Bill Hanks is a former engineer who left his career three years ago to open Cryo Recovery in Houston, TX. After suffering from a workout injury that refused to heal, Bill turned to cryotherapy and immediately felt the benefits. Before cryotherapy, the options presented to him were limited to surgery, injections or long-term anti-inflammatory medications. Within just a couple of cryotherapy sessions, he realized the possibilities. His own personal experience motivated him to provide those in his own community access to drug-free healing opportunities.
Bill Hanks and his wife now own and operate their clinic, which offers more than just cryotherapy. They’re both passionate about helping others recover and improve their well-being, whether it’s working with athletes or with individuals who have chronic illnesses that can benefit from mitochondrial support.
Listen in to learn more about what cryotherapy is, how it’s used and who is using it. Hint: It’s not just athletes. And it’s becoming more affordable. Heads Up will soon be releasing a tracking feature for cryotherapy so you can see how your cryotherapy sessions affect your HRV, inflammation markers like Hs-CRP, deep sleep and more.
This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!
Bill Hank’s story with tendonitis from Crossfit not being helped with traditional therapies. After deciding against surgery and cortisone shots, he began to research alternative therapies [2:00]
About cryotherapy as an alternative to anti-inflammatories [6:35]
How repetition and consistency with cryotherapy is where you see the real benefits, and what that means [7:45]
How tracking health while using cryotherapy can help with recovery. Why tracking can help quantify just how much it’s supporting your health [9:00]
What is cryotherapy, and how it’s different from a cold bath [11:45]
The Hunting [response] effect and how it’s replicated in cryotherapy, boosting norepinephrine which helps with focus, clarity, and mood and prevents TNF alpha which can be measured in a C-Reactive Protein test [12:55]
Bill Hanks had a client whose RA marker disappeared on testing after a couple of months of cryotherapy [16:30]
How cryotherapy is good for reducing inflammation and reduces the effects of aging [17:10]
Cryotherapy upregulates the PGC-1 alpha gene, which creates mitochondria biogenesis, which activates more energy – useful for high-performance athletes [17:20]
Why high-performance athletes get double the benefits by upregulating energy and also improving their recovery from cryotherapy [17:55]
How overtraining and injury prevention is supported by keeping inflammation low and recovering well with cryotherapy [18:10]
How cryotherapy can be useful for chronic health issues as well as high-performance training [20:50]
About the air temperature in the cryotherapy tank and the differences in the types of chambers. And how they can have different therapeutic effects as well as why monitoring skin temperature is most important [21:04]
Why Cryo Recovery uses electric instead of nitrogen-cooled tanks and why you should ask about the method used at your center of choice [23:25]
Why a skin temp to drop about 30 degrees is important and why where you measure skin temperature matters [24:15]
The differences between men and women’s body temperature variances [25:15]
Some of the best practices for anyone looking to start adding this practice to their health or training protocol [26:15]
Some top questions for individuals to ask before shelling out money on this treatment (e.g., Is there privacy? What’s the long term plan? What kind of cost savings are available? What is the environment?) [28:25]
What biohacking health-tracking can be correlated to recovery with cryotherapy? [32:45]
Heads Up is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!
Dr. Kevin Sprouse is trained in both emergency and sports medicine, making him one of the most sought after physicians working with some of the top athletes around the world. His patients have included many elite, Olympic and professional endurance athletes, including Tour de France cyclists. Utilizing cutting-edge and routine tests, he is able to help tailor protocols to his patients, which now also include recreational athletes. His focus is to help them to optimize, not only their physical endurance and strength, but their recovery as well.
In this episode, Dave Korsunsky, founder of Heads Up, talks with Dr. Kevin Sprouse about exercise medicine for top athletes. You’ll learn how these principles and techniques can apply to recreational athletes and anyone interested in health optimization and performance as a goal.
Tracking health metrics such as blood tests, lactate, HRV, HRV-CV, sleep and more, and pairing it with the Heads Up app, his patients can see for themselves how the metrics they are tracking are affected by the choices they make in training, recovery, sleep, diet and more. If health optimization and performance is your goal, you’ll want to hear how Dr. Kevin Sprouse, who has worked with people who are at the pinnacle of performance in athletics, to learn what really allows them to perform at their best and how that information can trickle down to the rest of us.
This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!
How we have a lot of access to data tracking, but not a lot of good ways to correlate it to see what’s actionable data. This is why Dr. Kevin Sprouse is excited to work with Dave and Heads Up to help him holistically manage and interpret his patients’ measurements. “Tools like yours helps us to distill those metrics and helps us to see which ones are useful…without that, it’s a lot of shooting in the dark, a lot of guess and check.” [3:00]
This is Dr. Kevin Sprouse’s 7th year at the Tour de France and that he spends 60-100 days a year at professional races with his patients. However, the emergency component (not just the crashes) along with other stuff that comes up (the asthma attacks, stomach pains, etc.) allows him to stay in both sides of the medicine he’s trained in [7:45]
How Dr. Sprouse has always enjoyed being in sports – baseball, tennis, basketball, soccer, running, Triathalons, mountain biking, cycling. Yet what made him look deeper into exercise medicine was that it’s a missing piece in most of the medicine in preventative care [8:35]
Although he is fascinated by the musculoskeletal injury healing, he’s also interested in using the supportive nutrition and performance promotion to heal his athlete patients. The goal is for them to be resilient and to perform their best [9:35]
How metric tracking can help those who have been into sports, yet not seeing their physical body change as they would have expected, can help them identify the areas to tweak to get where they want to be [11:00]
Metrics Dr. Kevin Sprouse checks for top elite athletes – physiological levels [12:50]
Endurance athletes – physiological markers in a sports lab – VO2 max, lactate (testing with a device that works similarly to a blood glucometer), metabolism, etc.
How non-athletes can use the same metrics such as lactate to learn more about their health and their metabolic status (e.g., diet, insulin resistance, etc.) [18:55]
Advice for people who work out and eat great, but can’t lose the weight. How doing high-intensity exercise can be making them metabolically deficient. How the solution may be to drop the intensity way down (e.g., from CrossFit to brisk walking) to get them to finally lose the weight [20:20]
Discussion on fat-adaptation and when it’s best utilized. And how at the high-level, athletes end up fat-adapted just due to their training schedule. [22:15]
How you can go too far with seeking a fat-burning state at the expense of hormones, etc. [24:00]
Why fat-adaptation, ketosis, etc is not the goal and that there is no shortcut to get you there super fast [26:20]
How you can use tracking to help you figure out what your inputs are that help keep you resilient [27:40]
A more in-depth discussion on lactate in high-level athletes [28:40]
About the KRAFT insulin test that helps to find undiagnosed diabetes [30:00]
That sports are a series of surges and recoveries. Recovery is as important as the performance [31:20]
Dave and Dr. Kevin Sprouse discuss mouth breathing vs. nose breathing and strategies to simulate altitude training [33:45]
Top labs Dr. Kevin Sprouse likes to run and what he’s looking at with them [36:40]
Hemoglobin and hematocrit
Ferritin and what anemia of an athlete is defined as
Testosterone-to-cortisol ratios
Fasting glucose, fasting insulin, cholesterol
Thyroid status for hormones
Creatinine kinase, ALT, AST, and LDH as acute muscle damage markers
Tools that Dr. Kevin Sprouse uses to track data with his patients including Garmin, Training Peaks, Strava, Oura ring, Whoop — all based on the athlete and their tolerances to see their recovery [44:30]
How Dr. Kevin Sprouse uses a 3-day vs 45-day HRV, including HRV-CV, with his patients [46:00]
More discussion about health metric tracking and how Heads Up can be a great central hub for putting all the pieces you’re tracking together [49:30]
Heads Up is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!
Joel Sprechman is an engineer-turned-health-crusader on a mission to help those struggling with IBD, Crohn’s, and Ulcerative Colitis. Suffering from his own health crisis (after simply eating a homemade oatmeal cookie from his mom), Joel realized that conventional medicine wasn’t the answer to the questions he had. This began his quest to discover his own answers.
After being sent to a gastroenterologist and being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, and later Crohn’s, Joel Sprechman was given limited options for treatment from mainstream medicine. With an outlook that allowed him the opportunity to think differently, he found his own path. That mission would guide him to start One Great Gut, a foundation to help others see that there are other options available to them, outside of medication and surgery.
If you’re living with Irritable Bowel Disease, Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, or other chronic digestive issues, you’ll want to hear Joel’s journey back to health. Joel keeps it real and recognizes that while there are times for medication, the majority of the improvements over the long term come from diet and lifestyle changes. Learn how alternative therapies, meditation, stress management, and functional testing can help to gain a better insight as to what imbalances are contributing to the symptoms.
You can find Joel Sprechman and his work at his website www.onegreatgut.com. There is a whole resource section available for you to see just what the options are, as well as a Mastermind group you can apply to join.
This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!
Joel’s history of issues since childhood that came to a head in 2001 when he was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis [8:45]
Why Joel now sees his diagnosis as a gift, using it to see when his body is under too much stress [12:25]
Joel defines colitis and what can contribute to it [13:30]
Just how much stress affects digestion [14:40]
That about 10 million are living with Crohns or colitis and is considered autoimmune [14:50]
How inflammation with a gut health condition like Colitis or Crohn’s affects other parts of the body, more than just the colon [15:20]
Joel Sprechman and Dave Korsunsky talk more about contributors to developing a disease like Crohns or UC. How root causes can be different for each person [17:15]
How Joel is managing his “gift” through natural approaches. Also how Joel believes that conventional medical care is a big reason so many are living with chronic illnesses [20:50]
How chronic illness is becoming more and more prevalent. Conventional doctors are working from the “prescribe and perform surgery,” without any emphasis or training on prevention, diet and lifestyle mitigation [22:00]
About how ozone therapy and hyperbaric treatment can be really helpful for optimizing health with IBD [23:45]
Why slowing down and paying attention to our bodies can help to understand what is happening. This can possibly prevent you from going into a full-blown attack, before realizing you need to course-correct [26:10]
How we tend to default to wanting to mask pain through the use of NSAIDs, TV, caffeine, etc. We use this to power through and live in our heads instead of our bodies. This can lead us further down the path to disease, one day waking up to a full-blown autoimmune illness [27:20]
Why getting the right type of healthcare provider can help you ask the right questions. This can help you to find out how to properly support your body. [28:30]
How do you get started with a functional medicine practitioner for Irritable Bowel Disease or other gut health ailments? [30:00]
Joel’s recommendations on where to go to find functional medicine doctors, and how most of them work remotely as well [31:25]
What kind of diagnostic testing is helpful that Joel recommends. As well as the at-home tests he recommends utilizing and monitoring [33:15]
About Joel’s personal experience with utilizing some of the functional tests before going on a new medication [35:50]
How hyperbaric and ozone therapy helps with gut health; rectal ozone therapy can be helpful to someone with a compromised colon; and ozone topicals can be helpful for use in the mouth or even used with fistulas [37:45]
There are topical, rectal and IV ozone therapies available for fighting pathogens and invaders to the body
Hyperbaric therapy can boost the immune system
That CBD and cannabis can be helpful to offset symptoms and get off of pharmaceuticals. Though medical marijuana seems to have a stronger medicinal effect for stress mitigation for most. How a topical marijuana salve can help keep things moving in the gut that can be shut down due to stress [42:50]
Regarding hyperbaric therapy – when using just the chamber you have 25% more absorption than without, and if you add a concentrator or mask you can get up to 35-45% high-quality oxygen [45:30]
What Joel Sprechman finds to be supportive as a starting point for someone trying to heal. And how you can use personal belief and your intuition to guide you as you experiment with your health [47:05]
Fasting and/or elemental or elimination diets can halt things really fast if you’re trying to make a big change quickly; however fasting should be done under the guidance of a physician [47:25]
How the elemental diet helps to arrest the progression of symptoms of IBD. And why SCD, paleo, and GAPS can also be great for people who like to cook as well [49:00]
More about the summit and interviews Joel Sprechman has conducted that have been very well received with audiences. And how mindset and medication can help to go deeper with the healing capacity [53:10]
How Google is censoring information and about the type of information you will find. How to decipher what is helpful and what is not [56:44]
More about One Great Gut 2.0 is forthcoming with a lot more great information [58:10]
How Joel uses the Heads Up app for tracking his own health and labs after years of using just a spreadsheet [59:10]
Heads Up is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!
Shawn Bean is a Clinical Nutritionist who has a mind for putting the puzzles pieces of complex cases, like mold and Lyme, together. His unique ability to see the big picture and link symptoms to genetic expression is forward-thinking. Moving away from a specialist mentality to offer more generalist type care, says Shawn Bean, is the way we’ll begin to repair our health. Using specialized tests like the Organic Acids Test, he dives into each one for connections that can’t be made with a typical glance of “normal”/”not normal” lab results.
With a Bachelor of Science degree in Clinical Nutrition from West Chester University, Shawn Bean continues to further his own education through PubMed articles, genetic studies and more to help clients, practitioners and doctors to put the pieces of these complex puzzles like mold or Lyme exposure together to begin the healing for their bodies. Together with Michael McEvoy, Shawn Bean runs a mentorship — Metabolic Healing –where they teach other practitioners how to utilize these tools, like the Organic Acids Test, to take their clients and patients toward health and healing. He also sees clients in his private practice at Matrix Health.
Shawn believes that AI and self-tracking can open up insights for individuals that would never have been able to access these insights. He also offers support for those who need help understanding what will take them the 60-100% of the way that tracking alone and self-investigation may not be able to take you.
This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!
About Shawn Bean’s role models: Arnold Schwartzenegger and Frank Zane. How he learned to change his body from a pretty in-shape guy to a pre-contest guy in 16 weeks, doing it with a healthy mindset [4:10]
That Shawn Bean’s health journey really began after his last bodybuilding show. After years of exposure to mold, it was a gradual decline. He found himself with an out-of-sync circadian rhythm which led to weight gain [6:07]
How he used to train in a basement that would flood with water in the 1980s where he was initially exposed to mold. Later, exposed to black mold, everything went down from there [8:02]
How he lost 100 lbs lean muscle tissue in 9 months and got depressed. Then after a GI test, discovered he had infections in his gut. This led to hormone replacement therapy, including testosterone and thyroid hormones [9:00]
After looking online for answers, he found himself in PubMed articles where he realized he could put patterns together fast [10:20]
What looked to be a curse turned into a blessing. Diagnosed around age 40 with Aspergers, Shawn has been able to bring his body back to a better balance through genetic support and other supports [12:50]
“There are too many specialists out there and not enough generalists.” [15:15]
How Shawn Bean doesn’t ask his clients to fill out questionnaires. He knows it’s hard to fill out paperwork when you’re chronically ill. Instead, he asks them to use a timeline and describe what they think is wrong with them [17:02]
He breaks health issues down into three pillars: environmental, emotional and pathogens [18:00]
What trans-generational issues encompass and how they can show up in children and their parents based on family experiences including autism [18:40]
Why focusing on the parent’s preconception risks will reduce genetic expression in future generations by addressing nutrient deficiencies, emotional traumas, and toxicities, gene expression, etc. [20:04]
The Organic Acids Test (OAT) has markers that can help tell if you have stored or active mold in your system through a marker for cell permeability off of the phosphatidylcholine pathway. If you’re heterozygous or homozygous for MTHFD1 or PEMT the cell will lock up and go into a danger response and will hold onto that material and not let it go. You store toxins in the tissues, as the body is trying to protect you from the damage [21:15]
Trans-generational stress can go back 16 generations according to some studies. For example, if Shawn tracks a person’s heritage back and finds that they’re Native American they are going to have a higher rate of PTSD, as well as descendants of Holocaust survivors [22:30]
How quantum healing allows one person to do the spiritual/emotional/energetic work and affect multiple generations positively [24:05]
Shawn and Dave discuss Ayahuasca, mushrooms and other plant-based modalities to help heal trans-generational traumas [24:45]
Shawn utilizes the Organic Acid Test by Great Plains, DUTCH Complete hormone test, and general bloodwork to narrow down if clients are dealing with pathogens, toxins, gut dysbiosis, fungal, mold, yeast, candida, h. pylori, etc. The Organic Acid Test helps to show genetic expression, rather than to test genes specifically which he finds most useful over standard genetic testing like 23 and Me [28:02]
The problem with functional medicine is that it’s still not looking at the whole big picture, but focusing instead on a specialty. “Mast cell activation is becoming the new MTHFR” [32:15]
“The issue I’m seeing with these complex cases is that they fall into what is called protocols or Standards of Care.” Hear more about why these are important, but also how they are also limiting in the complex cases [34:25]
AI is phenomenal but there has to be human interaction to take you the last 60-100% [36:50]
How Shawn can find Lyme with a probability of 70%, for less than $16 [40:42]
How Michael McEvoy and Shawn Bean run a mentoring group for practitioners where they teach these concepts [46:10]
The testosterone-estrogen ratios and how they have affected Shawn Bean for years and how he works to support it, and why the sub-ratio patterns matter [48:50]
One of the first things you can do is to look at your water source. Are you drinking good water? Visit www.scorecard.org to find out more about your water supply and what toxins are in it [54:00]
Having a gene doesn’t necessarily set you on a certain fate like mold toxicity or Lyme disease, but looking at the gene expression and the presenting symptoms is where you heal [54:30]
Why Facebook groups for chronic illness can either be a blessing or a curse [57:00]
“The more we move away from nature, the sicker we become.” [58:30]
Those with NAT gene expression are more EMF sensitive as it fuels the adrenal pathway [58:50]
References
Metabolic Healing Institute – Metabolic Healing Practitioner Mentoring
Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more at HeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.
You can learn more about the Oura ring, a state of the art ring that can track sleep cycle analysis, activity, and recovery at HeadsUpHealth.com/Oura.
Learn more about Keto-Mojo, a highly accurate and affordable device for testing blood sugar and blood ketones. Check it out at HeadsUpHealth.com/Ketomojo.
All of these amazing products are integrated with Heads Up.
They all allow you to quantify your health in novel and powerful ways.
Thank you to our partners!
About Heads Up
Heads Up is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!
Having grown up an athlete, Thomas DeLauer quickly found that without the intense exercise, his then-current way of eating lead him to gain 100 pounds. Deciding that he wanted a different life, he was introduced to the keto diet though forward-thinking physicians and decided to try it for himself.
He lost the weight, got super fit using bodybuilding and the keto diet, and has even been featured on the covers of several health and wellness magazines! Not only that, he started a whole new business helping other people to reduce their inflammation, lose weight and reclaim their health.
Thomas DeLauer describes keto as a “gateway drug” to other fitness and wellness tracking and biohacking strategies, such as intermittent fasting, tracking HRV, heart rate, sleep, temperature and more.
If you’re interested in bodybuilding without trashing your health, this episode is for you!
This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up, a web and mobile app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!
About Thomas DeLauer and what brought him to where he is now – from teen athlete to 100 lbs overweight and back down again to transform into a bodybuilding keto influencer, fitness model, and nutrition and business performance coach [2:55]
As a physician recruiter right out of school, Thomas developed a lot of physician relationships with concierge docs who were really progressive thinking. In fact, this is where he first learned of the keto diet [3:50]
Merging his business background with his experience as an athlete and a drive for self-transformation led him to create his current business [6:50]
As an analytical thinker looking for something different, he discovered how much keto appeals to that because it’s more black and white and easier to control than overly simplistic “calories in calories out” approaches [9:15]
He views keto as a gateway drug to the Oura ring and sleep tracking, HRV, nutrition genome data, mouth taping, etc. to improving health and becoming a biohacker [12:10]
That for blood sugar support, keto can give you an opportunity and sense of hope of how to control what you’re doing regarding weight loss, etc [13:00]
How Thomas DeLauer tracks HRV with Oura and Whoop to see the big picture as another piece for overtraining or being under-recovered. Rather than believing overtraining to be the problem, he puts more emphasis on proper recovery as the key to improving health and fitness [14:45]
That heart rate variability takes it all into consideration, and assesses where you’re at now, and whether your under-recovered or not. It takes all the data and computes it, and it takes all the hard black and white part of trying to compute it in your head out of the equation of wondering if you worked out too hard today or didn’t recover enough.
Thomas describes how HRV and proper recovery can support you in your training, and also how not being recovered can feel and affect you [17:00]
How alcohol and late meals can trash your HRV [18:20]
“Bodybuilders are pushing their bodies to the limits and they need to have these periods of taxation, but then follow it up with enough recovery time but bodybuilding culture teaches us that we need to be constantly pushing ourselves. If we were tracking the data on it we would probably be having very poor HRV all the time. They think it’s the training that’s taking the weight off of them, but it’s the diet and the recovery time that ‘s taking the weight off of them. A bodybuilding cutting cycle could be cut in 3-4 weeks if you apply these principles” (of keto diet and recovery) [21:03]
“Only a small percentage of the bodybuilding community is tracking, but their outcome could be much different if tracking became more popular in this area. Bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbu, Frank Zane was much more in tune with their bodies and there was much more respect for the body, whereas today we are much more disconnected. We are out of touch, and it’s so difficult to get in touch with your body…it’s a meditative thing” [21:50]
Thomas talks about how out of touch we are with our bodies and how we can use the technology, which is ironically keeping us from being in touch with our bodies to our advantage. Using it, we can get biofeedback on how we are recovering from our exercise routine and what our food is doing to our bodies [23:05]
Direct to consumer testing allows individuals to learn more about their own bodies. Keto tends to open the door, and then intermittent fasting usually follows as it’s a natural step that easily flows from burning fat for fuel. Following that usually is mitochondrial support like cryotherapy, HRV, photobiomodulation, redlight therapy, sun exposure, cold therapies, high sympathetic nervous system exposure in a controlled way [25:35]
How safe sun exposure has benefits and yet wearing sunscreen all the time blocks the benefits of vitamin D from the sun. Covering up and limiting time in the sun is a more effective way to manage sun exposure safely than chemical sunscreens for average sun exposure [28:34]
Why cryotherapy is great, but getting in cold water regularly can be really effective without the high cost of cryotherapy, and why regular exposure is better [32:15]
Breathwork and how it can be incorporated into meditation to master the mind-body connection [35:04]
Working with breath for performance, using breathing through your nose. Using box breathing, as a way to get out of the sympathetic response before doing a cold shower, and utilizing the breathing during a cold shower can really affect the changes in the autonomic nervous system [39:18]
Practicing belly breathing helps to reduce hiccoughs by strengthening the diaphragm [41:24]
Learn about the top metrics that Thomas DeLauer currently tracks [47:30]
Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more at HeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.
You can learn more about the Oura ring, a state of the art ring that can track sleep cycle analysis, activity, and recovery at HeadsUpHealth.com/Oura.
Learn more about Keto-Mojo, a highly accurate and affordable device for testing blood sugar and blood ketones. Check it out at HeadsUpHealth.com/Ketomojo.
All of these amazing products are integrated with Heads Up.
They all allow you to quantify your health in novel and powerful ways.
Thank you to our partners!
About Heads Up Health
Heads Up is a web and mobile app designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!
After losing 80 pounds in two years, Sameer Sontakey of Biostrap refound health and sparked his interest in bringing a product to the market that allows the everyday user as well as sports athletes to track their rest and recovery metrics allowing them to biohack their way to better health.
With a Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Sameer Sontakey combined over a decade of experience in the software engineering industry with an interest in health and fitness to develop Biostrap from the ground up.
Biostrap has reinvented data health tracking for the everyday user by creating an affordable, easy to use device that offers tracking of heart rate variability, sleep, heart rate, respiration rate, activity, steps, calories burned, SPO2, and pulse oximetry, and personalized insights.
“Respiratory rate is a really interesting metric that we should be paying more attention to more often. The lower the better —somewhere around 12 when sleeping. People with above 20 often have heart conditions.”
Sameer Sontakey
Using infrared technology to track rather than greenlight technology, it allows a deeper analysis than most products on the market.
Rather than focusing on how hard you’ve been going, Biostrap changes the focus to how well you rest and recover so you can keep improving your health.
This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!
Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!
About how the product was built from the ground up starting with how to move the data from the device to the servers and then built the tracking device. The secret sauce is the software that they own and created [3:07]
That the wrist-worn tracking device is similar to other wrist-worn devices, but it collects more data than other devices [4:20]
That Sameer Sontakey wanted to give everyone the same feeling of success he had through tracking to keep motivated [8:55]
How these tools have existed for a long time, but they are now being brought to healthcare to help you take charge of your health [10:40]
Exciting News! Heads Up are integrating Biostrap into the Heads Up API integration [11:05]
About the device and the types of sensors used. The clinical grade pulse oximeter uses a different wave-length IR spectrum which penetrates the skin a bit deeper in the arteries and provides more biometric data. Greenlight gets absorbed by your body but doesn’t penetrate deep enough to give the same data. Biostrap monitors the body when it’s at rest, which they believe says more about your body that it does when you’re active. This shows how your body is going to perform under stress [12:30]
Biostrap provides baselining, taking a 5-day baseline to figure out where your normals are and then they monitor Sp02, HRV, resting HR and respiratory rate [14:30]
“Respiratory rate is a really interesting metric that we should be paying more attention to more often. The lower the better, somewhere around 12 when sleeping. People with above 20 often have heart conditions.” — Sameer Sontakey [15:00]
How tracking your heart rate and respiratory rate through your sleep cycle can provide more data to your doctor or cardiologist that may be more useful than some blood tests that are standard. This could mean the difference between getting a diagnosis and missing one that could be critical [16:05]
How IR wavelength is different than green which is what is used in most commercial off the shelf devices. The photosensor captures what is reflected through IR but not with green, so we can get actual arterial information. [17:15]
Why other companies don’t use IR in their sensors. Greenlight will get you in the ballpark for activity, however, Biostrap can track the resting and recovery data which can be more helpful to understand what added stressors may do to your body [18:30]
How you’re recovered and how you sleep is the main focus of the Biostrap device as they really want to focus on how you rest and recover to indicate your resilience [19:28]
That a FitBit will give you a sleep score, but it won’t give you data from the entire night on your HRV or heart rate and sleep [20:15]
Why HRV is a primary focus for optimal health whether you’re a stay at home mom, entrepreneur, or a busy CEO [21:45]
How behavior change can be made harder by lack of sleep or low HRV, and how tracking these metrics and improving them can help you with things like avoiding sugar and making better decisions [22:40]
Why tracking HRV and understanding how to utilize it and even diving into 7-day HRV CV tracking [24:30]
Metrics tracked are pulse oximetry, SPO2, HRV, HR, steps, calories burned, with great data visualization and insights that are unique [25:30]
Screenshare of Dave’s data from his Biostrap tracking device [26:15]
Updated the dashboard recently and what you should focus on and maximize [26:40]
Activity – hourly movement, which is based on all movement and your goals
Sleep – Sleep and recovery can be correlated, but a great night of sleep doesn’t always equal great recovery and vice versa
Resting heart rate – The lowest heart rate through the nocturnal cycle, so you can compare what your lowest point is every night. They measure every 2, 5, or 10 minutes based on your settings
Nocturnal HRV that is based on a linear fit model by figuring out what your wake up and sleep time HRV are and that gives you a slope, which provides a different reading that other devices, which also means it won’t match other devices exactly
Breathing rate – There are tools to improve your breathing rate, like breathwork, meditation, massage, hot tub, yin yoga, etc.
SPO2 – Looking at your nighttime SPO2. You don’t want to be below 95 on this one
You can compare your readings to other users to see where you stand and can use it to motivate making changes [34:45]
There are manual recording options [36:30]
Remote monitoring with authorization is useful for coaches, or family members that live in another area and you want to help them improve their health [36:55]
Creating an add on of self-experiments that you can do and monitor for two weeks to see how those habits change your metrics and body response. Taking biohacking and bringing it to everyone to make better behavioral decisions [39:00]
Why Sameer Santakey quit drinking all alcohol after seeing how even a half a beer affects his recovery [42:05]
How you make different changes based on your stage of life and your priorities and tracking your rest and recovery data with Biostrap can help you achieve what is happening in your body [42:30]
Learn more about LEVL, a clinical-grade ketone breath meter, which measures your level of fat-burning and ketosis through a simple breath. Find out more at HeadsUpHealth.com/LEVL.
You can learn more about the Oura ring, a state of the art ring that can track sleep cycle analysis, activity, and recovery at HeadsUpHealth.com/Oura.
Learn more about Keto-Mojo, a highly accurate and affordable device for testing blood sugar and blood ketones. Check it out at HeadsUpHealth.com/Ketomojo.
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They all allow you to quantify your health in novel and powerful ways.
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About Heads Up Health
Heads Up is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.
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