Latest / The XX Lab / WHOOP Scientist: The #1 Habit for Better Sleep, Recovery & Long-Term Health | Dr. Kristen Holmes #17
Transcript
- speaker-0: Today on the XX Lab, we're going to be challenging one of the biggest myths in health and performance. Most of us believe that if we want better health, more energy, or greater success, that the answer is simple. We just need to work harder. But what if the opposite is actually true? What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't that you're not pushing yourself hard enough, it's that you're not recovering enough? My guest today is Dr. Kristen Holmes, Global Head of Human Performance and the principal scientist at Whoop. She's also a former US national team athlete and one of the most successful coaches in Ivy League history. She's also author of the new book, Aligned. In this conversation, you'll learn how Kristen discovered that recovery, not training, is where the real magic happens with exercise, and how stress and sleep shape everything from performance to long-term health, and what women need to know about optimizing their health across the menstrual cycle, paramenopause, and beyond. We also talk about the science of resilience. Why data can be one of the most powerful tools for improving your health, and how small, consistent habits can help you perform better, not just at the gym, but in every area of your life. Whether you're an athlete, a busy parent, or someone who simply wants more energy and a healthier relationship with your body, this episode will change the way that you think about health and performance. This is the XX Lab. I'm Dr. Sarah Hill. Let's get started. Doctor Kristen Holmes, welcome to the XX Lab. speaker-1: ⁓ thank you so much for having me. I've been such a fan of yours for so long and have followed your work. So it's it's a real honor. speaker-0: No, this is like such a treat for me. For those of you who aren't familiar with Kristen, you actually know who she is without knowing who she is. ⁓ she's the global head of human performance and the principal scientist at Whoop. And she has a wonderful new book that ⁓ is right over her shoulder that I encourage you all to check out called Aligned. And so today we're gonna be talking about fitness tracking, and we're also going to be talking about some of the wisdom that she offers us in her new book. And To get started, I'm gonna brag on you a little bit. And I actually wrote this down, so I'm actually gonna read it off paper because I couldn't remember this long list of credentials because your background is really it's it's really incredible. So you were a two sport all-American and Big Ten athlete of the year at Iowa, a seven-year member of the US national field hockey team, and then one of the most successful coaches in Ivy League history at Princeton, winning 12 league titles in 13 seasons and a national championship. What ⁓ at what point did you decide to pull away from your background in athletics and in training and coaching to move into the world of science? speaker-1: Well, I have always been really fascinated by the interplay between our psychology and our physiology. You know, I I think as an athlete and as a coach, I I recognized really quickly that it would it was way success in sports is way more than the X's and O's. It it takes an understanding of the physiology, it takes an understanding of of the psychology. And and I and I think I realized that definitely while I was an athlete, it became very, very obvious to me when I when I started coaching that I I needed to build a platform for my student athletes that was more than just the technical and tactical aspects of the game. And I wanted more for them. You know, I I wanted them to understand their body. I wanted them to understand their mind in a way that allowed them to choose their level of performance. And that was really, I guess my recruiting platform when I was at Princeton University was, you know, this idea that we're gonna give you an understanding of the influences that move around your attentional capacity, your motivation, and your energy production. So you can choose how you show up for anything. And and that's really been the foundation of all of my work when I was at Princeton, when I was coaching and teaching there. And then when I moved on to, you know, become a a formal scientist, research scientist, you know, at Whoop for the last decade, I, you know, I've been able to test a lot of these principles in in a a real world environment at a massive, massive scale. So I think I've always been interested in science and I've always been interested in technology as a way to foster human performance. We were even at Princeton, you know, I was using internal load and external load, subjective markers and building very robust. models to predict my athletes' readiness and to give them better feedback about how they're responding and adapting to to the not just the training load but to life load in general. And and that's really how I I came to to to learn about Whoop was a lot of the the work that I was doing at Princeton was very aligned with what ⁓ Woop was building. So yeah, I just made the decision to to join forces and to to try to scale this concept of recovery. speaker-0: read the story about how when you got to Princeton you realized that you needed to find a way to differentiate yourself to be able to recruit the types of athletes that you wanted to be able to train and and work with and and then go to win all of those different championships. So obviously it was working. And I heard that I heard that at that time that you're working on trying to develop kind of something that was similar to Whoop and some of the other tracking technologies that are out there. And so I'm I'm really curious what ⁓ what that looked like. And then what ultimately made you decide to take the leap and instead of sort of pursuing that on your own, to join Woo? speaker-1: This is great question. I was trying to keep my athletes healthy and safe. You know, one of the main principles in exercise physiology or sports science is, you know, the best ability is availability, right? You want to keep your athletes available to train and compete. And there's actually this amazing five year perspective study that was published in 2016 by Ray Smith and Drew. And basically what they found in this study was that. availability to train and compete predicted eighty six percent of both team and individual success. So speaker-0: When you say availability, ⁓ like what is yeah, can you like what is that speaker-1: Means kind of an act just availability to show up and train and compete. So absence of sickness, you would assume, access ⁓ absence of any mental health kind of issue, you know, just anything that would basically prevent you from showing up to train and compete. So just showing up to train and compete over the course of this five years predicted eighty-six percent of individual and team success. So this was definitely in and this is, you know, this ⁓ notion of availability is is something that, you know, we've we've known for quite some time, but how do you actually keep athletes available to train and compete is the the big question, right? And really what in my work over the course of last decade, certainly at Whoop, have had enormous success. And a lot of the reasons why a lot of the teams I think I have the chance to work with end up winning world championships and, you know, national championships and and whatnot is is just this availability piece, right? Keeping them healthy. So really my my time at Princeton was How do I keep my my biggest question was how do I keep my athletes safe to train and compete mentally, physically, emotionally? And that's really was the basis for my performance education program. And and once I became aware that, ⁓ there's actually some like really objective feedback we can get on how we're responding and adapting to training load and life load, I started to really go deep and and investigate what was out there. So I brought in, I I bought a technology called First Beat, which was a heart rate monitor ⁓ that would basically look at my my athlete's heart rate along with eat excess post oxygen consumption and lots of other metrics as well. Their training effect, how much how many carbohydrates they were burning, how much protein they were ⁓ utilizing during training. ⁓ so there was I was getting huge amounts of data during the training period. And with that, I was also getting a reading on heart rate variability. Now I was taking that. prior to practice and there's lots of issues with getting that information at that time, but at least it was consistent and we did have that that marker. So I started pulling in those, those data. So I had in practice. And then I realized pretty quickly, ⁓ wow, what's happening the other 22 hours or 20 hours of the day that they're not with me. So I get a Fitbit HR. So they have an open API. So I started pulling in those raw data because I didn't really like how they were displaying it. I hired some computational biologists from Princeton and and some statistics machine learning. We started building our own algorithms. So I built a sleep algorithm, a recovery algorithm, a readiness algorithm is what I called it. And we were looking at training effect. And so I built basically a mobile app for my athletes that pulled in all of these data. We also looked at purpose and efficacy and control and connection, some of these psychological contracts we know that are really important. We linked to their calendar so I could invite them in the morning to This after the afternoon's training effect. So they knew, all right, I'm going to be working at a 4.0 this afternoon. They know that is going to be a really hard workout. They would get, if when they accept the invite, they would know exactly how many calories you need to take on board. They would know exactly how much water. I was pulling in Yahoo! weather API as well. So I knew I had their sweat rates. And so I knew for each individual athlete how much water they needed to take on board in order to be prepared for practice at 4 p.m. So we were doing in a lot of stuff. speaker-0: Yeah that's awesome. speaker-1: Awesome. I know. I know. Whoop isn't even doing this stuff now, but hopefully in the future. But anyway, it was a very robust solution with again trying to solve for keeping the athlete safe and healthy to compete. And by the way, a lot of these all these principles apply to every human, right? Who's trying to stay available, you know, for for all the things that they care about in life, right? So anyway, it it got a lot of traction. I got through beta and I was giving a presentation at Princeton to ⁓ our varsity club and there was a a former Princeton wrestler who also was an early investor in Whoop came up to me afterwards and said, Hey, have you ever heard about Woop? And I was like, No. And he said, Well, they're building something very similar, but they have hardware. And of course I didn't. I was using FIPITHR, I was using First Beat, and I also had external load. So I had GPS data as well. So I actually had like a very robust data set, but it was piecing together and I didn't have my own hardware. So my next phase was to build my own hardware. But that, I mean I was one woman at the time. I was using the Tiger Lab and you know, and Woop was qu very far ahead. They were already going to market with this. And so I ended up a couple of days later, ⁓ I ended up in New York City meeting with the CEO and founder of of Woop, ⁓ Will Ahmed. And, you know, there was just fireworks in terms of as you can imagine. And then 48 hours later, I ended up in Boston. I met his team who worked I was just, I was like, Holy shit, these are my people. You know, I was like all the things that I wanted to be thinking about and solving. And, you know, and I loved coaching so much. I loved my athletes. I I loved Princeton. I I, you know, I I couldn't even imagine leaving, but at the same time, I was like, here's an opportunity to to take a lot of this, these principles that in my heart I know can benefit every human on the planet. Right. And I I have this opportunity to kind of scale this work. ⁓ so anyway, I ended up leaving my stable university role. I had a couple businesses that I was operating as well and two kids and and I just up and left. And, you know, we had six months of runway, I think. You know, we were on the verge of bankruptcy twice in my dad. Like I was still total startup. But, you know, I I I as I said in my book, you know, ⁓ to to really ⁓ at the time in my heart, like this is this you know, to to basically make a decision that was so in line with who, you know, the things I wanted to be thinking about, you know, where my values, my core values really were in terms of impact and growth to create alignment across that was was really rewarding and, you know, fortunately it worked out. speaker-0: Yeah. No, it's it's funny because you you had like proof of concept because you'd been training these athletes and so you kind of knew that it worked already. I'm sure in some ways I I'm sure in some ways it was a relief to have somebody else have figured out the hardware thing, especially if you're not a tech person. ⁓ like like fairy dust. I mean just like like true kismet where you have like this set of strengths and then here's this other person who just so happens to speaker-1: Sure that it was like that. speaker-0: Have this other set of strengths, and then you get together and you create Led Zeppelin in the basement, you know? So really yeah, really it was really an incredible story. And I think it's also helpful for people to hear that, you know, at first it was scary and and you didn't know. Like when you when you got into it, you didn't know that you were getting into the whoop band that everybody has, right? You were just like getting into this whole startup company and you're leaving. We had your fancy Ivory. speaker-1: Well, people on the pl on the platform. I mean it was like it was sweet. I I had I was so nice like when I think back, I'm like, I mean, everyone told me, I you know, all the dads of my student athletes who were these super accomplished, you know, that are part of VC and they're like, this is not gonna work, to be clear. Like you're going into like if this is they fail, you know, I mean startups fail, right? When you look at the nobody like speaker-0: But you were training their daughters and they were winning national championships. You know, so it's like I know this works, I know this works, and you know what? It works and and and you were right. speaker-1: I I know I love it. speaker-0: Well, one question I have about Whoop and about just trackers in general for women. And then I wanna also ask you about some of the I know that you guys are moving into that research space. And so one thing that I've always and and and this is a debate I have with myself and I'm hoping that you and and I argue both sides of it with myself and so I'm hoping you can help me land on a on a position. So I'm sure you are aware you trackers always give us worse recovery in the second half of the menstrual cycle. Right. So during the Yes, exactly. Because our our heart rate goes up, our respiration goes up, our body temperature goes up. And so we always end up getting worse recovery, right? And and so for a while I was like, Ur, you know, this is trained on male data and it's treating my body as a pathology and you know and and that's annoying and there should be a correction for that. But then the other part of me argues, No, actually your recovery is lower. Your heart rate is up, your respiration rate is up. Your body temperature's up. And it's not because you did anything wrong. You weren't out having to bender with your friends, right? But instead, your recovery is actually worse. And so and you need to know that. So that way you're a little bit gentler on yourself. And so this is the this is the argument I have with myself. And so my my recovery is worse during that time, right? Yeah. speaker-1: It sure is. And that's your body doing exactly what it's supposed to do. So yeah. If it if it wasn't, then that would be a problem, right? That would be what what we see, you know, I mean, I I think when we look at women who are on ⁓ you know, HBC, that's a really good example. They don't have those same perturbations, right? There there isn't that hormonal you're you're you're not giving your body a chance to have those hormonal perturbations over the course of of a speaker-0: Right. speaker-1: you know, a 28-day or 30-day cycle or whatever it is, right? So those changes in in in temperature, those changes in heart variability and resting heart rate and respiratory rate, but oxygen level, I mean, those are real physiological changes that coincide with all of the hormonal changes that are happening to your body during that time. And you will see as you as hormones are reduced, you'll see actually less perturbation. It will become almost flat. So yeah. speaker-0: Do you happen to know, and ⁓ you might not know this off the top of your head, but are women who are using hormonal birth control or ⁓ women who are fully menopausal, does their recovery does it look more like it does in the first half of the menstrual cycle for a cycling woman? Okay, so it looks more like that. It looks okay, got it. Yeah, so it looks more like a man. Yeah, that's yeah, that's really interesting. And it's funny because I don't think that there's any messaging, like because obviously you can't your whoop band can't give you this long thing saying, speaker-1: It looks more like a man. Okay. speaker-0: Your recovery's a little bit worse, but you didn't do anything wrong and it's okay and there's nothing wrong with you. But sometimes I I I feel that way where I'm like, like, I I went to bed early. Like I know. And so I heard I heard that you all are expanding some of the research that you're doing to try to better understand women's health and try to understand the menstrual cycle and then pregnancy, paramenopause, menopause, female longevity. I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about some of the questions that you're hoping to answer with this research that you're doing. speaker-1: No. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: And and honestly, we've been doing my first research was on exercise and pregnancy with West Virginia University. And we started writ writing the IRB in 2017. So when I I literally hit the ground at Whoop and I was like, we're doing women's research. And it was like, I don't even know if women are gonna want to wear Whoop, you know, like when I first got to Whoop, right? Because we were on LeBron James and Michael Phelps and yeah we speaker-0: Love it. Ladies love Whoop. speaker-1: I they do love Whoop and and I made sure that ⁓ we had ⁓ representation in in the in the research when I first arrived. So yeah, actually we so we've been doing I guess the the bottom line is we've done research for you know since since I arrived in in 2016. We've been doing and we've published many, many different pieces pieces ⁓ data on on women's health specifically. ⁓ one of the things that we do see that we just published with ⁓ some partners at Stanford, Wu-Sai, ⁓ I don't know if you know that, Human Performance Alliance, but they're focused on female physiology, female health. And basically what we saw is that the less sleep duration and the more sleep wake variability, the greater perturbation you'll see over the course of a menstrual cycle in naturally cycling women. So which isn't surprising. speaker-0: No, it I I actually like I just have to interrupt to to tell you that I I love that because so I have a I have a book that came out last fall called The Period Brain and it's really talking about the second half of the menstrual cycle and how women have l lower resilience essentially. And what we what I found in the research that I was doing and and consuming was that it there does seem to be some when and I created a term, I don't know if it'll ever catch on in the world, but this idea of resilience to hormonal changes. And that in that and that you get more resilience to hormonal changes when you're sort of taking care of basics and including ⁓ sleep as you noted. So that that's very consistent with the the research that I was describing in my book. And so I'm so happy yeah to hear that. ⁓ so maybe there is something to this idea of resilience to hormonal changes. ⁓ speaker-1: There's no question about it. And I will say I have a paper in review right now that's looking at the heart rate amplitude. So this is kind of a I guess a circadian perspective, but so looking at the ⁓ diurnal heart rate amplitude in women. So we have 5,000 perimenopausal and menopausal women in this data set. And what we looked at is kind of second-to-second kind of heart rate, and we looked at the rhythm of that heart rate. And sure enough, less amplitude ⁓ predicts more severe ⁓ symptoms and more frequent symptoms. And amplitude is a signature of resilience, right? So if you were to look at the amplitude of someone who has cancer, there would be very low amplitude. You wouldn't have these big kind of rolling hills, right? It would be just more flat essentially. ⁓ and in a healthy, robust person, we see these really robust kind of amplitude and trowel. And we see we also, you know, we've looked at fit people, non-fit people in our data set. Again, it tracks the more fit you are, the more you have these, you know, kind of this amplitude and this really robust amplitude and and this ⁓ trout and it follows a very predictable signature. And then we also replicated this across ⁓ women naturally cycling women and Sure enough, same exact thing holds. The more amplitude a woman has, the less bothered she is ⁓ by symptoms and severity of symptoms. So to your point, absolutely we're seeing that the more resilient you are going into, let's say, you know, your period, or, you know, just navigating perimenopause and menopause, the more resilient you are, the the less affected. You are by these hormonal perturbations. speaker-0: How is amplitude measured? Like how does a person know what their amplitude is? Is that is that like similar to HRV? Or is that essentially like are you using that as a do you use that as a proxy for amplitude? speaker-1: It's not a proxy. It's actually measuring something else, which is interesting. So we're trying to work this out right now, but that is and I I actually filed a patent because it it is novel. and because it you know, it's it is it is telling us something unique that heart rate variability and resting heart rate aren't. Now, are they correlated? Yes, of course, right? Like, but but it but it is different. It's it's more of a ⁓ an architecture than it is a state, you know, whereas like like heart rate variability, resting heart rate, you know, certainly if you're looking at them, you know, day to day, it's it's more in indicative of of kind of your state. Whereas amplitude is more of a feature of like your if you were to kind of zoom out and look at your overall health and resilience, it's more of a marker of that, I think. So we're still we're still trying to figure out exactly how it fits into kind of this broader view of of health, but it it is it is I think ⁓ we're finding it it it actually is predictive of of you know some of these things that we're trying to to to get a better handle on a better more control over, right? Especially I I think women's, you know, especially in perimenopause and menopause, you know, i and and not to say that, you know, I I I'm not against hormonal replacement therapy or menopause ⁓ or MRT or anything like that, but I think there is a heck of a lot we can do behaviorally ⁓ minimize the pain. that we feel during this transition. ⁓ you know, I'm definitely N of one, you know, but I I I kind of focus on some very specific things. Actually I outline in my book and I don't I'm really fortunate I don't struggle with with any of the symptoms. I'm 52 years old, right? So I I I should be kind of in the in the middle of of these issues, but I'm just I'm not. And and I think a lot of it is, you know, just based I've been inside these data now for fifty years and it's very, very clear that there is a s there are some behaviors that if if we can just We don't have to be perfect. But if we engage these baby behaviors, you know, eighty percent of the time, we can bypass a lot of the the issues I think that we we you know, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that we need to suffer is is all I'm saying. speaker-0: I completely agree. And and what I've found in my research, just looking at the impact of ⁓ women's like like essentially ⁓ hormonal stochasticity, I find that it is very much consistent acr like a woman who lacks resilience to hormonal changes across the cycle. So for example, a woman with PMS or who has PMGD, she's also more likely to ⁓ have postcardum depression. And she's more likely to have a terrible time during paramenopause. And it's essentially this this lack of this resilience to hormonal changes. And and and anything that you can do to try to build up that resilience, I think, is going to serve you throughout your lifetime. You know, it's like you can s especially if you start young when you're cycling, that's going to give you a better postpartum experience. It's going to give you a better paramenopause, probably better menopause and and beyond, I think. speaker-1: That's such an important point that it and this is where I think we kind of go wrong as a society is we just react, right? And I think and and and not to say that, you know, if you're already in perimetapopause, you're you're kind of screwed, but I I think the call to action is is for the women in their twenties and thirties to recognize that, you know what, like you can't just wing it. If you want to ensure that or you want to give yourself the best chance to be able to manage perimenopause and menopause with with less pain, it actually starts in your twenties and thirties. It's just I think it's just the reality. And I I think it's exactly what you're saying. It's like you're building that buffer in the system to be able to manage, you know, what will be qu quite acute changes in your hormonal profile over the course of a decade. Right. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. I look forward to whoop band being able to measure this amplitude thing because if I hope it is predicting the things that that you think it's predicting, which I mean I can I could see why it would. It'd be such valuable information to ha for people to have to beyond like sort of heart rate variability and some of these other things, which ⁓ sometimes, especially because there's a lot of inter individual variability, I think that sometimes people when they're making comparisons between their heart rate variability and that of their neighbor. That there there's a lot of anxiety that gets that gets created. Yeah, yeah. And so speaker-1: specific to Hare variability reacts to all sorts of of stuff. Yeah. It could be training, it could be psychological stress. You know, it's a it's a psychophysiological mirror. So as a result, it, you know, is is responding to all sorts of inputs. Yeah. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I I wanted to ask, and then I wanna start talking about your book, but just like one last question about about health trackers, and this isn't about whoops specifically, it's about all health trackers. I I think that there's been a little bit of pushback recently about like whether or not people get too keyed up about this and whether or not it's actually creating stress. And, you know, and on the one hand, you know, I I can imagine that it does create some stress for some people, but on the other hand, I feel like that's better stress to have than the stress of not knowing that. Drinking six glasses of wine tanks your sleep and you know, it and and kills your ⁓ kills your ⁓ performance the next day. So I'm just I'm just curious about what your what your thoughts are, like on whether or not there's we we need to take this all with a grain of salt or to what extent do we use this to influence what we do the next day? Like what like what are your thoughts? How do you take your data? speaker-1: I think w when I think about just all the stories that have come through over the course of the last 10 years where these data have transformed people's life. You know, people who have, you know, c who come onto our platform and are obese and they start, they're just, they're focused on meeting their strain target, right? And this is different than steps, right? This is about working your heart, your intensity of of your cardiovascular output, right? That's what strain measures. And stephs can matter, but strain is really important. And what we see is that individuals who meet their strain target and indicate that they want to lose weight lose more weight than individuals who don't meet their strain target. Right. And we have so many stories of people who have written in and just does who has changed their life, right? Because they have ⁓ these data, you know, that they can they can look to so they know w how hard to push ⁓ and, you know, how much to actually overreach and when to pull back and how to think about their sleep. more intentionally, you know, what behaviors during the day ladder up to better sleep quality? You know, what are the behaviors close to bed that actually disrupt my sleep? You know, these are incredible sources of insight for for folks who are starting without a lot of in a lot of education, frankly, around some of these influences that impact these really core experiences like sleep, right? I mean, that's one of the most important behavioral experiences we have as as human beings, right? And and so so I I guess I've seen and and and not just transformative from the perspective of getting fitter or losing weight or all of a sudden getting a handle on their sleep, but but actually people have whoop has saved their life, you know, where they've seen these really egregious deviations in their ⁓ from their baseline and and heart rate and heart variability. And they go to the ER and they are minutes away from a heart attack or you know, it just the the there's thousands of those stories, right? So from my perspective, how I think about it is the data are accurate enough to give me a very good understanding of my baseline physiology, give me a very good understanding of my functional capacity. And I want to know if there are big deviations, right? If I if my VO2 max starts to decline steadily you know, over the course of the last six months, like I wanna know why. I wanna and I wanna stop that decline, right? Cause that is, you know, that to me is is one of the basis of of aging and disease, right? As a declining VO2 max, right? So I have the o I when I can see those data, it I have a choice then to how I'm gonna respond. Well I'm gonna do more zone four and five to make sure that I keep my VO2 max above 50, which is, you know, my goal going into my late 50s and 60s, right? So from my perspective, we're we're just at a point in time in human history where we just don't have to guess. And to me, that is a huge relief. And frankly, when I go to my my doctor, I'm able to have a much more educated discussion with them. And I'm able to enter that conversation with a lot more confidence. about how my body is responding and reacting to to stress. And so yeah, that's that's kind of how I think about it. And I don't want to be dismissive of people who do stress out. I I can I get it. It's more about just how can I live my values with more joy and more energy. And I think data can kind of help support that if if you're thinking about it clearly. speaker-0: of the mind that more data is better than less data. And even ⁓ you know, 'cause I'm a scientist, my husband's an attorney and ⁓ he is not a data person, but with his whoop band, he got s I mean, and and I mean talk about people whose lives it saved. I you know, he's a high stress type A personality. speaker-1: Like my parent is a a a lawyer, so speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean it's like a real I mean, that's a real thing and pre finally has a handle on the effects that stress has on his body and the effects that alcohol has on his body. And it has absolutely transformed his life in in a really positive way that's ⁓ definitely supporting his health. And so I've like I've I've seen it for people 'cause I've always been a data person and so, you know, for me it was like always like a natural fit, like, ⁓ my gosh, like, you know, and then I get to log this and then And like this to this and who knew that this argument I had with my daughter w you know, kill my sleep. And you know, totally Yeah, I know it's it's real it's really fa it's really fascinating. It gives me something else to make my daughter feel guilty about. 'Cause that's what moms do apparently. I guess I'm told. Yeah. speaker-1: I have a eighteen year old daughter, so I I I understand fully where exactly what you're saying. speaker-0: Yeah, so mine's nineteen. We can we can commiserate sometimes sometime about how what that's all about. You have a new book. It's coming out in August. What day is it coming out in August? The twenty. Okay, August twenty-fifth. Amazing. So it's called Aligned. And in the subtitle, The Data Driven Guide to Performance, Recovery, and Human Potential. And what I love about this subtitle is that it absolutely lives up to the title because I think that this book is I know is really fantastic. And speaker-1: A Fath. speaker-0: For somebody who is a science person, which I am, and I really appreciated how full of research it was. And it was like very well researched. It was very actionable. So there's like very specific protocols for people and protocols for people depending on what their goals are. So it's not just like, you know, assuming that your reader is going to be an Olympic athlete. Right. Or assuming that your reader is gonna be somebody who has absolutely no, you know, exposure to ⁓ fitness or or nutrition or sleep or anything else at all. It's like it's really nice, ⁓ a really nice guide for everyone. And so I I really I thought it was really incredible. And I want to talk through it a little bit. And and you begin your book by actually talking about how you had just graduated from college and your found out that your mom had passed away. And you know, a time when you just graduated from college, I mean, you didn't yet know that you were Dr. Kristen Holmes. You know, the the global you know, this like global head of this ⁓ you know, multinational corporation and and we're gonna win all these I mean, you didn't know who you were. Like we're always in the fog of youth, you know, during that time and we're still trying to figure out like what we're good at and what we're gonna do in this world. And I wanna know, like when you were in that speaker-1: No. speaker-0: place and then you soon entered the world of coaching sports. Like how did like what brought you through that time? Like how did you get through that place? 'Cause I think we've all been there before. speaker-1: You know, I think for ⁓ like most folks, when you lose a parent, it's so destabilizing. You know, it's like your world just crashes down on top of you in ways that i it's it's just i it's really hard to explain, you know, and and and I think our society doesn't do a great job of of knowing how to grieve. Like it's just not a a not really a part of our culture, right? You know, it's like you've got a week or so. to kind of get yourself through it and then it's and then it's back to business. But I I think for me, you know, I had a really complicated relationship with my mom. You know, she had so much potential, you know, and which I think is why I've always been fascinated with human potential is is she was really, you know, a a genius, extraordinarily brilliant, but just You know, the time she had my brother and I really young. I she was she dropped out of college, got pregnant, so never never f was able to kind of pursue I I think her intellectual curiosities in in at the depth that she wanted to. And and and not that she resented my brother and I, but I think she always felt very unfulfilled, you know, and and and and as a result, I think to you know well that ⁓ she she drank you know and and became really a a non-functioning alcoholic and and was for my whole life and you know when she when she passed away and I I write my book I I I remember seeing you know death by alcohol cirrhosis of the liver you know and and and and I and it just it broke me you know and you know at the time I was had just finished playing in the World Cup you know I was I had finally earned you know starting position on the US team and I, you know, was really, I guess, thriving in in that area. And then I just found myself in a state where I couldn't train. I it's like I almost like couldn't move my body. You know, went into a really dark place. I ended up not trying out for the US team. So I I basically took ninety-nine off and I just I was just in the worst possible place, you know. And I think, you know, just trying to figure out, yeah, who, who am I? You know, and so yeah. So it was it was a dark time. But, you know, and this is where I started working with a a psychiatrist and and he was incredible, like truly like saved me, you know, gave me tools, ⁓ perspective. You know, and I and I and I started to, you know, piece myself back together and went back to the US team in two thousand and definitely still had struggles, but you know, at least had a a more of a blueprint, you know, in in in it. And and so so yeah, I mean, I I think I think that's where I I really started, you know, understanding my own self worth, you know, was was not contingent on the goals I scored or, you know, the team I made or my academic credentials, which I I had always I think pursued those achievements to compensate for just, you know, all of the shame and and, you know, and and you know, unresolved emotions from my life. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that ⁓ you know, a lot of people that I know who are high performers, including myself, have something from childhood where they're sort of trying to create distance. And I think that they feel like the harder they work and you know, and the more that they achieve, the greater the distance that they create between themselves and then this alternative narrative of themselves living in a box on the street, which is the narrative, you know, that's like my alternative narrative. And whenever anything goes wrong, you know, that that it's it's not just that you lost the game. Right. Or you lost the title this one year. It's that, you know, everything is falling apart and you're failing and and, you know, and you're gonna end up ⁓ in the box on the street. That's always my narrative. And and so many, so many ⁓ women and and men that I know who ⁓ who are high achievers, they have that and that little bit of that fire that's driven that way. But as you noted, I mean, it can really be hard then when you need to take a beat. when life is is hard and you're having to take a few steps back. I mean, cause it feels on the one hand, both that you need to rest, but it's not restful because you're so full of anxiety about, you know, the fact that you're not performing and that in that you've wrapped your identity and performance. And it's a really hard place to get out of. And I think that it's something that a lot of people have to go through at some point in their life. I mean, it's we always hit forks in the road. All of us hit forks in the road. And and so I thought that was a really beautiful story. And it was so courageous of you to share that at the very outset of the book. I mean, people are just being introduced to you and you're like, here's, here's this story about my life. And I really applaud you for that because I everybody goes through these moments in life. And I think that it's especially in this culture, this like cultural moment that we're having with social media and everybody showing their, you know, sort of best, you know, highlight reel ⁓ to be able to have that you know, moment like, you know, things are are hard sometimes and for and for everyone and that and that someone like you is ⁓ you're you were at the bottom too and you had to figure out how to sort of s you know, sort of step by step get out of that. And it sounds like you that your first step was managing your mental health and and addressing that. Is that correct? speaker-1: Definitely, yeah. ⁓ I almost like it was either that, you know, I I I really that was kind of my only choice, you know, 'cause that was in such a dark place. speaker-0: I will say that I I really appreciated and and we'll go through ⁓ just sort of walk through high contour what you present in your book. But I really appreciated that you had a whole section on mental health because I do think that that's something that is very much missing from a lot of the performance. You know, th there's stuff about mindset, right? Yeah. Performance mindset. You can't speaker-1: You only talk yourself into a better future for so long before like the foundation is gonna, you know speaker-0: Right. And I mean honestly, and and of course I'm a psychologist. And so of course all I think about is what's going on psychologically, you know? It's like so I think it's the most important thing, of course. But I also do really do think that if like if you don't have your head straight, ⁓ in other word, you if you're if you're not feeling good, then none of the rest of it matters. You know, like you can like top performance, you know, super fit, on top of the world, you know, really, you know, good performance. But if your mental health isn't right, it stops mattering really quickly. speaker-1: Yeah, I I think that's why, you know, ultimately I became a psychophysiologist, you know, so I could study the interrelationships between our psychological processes and physiological responses, and vice versa. And that's literally how I wrote the book. I actually had the architecture within the psychology was first, and then they told me to flip it. So I ended up doing the physiology. But I agree with you. I think the the the mind is is where we start. But but I do think the entry point can be for some folks. is through the physiology first. And I, you know, it just depends on the human. But but I think to your point, you know, I I and this is why I, you know, in included, you know, just a a s a section on on what does it mean to heal? Just how to how to know if you've got some unresolved trauma or unresolved emotions. Like how do you address that? You know, what's a way to think about that? And and and sometimes it it means engaging a therapist, but some of it you might, you know, you can work in your downtime with your, you know, on your own and and build a a framework. And and that's really what I try to present in in the book is just a simple entry point for folks to kind of think about this at a foundational level. So, you know, so so that doesn't become a barrier, right? To just, you know, because oftentimes, you know, if things aren't, you know, mentally in in a in if you're not mentally in in a good place, like that's going to impair your sleep. That's going to impair how much you move. And we know these, know this from the data, right? And and so you know, if you have short sleep, you don't move them the the as much the next day, right? And and that can compound, right? You know, all of a sudden you've got three weeks of of short sleep and consistent sleep. And now you're really in a situation where you're not moving and that makes you feel worse about about life. And so so I I you know they're they're so interrelated and and that's really why I tried to bridge, you know, the psychology and physiology in this book. speaker-0: I think you do a really nice job and I I think that that's ⁓ I I really appreciate the point you just made because I think for different people, as you noted, the entry point is different. For some people it's easier to go out and go for a walk and go and start doing that every day and then they can start working on some of the unresolved, you know, mental baggage that they might have to work through. For other people, you need to go top down and you need to start by addressing what's happening mentally and then you can because it is, I mean, it's a bi-directional relationship, you know, like what's happening in the peripheral body and then what's happening in the brain. The two things communicate with each other and they affect each other. And whichever thing feels more more comfortable if you're going through a hard time or you're experiencing a trauma or you're just in a dark place. And I think that ⁓ you know, there's a lot of folks right now who who are and Just recognizing that there's no there's no one size fits all formula and and every that for everybody the entry point's gonna be a little bit different, but you can become fully aligned regardless of how you enter. And so let's talk a little bit about the content of the book. And the title is aligned. And I wanna know like what does that mean to you? What does it mean to be aligned? Yeah, I think it speaker-1: It means that you're able to operate from an integrated center, you know, like that, that internally you feel a sense of completeness and a sense of wholeness, regardless of what's happening externally. And I think that has always been my work and my challenge is that I I relied so much on everything that was outside of me. And then, you know, I realized that. everything I need is is really inside. You know, I just have to I have to like just pull that light out out of me, right? And and then trust it. And and I think that that's that's really been my work of over the course of the last 30 years, you know, is is is is is really finding that light and and trusting it and letting it guide me, you know, letting it it show itself, you know, and and and trusting it. And it it sounds so woo-woo, but but Honestly, like that's it it's a aligned is a is a is is a feeling of being able to engage the world from a place of peace and joy. And and I and I you know, I I think I always I didn't have that for so long, you know, and and so now that I finally have it, I'm like, ⁓ my God, I want everyone to experience what it's like to to really feel at peace and to really feel as that's a joy. And And it it and it it's it's nothing to do with achievement, you know, at the end of the day. And and that's what was such a revelation to me. And and you know, and and and I and I really I've always thought, and I'm sure you do too as a psychologist, like you, you know, you think about this idea of motivation, right? And and and and I always wanted to come from a a place of of of purity, you know, where I I was I wasn't doing it for the thing, you know, I was really I was pursuing something 'cause it it just really brought me joy and it really brought me peace. And I and I feel like I can finally say that, you know, that that's really h how I lived my life. And I think a lot of what I wrote in the book is is kind of a path to that, I think, potentially, you know, for folks. speaker-0: Yeah, and and for for folks who are listening, ⁓ if you haven't checked out the book yet, it definitely check it out. What what I really appreciate is ⁓ you know, you you do talk about this ⁓ and you said like sort of sounds sort of woo-woo where you're, you know, feeling very centered and is that the book is so grounded in really good science and has these like really detailed protocols about, you know, essentially like how to navigate breath work, how to navigate. Exercise depending on what your different fitness goals are, how to navigate sleep, how to navigate your emotions. And so it's got these like really nice individual protocols. And essentially, when you put all of these pieces together, right, then you get this woo-woo, right, alignment, which I love. And and one of the central claims in your book, and and you talked about this a little bit at the at the outset of our conversation also, is just this idea that, you know, like training and like doing the things that we think that we need to be doing to perform. ⁓ that matters, but really the thing that matters the most is what we're doing the other 22 or 23 hours of our day. Right. And that that's really kind of where the secret sauce is in terms of really, you know, being able to show up, right? Fully show up to the things that we're doing and show up in in in a joyful way, as you said, and feeling really intrinsically motivated. And this like really I think it's so counterintuitive and hard for people to wrap their brains around the idea that it's not the effort that they put in when they're sweating and lifting and and that it's really what they're doing during this other time that matters. Like like why do so many capable people get this backward? speaker-1: No, I I just think we've been socialized that, you know, more is better is I I think the bottom line, right? And more is just more, right? It's it's not better. And and I and I see this, well, certainly my own data over and over again, but millions and millions of date trillions trillions of lines of code reinforce that you know when you are not speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ speaker-1: appropriately mapping your stress with rest, your strain with recovery, it comes at a cost. And we see this degradation physiologically, we see this in the subjective markers that we're able to track. And so it's and and we know that if you're training hard for an hour and you don't get the sleep that you need, it and and you do that repeatedly, you are not going to be able to capitalize on the work that you put in. The recovery is where the magic happens. And and and I and I think I've just certainly seen this in my own life, but now at this point, you know, it's it's I've worked with thousands of folks over the course of the last decade and certainly in my time at Princeton. And understanding how to map stress with appropriate levels of rest is, I think, the most important skill of the 21st century because modern life is not set up For us to do that naturally. And I'm not suggesting that we should go back to the savannah. You know, Savannah had its problems too, but we have to recognize that modern life is its default setting is not setting us up for success. We have access to light 24/7. We have access to food 24/7. We can be active 24/7, right? And as a result, our body can find itself in this. Heightened level of stress chronically, right? And that is, I think, the basis of aging and disease, right? Is just this chronic allostatic load to a point where you get to an overload situation. And that's when you become vulnerable to cancer or, you know, whatever transition phase of life you're in becomes exasperated, right? Or, you know, becomes more of a egregious, you know, in in some way because of the stress that you've allowed to accumulate inside your body. And that's really what I think that the the red line through the book is this call to action of just understanding stress's role. It's important, but if you don't map it with appropriate levels of recovery, it will come and find you, it will get you and it will pull you down with either illness, injury, or gosh, worst case disease. speaker-0: What are some of the recommendations that you make that for people to do to help prioritize recovery? ⁓ in in the book? speaker-1: I mean, I think one of the foundational, you know, I I think I I talk about it in the part three, the art and science of recovery, is is really getting your breath under control, understanding how to breathe properly. I think that's like one of the the more important, you know, when you when you can control your breath, you can control your state. speaker-0: Yeah. And and l and and let me just say, listeners, that there is a very detailed guide to breathing in your book, which I didn't even know that I I needed it. I always thought I can breathe. Like I can do that. It's actually incredibly helpful and very and very detailed. There are so many really good detailed instructions and and I really appreciated that as somebody who's You know, I'll read something and say, ⁓ okay, you know, that's great. I should do that. But then I'm like, I don't know how to do that and then ⁓ you don't give me an excuse. You know, it's like I know. There's like detailed instructions like, Well, it's like I gotta relearn how to breathe now. ⁓ because she's telling me how. speaker-1: And what's really funny is you end up, you know, reclaiming reclaiming calm through breath is is is I think the title of that chapter. But you then you start seeing other people. Like I I'm you know, I'm on the train and I'm like, ⁓ my God, I just wanna help that guy breathe. You know, like I you know, like and my you know, my my kids call me like the the breath work czar. Like I'm I'm just always like, Yeah, like close your mouth, close your mouth. Like we want to breathe through our nose, but Yeah. So so it just kind of takes you. I do a little CO two tolerance test, like which, you know, takes a couple of minutes to do. You know, it just gives you a nice baseline understanding of your your kind of lung function, your lung integrity. So yeah, I mean, I think starting with the breath, I think is is really is is probably your your first, I guess the the foundation, right, that that you can then kind of build everything else on top of, right? If, you know, just even am I Closing it, do you do I wake up with a really dry mouth? You know, that's an indicator that you're actually sleeping with your mouth open. Can you sleep with your mouth closed? You know, is is I think a a good question to answer. Can I walk around? Can I do a really a brisk walk with my mouth closed, just breathing exclusively through my nose? These are just little things that you can do to test that will help you understand your kind of the integrity of your respiratory system, you know? So yeah. So I think that to me is like kind of the place to start. And then and then as you kind of work your way through part three, you know, there's I I kind of build I build from there. speaker-0: Yeah, another another ⁓ area that you really spend some time on is sleep. And you talk a little bit about some sex differences in sleep. Can you tell ⁓ like what are what are some things that women need to know about sleep? speaker-1: Yeah, so so these these data are are really interesting. So women are are are are probably not gonna like to hear this, but they actually need a little less time in bed than men generally. speaker-0: Alright, cut that part, Daniel. Cut that speaker-1: I know. I know. ⁓ just just a little bit. Just 24 minutes, not a lot. what women need to understand is that ⁓ duration absolutely matters, but sleep weight consistency is very, very important for women, especially ⁓ you know, when we when we think about again, we we just have we have just some some different challenges as as a as a female. And and if you're naturally cycling, the the less strategic you are, I think about your sleep, not to the point that you need to be anxious about it, but you know, you just wanna try to build in some really good routines that you can stick to 80% of the time. Obviously we have kids, ⁓ you and I both have had kids, we understand what it's like. It you know, you're gonna be disrupted, right? And but that's transient. It it passes. And I I do talk about in the book how to offset some of the negative effects with the use of napping. Naps are just phenomenal and should be leveraged as a new parent. as often as possible. Like I cannot underscore that enough. But I think where women go wrong, Sarah, and I and I don't know if you see this in your practice as well, but after your children do start sleeping, women often don't get back into a good sleep routine. And I think those are the individuals that really s end up struggling, I think, later in life with various health issues, ⁓ certainly with, I think, really painful perimenopause or menopause transition. ⁓ so I think getting your sleep back on track as soon as possible is really, really critical. And I think getting your house into a good routine around sleep is really important. And a lot of that is influenced by how you interact with light. And in the book, I kind of have sleep and circadian are, you know, they're obviously so interrelated. They're different processes. Sleep does not have a circadian rhythm, but it's an output of the circadian clock. And so we have to understand them together. That's why the chapter is is together. ⁓ but we have to understand the influence on light. So getting a a really good light diet, because that's gonna impact when you feel sleepy. It's gonna impact the quality of your sleep. How much light are you getting during the day? How much light are you getting in the morning and as the sun is setting, natural light that is. ⁓ and then how are we managing light after the sun goes down? ⁓ those are really important for both men and women, certainly. ⁓ but but women I think can ⁓ be a little bit probable Are probably a little bit more sensitive ⁓ than than men because we do we're biologically we're different, right? ⁓ so that's definitely something we see. So a little less duration, but ⁓ sleep weight consistency. ⁓ there's less women can tolerate less variability than men. So I think that's really important. And variability is again just that when you go to bed and when you wake up, you want to try to keep, you know, if you can, 30 to 45 minutes of, you know, of variability on either end. So I think women really thrive when we've got that consistency. ⁓ and then I think the other piece is that I think is really important for women is making sure you're distributing, and this sounds like it's not related, but I think it's very related, distributing your mic macronutrients evenly over the course of the day so you're not hungry before bed. Getting enough calories during the day will help you sleep at night. Like it's so important for women. speaker-0: one of these interesting people where so I have a very consistent sleep schedule during the week and during the weekend and for whatever reason my brain my brain knows it. And so I wake up at five thirty in the morning on Monday through Friday and then I wake up at about seven, sometimes seven thirty, sometimes even eight on the weekends and my and and I have no problem falling asleep. I go to the at the same time. And I think it's a it's just a f ⁓ you know, a fluke. But it's a really I'm so h I'm so happy for it because yeah, I I know a lot of people who wake up. My husband is one of these people where he wakes up on the weekends at the same time he wakes up during the week. And if he doesn't, then it throws the whole system out of whack. And and but for me it's like for whatever reason I've got this like seven day clock where my brain's like, ⁓ okay, it's Friday night. So now speaker-1: You know, and honestly, like I I think I think that's where obviously I'm just presenting, you know, population level kind of insights. You need to figure out what works for you. Like that's the most important thing. You know, so I think for your listeners, you know, it's it's like you you figure out what what works for you. You know, this is what we see is on average works for for w women women who are kind of thriving. This is what this is kind of what they do. speaker-0: Yeah, which is why I I think that like the whoop band and other trackables are so valuable because everybody is. I mean, like you said, and I I know I'm an oddball. I know enough other people in in the sleep rhythms to know that I'm an oddball with this one. But all of us have things that, you know, our our bodies are just sort of unique in the way that they respond or don't respond to something. And that's really valuable information to know because not everybody shouldn't work out fasted. And, you know, like I I work out best fasted and and my my body feels the best and responds the best when I'm working out fasted and you know every everybody tells you don't do that and I'm like, well, you know, that works for ⁓ that might work for everybody else. speaker-1: The data support that that you're you have enough, generally speaking, if you know, you're gonna have enough glycogen in your muscles to support your morning workout. Like you're you know, like it's not speaker-0: Not running a marathon in the morning. Exactly. speaker-1: Right. If you're working out for less than an hour, you're completely fine. Like and you should just go on how you feel. So yeah, I I think those data I don't know where those data came from because they don't exist. I d we see no differences in facet training versus unfaceted training. speaker-0: Hear to heard it here first, folks, from Dr. Kristen Holmes, who coached the you know, the the Princeton Lacrosse team to twelve twelve titles or no pardon me. Yeah, the Princeton field hockey team to twelve titles and ⁓ and is the head of science at Whoop. So, you know, ⁓ like listen to that instead of the other stuff. One of the things I also really ⁓ and and speaking of sort of going away from one size fits all thinking ⁓ I also really loved your section on movement because again, it sort of met people where they were, regardless of who they were, right? So whether it's somebody who doesn't have a lot of time and feels like they don't have time to work out, or somebody who's actually trying to work to maximize muscle strength versus ma maximizing endurance and you had very specific ⁓ ideas about things that people can do to improve their fitness goals, whatever they are, however modest or ⁓ sort of you know mighty they might be. And Well one of the things that you talked about is for people who feel like they're too busy, because I think that all of us have that story. And in fact, the reason I have to work out in the morning is because if I don't work out in the morning, I have all day to talk myself into how I'm too busy to do it and how I've got other things do. And in the morning, like I wake out out of bed and I'm too tired to come up with excuses. And so I just do it. I was like because otherwise, you I'm I'm not creative enough to come up with any good sounding excuse for why I can't. ⁓ but you talked a lot about ⁓ exercise snacks. And I want you to tell listeners what an exercise snack is. And then do you have a favorite one? Like do you have something that you do when you don't have time to work out? Yeah, tell us about it. speaker-1: Yeah, exercise snacks ⁓ I think has really gained ⁓ it's kind of having its moment and it was so it's it's so cool. Ca obviously I've been writing this thing for like three years, but I I have it as one of my pillars of of of ⁓ intelligent training is exercise snacks. Because I think we we get this idea that if I don't do a consolidated one hour or thirty minute workout, then all is lost, right? Like speaker-0: If I'm not in gym clothes, if I'm not wearing gym clothes, like then it doesn't count. speaker-1: Totally. And and and that I I think it couldn't be further from the truth. And actually the data suggests that doing little mini kind of like micro workouts throughout the day is actually better for a lot of your metabolic markers. Like, you know, you can get really fit that way. And I have been experimenting with exercise snacks pretty hardcore over the course of the last three years. And and I I absolutely will go to the gym and go for a run and you know, I I I do that. But I also I I will do like today. I I'm gonna go for a run later on today. I have it scheduled, but throughout the day I have my little exercise snacks that I'm gonna be engaging in. And I just do four sets of kettlebell, four sets of ⁓ American kettlebell, ⁓ four sets of push-ups, four sets of kind of sit with a weight and hold, and four sets of lateral. So I just do these throughout the day and I just check them off as I go. And, you know, I've already done I I've done two. two sets across this, you know, since the morning. And I'll do, you know, the other two sets, you know, before I end up going on my run. But I've essentially done all of my lifting for today. speaker-0: love that. I love it. And I love the idea of just like keeping a little list. So that way, 'cause I mean at the end of I like a lot of people I know, and I'm one of these people, like I love to check off a a checklist. Like like like it feels like feels really s psychologically satisfying to me. And so I love the idea of having my exercise snack checklist because then I also feel like by seeing it all in one place, like, ⁓ this is a pretty substantial workout I had today. speaker-1: And in my office, I and I'm really lucky I kind of have my own office, but even when I was in a little cubicle, I had like a kettlebell next to my desk and I just like rattled. I didn't even care. And I do goblet squats, like I I was like, whatever, you know, like you just have to not be self conscious and just be like, you know what? Like I it it just just get it in. Just get it in. And yeah, and and you know, today it's ⁓ my little my kettlebell is right there. It's you know, just it's forty five kilograms or whatever. Like it's you know, and I and I just I just do it, you know. speaker-0: Yeah, what I like about that also, because I think that a lot of times women, I mean me, so for me, one of the things that keeps me from working out in the middle of the day, like if I have to go teach or give a talk or record a podcast, is that I don't want my makeup and hair to look all terrible. But like yeah, you know what I mean? If I do three sets of, you know, kettlebell squats here, I'm gonna get all sweaty. And so I can actually do that just and even if I'm wearing heels or something and like kick off my heels, do my goblet squats, and then put my heels back on and get on with my day. Which I really I really appreciate about that. Because for me sometimes the bigger mental hurdle, like with exercising, is like the shower and then having to spray my hair again and then the makeup and you know, which is like totally unfair with men. Because like men can just, you know, have a midday workout and and like my husband, he shaves his head, you know, so he like he could even jump in the pool and like go back and and have a call, you know. Or speaker-1: minutes later and I'd be like, I know so annoying. I know. I know. It's so annoying. So annoying. But and that's where like, you know, just leggings and, you know, I mean, I kind of dress in a way that like allows me to kind of like work out at any time, you know, and and I know that's not for everyone. But yeah, I mean I I think we just have to lower the barrier to entry for ourselves and and just and think about movement as just a way of being in the world. You know, it's just it's not this isolated time at at the gym, right? And speaker-0: Okay. speaker-1: You know, and just building in movement across the day, I think is really just again one of the ways to counteract the traps of modern society where everything is pretty damn comfortable. We c have cars that can take us, you know, two minutes down the road where we used to have to like walk to get there. You know, like we we just ⁓ so we have to counterbalance, you know, a lot of the comforts that that we're afforded in in this modern I appreciate. speaker-0: that so much because there are so many tr there's so many comfort traps. I mean, there's just traps everywhere and and just being really cognizant of them. And for me, one of the things that ⁓ I have found that is like absolutely huge in terms of making sure that I'm moving around a lot and has then the side benefit of producing delicious meals is cooking. And so preparing food is like, I mean, ⁓ 'cause I notice on days where I've like got a dinner that my this my st I have like five hundred fewer steps or like a thousand yeah I mean like a thousand fewer steps, sometimes two thousand fewer steps, depending on how, you know, many ingredients I forgot in the pantry and then have to walk back and you know, and if I like forget a bunch of stuff, then I'm like all over the place and that but I I mean it's like a big difference. And I think that the things that we can like there's some things where we can double dip, right? Where we can produce healthy food. And at the same time that we're producing healthy food, we're actually moving our body. And and you'd be surprised. ⁓ and and I encourage any of you who are listening, ⁓ just like look sometime at your step count before and after you're done cooking a meal. And it really you can get a lot of movement ⁓ doing that. speaker-1: Love that you that. There's actually a really great research. I can't I can't remember if I included my book, but Allie Ali Crum, she was at Yale, she's at Stanford now, but does a lot of this belief effects kind of research. And there was a study they did with chambermaids at a hotel. And I think they they put them into two groups. ⁓ one group, the experimental group was was told that their exercise that that basically everything that they were doing as a chambermaid was incredible exercise. They were getting fitter, they were getting stronger. And you know, they did the pre and after before, and I guess the crowd control group just was business as usual. And they looked at their ⁓ their, you know, all sorts of ⁓ various markers of fitness, you know, cardiovascular and and muscle skeletal, and and the women who believed that what they were doing was actually making them fitter actually got fitter. ⁓ So controlling, they're all doing the same exact thing, right? Same exact job, same. So I I think when we are thinking about it in those terms, I think we're it motivates us a little bit more, but like, ⁓ this isn't just, you know, cooking, but ⁓ you know what, all I'm also getting more steps in. I'm actually getting fitter. You know, making the bed and maybe vacuuming and, you know, swooping the floor. And, you know, like this is actually like making me fitter. I I think just that belief is a big piece that you're you're actually contributing, you know, to your overall health is is an important mindset. speaker-0: I love that yeah, I love that study. Yeah, I'm I'm familiar. speaker-1: Yeah, I hope I didn't butcher it too badly. I was calling speaker-0: Yeah, just no, you you had you actually ⁓ you you said it beautifully. Like the one group was not told yeah, not really told anything about what their job was and the other group was told that this is exercise and And indeed, they had much better health markers at the end of the study. It's really very incredible. And as I noted at the at the outset, ⁓ one of the things I really loved about the book was that in addition to talking about some of the usual suspects like sleep and movement and breathing in terms of ⁓ improving ⁓ your your ability to be aligned, you talk about mental health and you ⁓ introduced this what you call your heel framework, which is a way to help unresolve mental health issues. And without totally giving everything away, because I'm I I do want people to check out the book, can you just give us an idea of like what does this look like? Is it possible to move past even trauma and live in a way that's aligned? speaker-1: you know, I I think so. You know, I you know, and it I I I talk about this in my book just very briefly, but, you know, I you know, in addition to my mom, I I was also abused for the first ten years of my life. So, you know, I I I had a lot of ⁓ you know, I you know, I had to personally work through a lot of this, you know, and and and definitely have encountered a lot of other folks who have had similar issues, you know, c all coming coming in different forms, of course, but but I I think a big part of it is is when we experience trauma, it it is It's an injury to the nervous system. And and I think that's the case that I that I I make in in the outset of that chapter is that we have to address the autonomic nervous system. You know, we have to we have to heal we have to heal that actively. And and in the third part of the book, in the in the twelfth chapter, I I go through these rebalancing rituals, which, you know, in parallel to therapy, well, ⁓ you know, engaging in these in these rebalancing rituals can kind of help. heal the nervous system, kind of bring you because when you have unresolved trauma, you have you're you're operating at a level of of kind of vigilance and you're in kind of this threat state where you're activating the sympathetic branch of the nervous system more than you need to be, right? And basically this just creates this chronic low level of stress that leads to inflammation and and kind of has Just all of these second and third order effects that make it hard to move forward in your life, right? Like they they become blockers, right? Without even you being kind of consciously aware. So I think what I try to do with the the the H, which is, you know, ⁓ addresses the the autonomic nervous system, healing the heart, which the autonomic nervous system is a is is a function of the heart. Healing the heart first is is that it puts you kind of in control, right? Like there are you know, through breath work and journaling and engaging in nature and, you know, rethinking your social connections to make sure that you're engaging people who nurture and support your values and kind of take you through a laundry list of things of of how to bring your nervous system back into balance. Right. So that's that's really the H and E is is the energy, right? The mitochondria, right? Like we when we are when we have unresolved trauma, you know, our cells just don't function as well. Right. So so thinking about okay, what can I do in my life to just improve certainly the communication of of the cells, you know, and a lot of that is the circadian and sleep piece. So I I kind of bring that into into that that part of that chapter. But, you know, just really thinking about our environment too. Like, you know, what are the toxins that I'm engaging with potentially? Right. Like, you know, what are kind of the foods that I'm putting in my body? And so really thinking about it from a a mitochondrial perspective. You know, in terms of healing our our energy. And then the A is for autonomy. You know, how do we, how do we gain agency in in our our life? And what does that actually look like? And and I think we hear this idea, ⁓ agency, agency. Like, do I have agency? I'm quite literal in and how to how to think about that in terms of really creating boundaries. And I think agency starts with with boundaries. Like you have to think about all right, what do I actually need in order to live my life in a way that that makes me proud of of who I am and and and oftentimes that means ⁓ letting go of of people in your life. So I I kind of take the the listener through or the ⁓ the reader through what that could look like. And then finally the L is love and it's really about self-love, you know, and and what that actually means to be compassionate and kind toward the self and take the the reader through, you know, lots of different rebalancing kind of rituals around that as well. But I think loving kindness meditation is one of the best things that you can do. You know, and it again, it sounds kind of cheesy, but there's a lot of data to support that ⁓ in terms of helping us think ⁓ more compassionately about ourselves. Cause I think in general, ⁓ I think especially people who have been through trauma take a lot of responsibility. And I think just the the recognition that a lot of that wasn't actually your fault. And a lot of it you things that you couldn't control. And how do you develop a new relationship with yourself in in a way that is separate from that trauma. And and that's I guess what I lead folks through. speaker-0: I appreciate it so much because most I mean the the research now s suggests that it's something like fifty percent of women have experienced some sort of sexual trauma or emotional trauma or physical trauma. And ⁓ so many women have suffered. I mean, and so many people. I mean, like just opening it broadly, I mean, in in life is hard. And like I I I've seen so many books that address the ways that we can manage our sleep and manage This and I thought not only was it ⁓ r really brave of you, like you you're you tell so much of your story in your book and and you've been so generous with sharing your experiences here with us today. I appreciate that. And I know that listeners and readers are going to really appreciate that. But I just in some ways it was like a a book that only women could write because I feel I feel I feel like it really hit, you know, that this is such an issue for so many women in particular. And so I just really appreciate that you offer. a framework and a path forward, and that it's all grounded in the idea of strength and resilience and alignment. Because I think that it's easy ⁓ when you've experienced victimization of any kind to to feel small and powerless. And so to have that like piece baked into this larger picture of of alignment and and being aligned, I I just really appreciated. And I know that readers are going to really appreciate it too. speaker-1: So well said. Thank you. speaker-0: Yeah. And if I want to know if readers reading aligned change only one thing after finishing the book, like what do you think it should be? Like what is the the biggest takeaway that you hope people have from your new book? speaker-1: Well, it can I give ⁓ all right, well, one behavior, because I see it bubble up in every bit of research that I do, is the sleep weight consistency. And it actually it it just a paper literally was just published. A cup it it's it's in preprint. I th I don't even know if it's published yet. I don't I I think it's might be just in preprint, but basically ⁓ Daniel Windred, who's really been leading a lot of the sleep regularity research. ⁓ he and his colleagues found that sleep wake regularity is a greater predictor of disease than sleep duration. Doesn't, again, doesn't mean that sleep duration doesn't matter, but sleep wake regularity is like the mother of all behaviors when we think about just when we really zoom out and think about okay, how can I get a handle on my overall health? Sleep wake real regularity is the path. And I and I what I love about it is that there's equal amount of data. showing that sleepwake regular regularity is associated with mental health as well. So it's not, it's not just, you know, paying down, you know, the risk of of illness and disease. Yes, it does that, but also it will help you stabilize your sleep, your, your mental health. And we actually published a paper in 2020 that showed sleep wake regularity was a resilience buffer in the sense that, you know, for folks going into the COVID pandemic, who you know we were all subjected to quarantine so we had this incredible kind of experiment where we had all this data right and we sent out a mental health questionnaire and the individuals who were ⁓ less vulnerable to mental health issues had better sleep weight consistency going into the pandemic so prior sleepweight behavior predicts mental health during covet 19 is the name of the paper. So I think if someone is is on a journey, you know, ⁓ sleepweight consistency is is one of the, you know, it's it's democratically available for the most part. It's free, you know, in order to back into to stable sleepwake time, dim the lights, you know, in the lead up to your intended bedtime, give a couple hour buffer between your last calorie and when you intend to sleep, get lots of plenty of daylight as much as you can. And even if you're in a corporate environment, just try to You know, on your lunch break, whenever you can, get some daylight in the morning when you wake up, get natural light, try to stabilize when you wake up. That's the thing you can control generally. Seven o'clock or six thirty or whatever it is. Like set your alarm, get up, view, view natural artificial light, as much light as you can. That will set your circadian rhythm. That will give you a chance of falling asleep 16 hours later. Just do that a few times. And now all of a sudden you'll your body will start to regulate itself and and that the the downstream effect is every clock in your body is like, thank God. Right? Like it's just it's what it it just is it's dying for you just to like be regular. speaker-0: Yeah, that's so funny. I love it. I love it. So ⁓ is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you would like to talk about or tell listeners before we close our conversation? speaker-1: I think the the other, I guess, you know, part for the book is that there's a there's a workbook. So it was so funny because my publishers were like, Why don't you publish this afterwards? And I was like, you know what? No, I wanna and you said the book there's a lot. I I I just wanted it all to be in one place. I'm like, I can maybe write another book. I don't I don't know how you're you're on your third speaker-0: book no no I've I've just written two so far. I'm just taking a little breather before yes. Like being a little breather. I've It's a journey. speaker-1: Like I don't even know I I I can't there's no I I don't even know how I could ever write it. I it was just hard. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. speaker-0: So hard. Well, it's like there's so much there. I would imagine writing that book would be ⁓ very challenging because I mean it really is. There's so much there. And I don't mean that in a textbook way, you know what I mean, where it's like boom, like yeah, this No, but there's so much great information and there's and there's stories and very readable. And then yes, as you noted, the the workbook. I mean, it's like it's so actionable. So tell us about the workbook. speaker-1: Yeah, so it's you know, essentially it it goes chapter by chapter and and basically it kind of allows you to workshop the contents of each chapter. So if maybe, you know, you're thinking about Trust and fear, which is, you know, I kind of give a framework around how to think about these rigid versus fluid emotions and ⁓ and how they manifest in our life. You know, maybe that's an area that you want to dig into. You can go directly to that part of the workbook and and workshop that. Maybe if you're really struggling with sleep and circadian alignment, you can go to that chapter and and you know, and and or sorry, that part of the workbook and and work through and I give you prompts, ways to think about it, and then very tactical kind of ways to structure, you know, your day so you can improve maybe if it's sleepweight consistency, or maybe you need to spend more time in bed. How do you kind of create boundaries around that? So I just give you a way to think about that. So you know, you don't have to do the whole workbook at once. You can, you know, kind of cherry pick based on what you want to focus on. And I think what's good about it is like, you know, some periods of some time, maybe one. part of your life, you need to think more about the the training. And then once you get that down, you're like, you know what? I I need to think more about like these rebalancing rituals. Like I find like I'm I'm too, I'm going, going, going, but I really want to try to like incorporate, you know, journaling or, you know, a type of yoga or meditation that I know is really healing for my nervous system. Like and accelerates the nerve healing of the nervous system. So people can bounce around, I think, but I I do, I do love the workbook that and that it's really tactical, you know? speaker-0: It is. No, as I said, I mean it was it's so research backed. And then you also have these like very specific protocols, including this workbook. So it's like we really aren't left with any excuses for like like it it's all there. It's like literally all there. And so ⁓ it's it's very easy to to get started. And and I love your recommendation. ⁓ because I do think sometimes we get overwhelmed too, where it's like, ⁓ my gosh, you know, like I need to do all these things. It's like, no, just like pick one that you're gonna start working on this week. And and work on that and see how it goes. And then when things are feeling really comfortable and, you know, part of your rhythm, then go ahead and add in something else because the brain does not like unfamiliar territory. And if you try to make too many changes at once, your brain will freak out and be like, Wait a minute, this is this doesn't even feel like my life. Like, what is this? It's terrible. But if you do like one little thing and you like get used to it and then you like add in another thing, you can really ⁓ make big changes over time with these little small steps. So I think speaker-1: Like to your point, like I I feel like it it once you make some of these smaller changes and you you kind of blend them into your life over time, like they stop feeling like a sacrifice because you start to feel really good, you know. And I I think that that's that's I think a key point is that it it maybe in the very short term feels like a little bit of a sacrifice, but once you start to see, you know, the impact of those behaviors on just how you're functioning, you know, during the day and how you're sleeping at night. You know, which is ultimately kind of like what we're after, right? Is being really alert and energized and able to live our values during the day and and then be able to wind down and fall asleep when we need to fall asleep. And it sounds so basic and simple, but that's kind of what we're trying I think this is, you know, what we're backing into, you know, is is just this idea of of being able to live the fullest, most beautiful life while we're awake and and and then having that set us up for a beautiful restorative sleep at night, you know, is is kind of it. speaker-0: I love it. No, that's that's the perfect, the perfect end to a really wonderful conversation. Dr. Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for your time and all of the insights that you offered all of us during this time. Where can people find aligned and where should they go to learn more about you and the work that you're doing over at Whoop? speaker-1: Thank you. ⁓ well wherever you buy books, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, on the Penguin Random House sites, so speaker-0: We'll have we'll have links. We'll have links on ⁓ and along with the papers that you discussed, we'll add links to those on the show notes as well. speaker-1: Definitely. Yes. And then try to post some things on Instagram. I'm not like super regular unfortunately, but I I do whenever n when any new bit of research comes out or a podcast or whatever I I post about that. And then I I do a lot of writing and and I post articles on LinkedIn. So I don't have a sub stack or anything, but I you know, I I just wrote actually a a piece on the the the degeneration of self ⁓ from a a women's perspective and I have the male one coming out in a couple of days. But so yeah, I I definitely write a lot. I'll write articles and, you know, about AI and technology and, you know, psychology and physiology. So yeah. speaker-0: And what is your handle on ⁓ where do you find where do they find you on LinkedIn and Instagram? speaker-1: Yeah, so the Dr. Kristen Holmes on Instagram and then the same on LinkedIn. And so it's pretty easy. There is a Kristen Holmes who's a CNN correspondent. That's not me. She'd also has dark hair. But but yeah, if you put doctor in front of it, then that should get you to me. speaker-0: Yeah. And I'll I'll add, ⁓ we'll have all these links on the show notes for listeners. And thank you so much for your time. ⁓ everyone, check out the book Aligned if you haven't already. And thank you for tuning in.