Adapt-Ability Workshop: Improve your Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
The next date for our popular Adapt-Ability Workshop (Exercise Module) is:
To Be Announced
COST: FREE ONLINE
Each workshop varies in content, covering different information depending on the focus at that time.
To join us for this live informative workshop with Q&A, click here.
About the Adapt-Ability Workshop
In this workshop you’ll learn how to –
- Proactively manage your current and future health through simple and measurable strategies, including measuring your heart rate variability (HRV).
- Apply 10 simple lifestyle interventions that can be adapted to suit your individual situation.
- Measure the effectiveness of those interventions on your overall wellbeing.
What’s Covered in the Adapt-Ability Workshop?
- The new definition of wellbeing – featuring ‘Adapt-ability’ and ‘self-care’
- The autonomic nervous system (ANS) and programs of our ancestral past
- Measuring the adaptability of ANS with heart rate variability (HRV)
- Pro/cons and limitations of available apps
- An overview of nine key lifestyle interventions
- Measuring your individualised responses to lifestyle interventions with HRV
(Please note that the workshop isn’t intended to diagnose or treat any specific condition nor to replace a diagnosis from your doctor. Seek medical intervention before starting any lifestyle intervention.)
Hosted by Dr. Alan Brown, Chiropractor
The Adapt-Ability Workshop is presented by Dr Alan Brown, Chiropractor and owner of Blue Align Chiropractic, who has long been interested in the link between chiropractic and healthy lifestyles to overall health.
The workshop is made possible by Alan’s privileged access to the work of Dr Adrian Wenban, a chiropractor and epidemiologist, researcher and founder of the Barcelona College of Chiropractic. Dr Wenban has teamed up with Professor of Psychology, Yori Gidron, who is currently researching how chiropractic may help the adaptability of the nervous system. Dr Wenban is constantly monitoring the latest lifestyle science.
Thanks to their long-standing professional relationship, Alan is privileged to share Dr Wenban’s work here in Brisbane, giving you the chance to learn this incredible evidence-based approach to both measuring and optimising general health, sport performance and longevity.
Book Your Place
To register your interest in our next workshop, please click on the link above.
Background Information on Adapt-Ability
The Changing Definition of ‘Wellbeing’
Wellbeing no longer just refers to the absence of health issues or disease. The new emerging definition takes into account our ability to adapt to stress and recognises the role we play in building our own health potential, encompassing the ‘entirety of physiological, mental, spiritual and social resources acquired during the lifetime’ (2).
It’s an exciting time as we understand that we can proactively manage our current and future health through simple and measurable strategies.
Our Ancestral Past
For most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, expending energy to find food or build shelter, cope with extremes of temperature or live with periods of scarcity. This is the environment in which our metabolism and genetics were forged.
But our species now exists in a very different world from that of our hunter-gathering past. In the digital era, we are sedentary, overfed creatures, who can set our homes, cars and offices to the ideal temperature at the push of a button.
How do we address the significant health discontent caused by the gulf between our hunter-gathering past and our fast-food present? …by modifying our lifestyles and expanding the adaptive range of our autonomic nervous system.
What are Lifestyle Interventions?
Your daily habits can either build or damage your health. Lifestyle interventions are deliberate changes you make to your lifestyle to develop more healthy habits.
There’s a growing body of evidence for simple lifestyle interventions that may minimise our risk of disease and improve our wellbeing. That helps you right now and promotes good health as you get older too (3-8).
In the Adapt-Ability Workshop, we’ll explore nine important lifestyle interventions, namely:
- High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
- Intermittent Fasting
- Meditation
- Cold Exposure
- Wim Hof Breathing
- Diet Changes
- Supplementation
- Gut Biome
- Ergonomics
We’re beginning to see a welcome fusion of wise, old, traditional practices with modern science and technology. That means holistic wellbeing strategies are now more measurable and have science to back them up (10).
For example, practices such as intermittent fasting and meditation are now becoming mainstream, as science demonstrates the effectiveness of these age-old methods (7,8).
What’s the Autonomic Nervous System?
Your autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates many of your body’s functions, therefore it is vitally important that it is processing things properly.
Autonomic stands for automatic. Your ANS looks after many of the bodily functions that tick over without your conscious thought, like your heart rate, blood glucose, immune function, temperature regulation, and digestion.
These things are all affected by stress, which can increase your heart rate, cause insulin resistance, weaken your immune system, raise your temperature and disrupt your digestion.
Put simply, science suggests that the better your ANS is able to adapt to stress and change in your life, the healthier – and less susceptible to inflammation and disease – your body can be.
How do you know How Well your ANS Is Functioning?
One simple and effective way to assess the functioning of the ANS is by measuring the body’s Heart Rate Variation (HRV).
Why Should We Measure Heart Rate Variability?
Your heart rate variability (HRV) reflects the ability of your nervous system to adapt to stress. It also provides an insight into your body’s inner state – is it one that represents optimal health and longevity (10), or a ‘stress state’ that can precede many chronic health problems (1).
Your heart doesn’t beat in a completely regular rhythm; the gaps between each heartbeat vary. While your heart rate measures the average number of times your heart beats per minute, your heart rate variability (HRV) measures the gaps between heart contractions over time, and how these intervals vary.
Your autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls the variability of your heart rate. Ideally, you want high HRV with longer variation between your heartbeats. That indicates you have a well-balanced ANS, which can more easily move from a state of stress or excitement back to a state of relaxation.
However, if your ANS is dealing with too much stress and stimulation, your HRV will be lower, which is not ideal over long periods of time.
HRV is being seen as one of the most important scientific indicators of wellbeing (9) available today and is easily measurable (12).
We’ll recommend an app to help you measure your HRV. Once you know your current HRV, you can try to improve it over time by making some of the lifestyle changes discussed in the workshop.
References
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311559/
- https://f1000research.com/articles/5-1672
- https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.119.012420 maintaining fitness/BMI
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4179616/ (breathing chest centre)
- https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jobe/2012/480467/ (12 weeks HIIT reduced visceral fat)
- https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2653704/patterns-sedentary-behavior-mortality-u-s-middle-aged-older-adults?fbclid=IwAR1PB_qkeBLB-arphvBuoHxVEA14dgfJakFbbNCBBxFbmkjLaItWlDX-o9g (higher mortality sitting more than 2 hours)
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320392.php#types-of-meditation (meditation-benefits)
- https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMra1905136?listPDF=true (fasting)
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311559 (wellbeing/chronic)
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24419712 (longevity)
- ps://www.intechopen.com/books/autonomic-nervous-system/inflammation-and-autonomic-function (inflammation)
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28290720