deal with this tr this trauma. How do you deal with this emotion? How do you deal with this
You have to bring it back out.
And then once you bring it back out, you have to let it go, but like
Yeah, especially
Throughout the second half of the season.
You know, that of that became like
This job is tied into this and it's bigger than all this, and like how do we just navigate that?
uh you know, into self expression, into oscillation, into a positive how do you navigate all that. So that's kind of an example of like us going back
to a traumatic experience.
Where is it having an impact on me and then how do we
You know, move that forward.
It's pretty cool actually. Like I I never thought I was going to
But it really
You know, I I got into it to become a better coach and it made me a better person.
There's a final question that I always ask. It has nothing to do with HR V, uh, but I wanna ask both of you, uh, what does success mean to you? I think it changes. I think it I think it always changes.
Um, but I I for me personally
uh as bad as I wanna win and and as important as you know winning is, I think it comes down to is like
How consistent can you be?
Mm.
Um how consistent can you be in the things that you're trying to achieve towards on a daily basis? How consistent can you be as a person, how consistent can you be in your career as a parent, in your marriage.
Uh, for me I I just try to focus on consistency and I try to be
Uh the same
If not a better person than I was a year ago.
And constantly finding small things.
In your life to reinvent?
Uh, one of the things I like to do is pick a word.
You know, um
Every whether it's for a year, whether it's for
Six months.
And use that word.
to have it affect every area.
Of my life.
Um
To where I can just try to be better.
And so
Uh that's kinda the definition for me is just how consistent can you be in your approach towards
you know, improvement uh in learning.
I look at success from an autonomic
Perspective.
And
And
What
Yeah.
Manifesta as a success, right? Joe's concept of consistency.
And performing
as your best self consistently over time.
Irrespect.
Circumstances. But the state
the the the physiological state to get there.
I you know, I see is openness.
I see as attunement to those shifts in momentum.
And staying nimble.
No matter what life brings you, staying nimble.
And
Um
Being able to also make.
Been awesome. Thank you guys so much.
Thank you, Shane. Great to talk with you. Thank you.
Thanks for listening and learning with us.
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