Newsletter #20: My Oura ring data says I should move to the jungle 😄🌴
Welcome back! In this week’s newsletter, I’m sharing a Good Thought 🧠
My partner and I are just back from 2 weeks deep in the jungle in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula and Nicoya Peninsula (a Blue Zone!) for a post-book launch nature vacation. One of the most astounding things about this trip for me was observing that nearly ALL of my wearable data significantly improved almost instantly compared to my data back at home in the US.
In this newsletter, I’m sharing:
My Oura ring data from before the trip and during the trip
What each metric means and how I use these metrics to help guide my health decisions
Insights from this trip about how to tweak lifestyle at home to continue the physiology-boosting benefits of vacation!
📸 A few snaps from recent trip to a Blue Zone in Costa Rica! If you’re not familiar, “Blue Zones are geographic areas with lower rates of chronic diseases and a longer life expectancy,” as well as significantly higher concentration of people who live over 100 years old. (Heathline)
🧠 The physiologic impact of being unplugged in nature
I was shocked to see such a rapid improvement in my data on vacation because I think I’m doing pretty well in my lifestyle habits in the US.
For instance, at home, I do a lot of my professional work outdoors, I hike almost daily, I often use a standing desk with an under-desk treadmill, I lift weights and do high intensity training, my partner and I meditate every day together, I cold plunge, and I eat a whole foods diet! But even with all that, my Oura data suggested that there is still quite a bit of room for improvement, as evidence by a quick boost in my biomarkers almost immediately when I landed in Costa Rica.
Interestingly, I didn’t actually feel significantly better during the trip. Fortunately, I usually feel great, healthy, and upbeat almost every day at home! This points to one of the reasons I really love wearables: they can show us leading, early indicators of changes in our biology before we might perceive them consciously or subjectively, which means we can intervene earlier.
My recent improvements in data while traveling show me that my baseline is not as good as it could be, even though I generally feel really good. If I can improve this biomarkers now, before symptoms start, I’m confident it will have a compounding effect over decades. Without seeing the data, I would never have known.
So with that, here’s a look at how my data changed in the first two weeks of July while unplugged in the jungle compared to the prior 4 months, during which I was launching my book, Good Energy (which, by the way, is ON SALE today for $20.99 during Prime Day!). Also, please note, I have no affiliation with Oura.
💓 Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
📈 How my data changed: In this image, you can see that my HRV jumped up to an average of 80 milliseconds in July, compared to an average of 39-53 milliseconds during March-June.
💡 What it means: Heart rate variability (HRV) is a metric that indicates the variability in the time between each heartbeat. HRV is a biomarker that can help us understand trends in our stress levels and cardiovascular health. Counterintuitively, more variability in the time between each heartbeat is indicative of better health status and outcomes, so higher HRV is better than lower HRV.
Under times of more stress and strain on the body, the cardiovascular system will act like a metronome with regularity in the time between each heartbeat. In a more relaxed, rested, and recovery state, the whole system is more "elastic," and the time between each heartbeat will vary slightly. For instance, if your heart rate is 60 beats per minutes, it’s NOT better for each beat to be exactly one second long. One beat might be 859 milliseconds, the next 763 milliseconds, the next 793 milliseconds, and so forth, showing variability in beat-to-beat rate.
A high HRV reflects the ability of the nervous system to adapt effectively, and low HRV can indicate strain, fatigue, overtraining, or chronic disease. Low HRV has been associated with physical inactivity, immune dysfunction, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, decreased social engagement, decreased psychological resilience in the face of stressors, decreased cancer survival, and infertility, among many other conditions related to Bad Energy as discussed in Chapter 2 of Good Energy.
What’s more, a drop in HRV can predict the onset of COVID-19 before PCR testing is positive!
HRV is very individual and lacks a universal optimal range. You might naturally be a lot lower or higher than the people around you. What matters most is determining what lifestyle factors seem to bump or crash your personal HRV levels compared to your baseline, so you can make lifestyle adjustments to raise HRV.
Whoop, an innovative wearable that tracks HRV, fitness, and sleep, has discovered that several factors are associated with increasing HRV over time, including:
Giving the body time to recover after intense athletic training.
Staying hydrated.
Avoiding alcohol: just one night of drinking can decrease HRV for up to five days.
Getting consistent and adequate quality sleep.
Maintaining a consistent eating schedule.
Eating a healthy diet.
Avoiding eating within three to four hours of bedtime.
Getting cold exposure: exposing the body to cold temperatures for brief periods of time (like cold showers and ice baths) stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system.
Writing in a gratitude journal. Focusing on abundance and thankfulness is a calming signal to the body.
And in my case, going on vacation to the jungle seemed to help! 😀🌿
❤️ Resting Heart Rate (RHR)
📉 How my data changed: In this image, you can see that my Resting Heart Rate lowered to an average of 47 beats per minute (bpm) in July, compared to an average of 50-54 beats per minute during March-June.
💡 What it means: Resting heart rate is the number of times the heart beats per minute when a person is at rest. It is considered an essential metric to evaluate overall health and fitness. A lower resting heart rate indicates that the heart is efficiently pumping blood and is less stressed. Research has shown that having a lower resting heart rate can improve overall lifespan and metabolic health. A higher resting heart rate is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and all-cause mortality.
Studies also suggest that resting heart rate can be lowered by consistent exercise. Someone with a resting heart rate of more than 80 bpm (considered in the middle of the “normal” range of 60 to 100 bpm by Harvard, Mayo Clinic, and the American Heart Association) has a 2.91 times higher risk of having type 2 diabetes than someone with a heart rate of less than 60 bpm!
In a meta-analysis of over one million people, all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality increased linearly and significantly for any resting heart rate above 45 bpm. Tracking RHR and aiming to get it lower through healthy stress levels, exercise, and lifestyle is part of the metrics I track regularly.
👣 Steps
📈 How my data changed: In this image, you can see that my step count bumped up to an average of 18,583 per day in July, compared to an average of 9,333-11,179 during March-June.
💡 What it means: Steps are powerful medicine, and we want MORE of them than what the average American is getting, which is between 3,000-4,000 steps per day. 🤦♀️
Simply walking about 10,000 steps per day (as compared with lower amounts) is associated with the following:
50 percent lower dementia risk
50 to 70 percent lower risk of premature death
44 percent lower risk of getting type 2 diabetes
31 percent (or more) lower risk of obesity
Significant reductions in cancer occurrence, major depression, gastric reflux, and sleep apnea
In a study of 2,110 adults followed for almost eleven years, published in the premier medical journal JAMA, adults who got at least 7,000 steps per day had a 50 to 70 percent lower risk of dying during the follow-up period than those getting fewer than 7,000 steps per day. Other studies have shown similar findings: data from 6,355 men and women followed for an average of ten years showed that those who walked 8,000 to 12,000 steps per day had a 50 to 65 percent lower risk of death than those who took fewer than 4,000 steps per day.
Zero medications or surgeries can do for chronic disease prevention what walking about 10,000 steps a day can do.
😴 Sleep
📈 How my data changed: In this image, you can see that total time asleep averaged 8 hours and 8 minutes for July, compared to an average of 7h 27min-7h 55min in March-June.
💡 What it means: Research has shown that people significantly overestimate the amount they sleep when their self-reports are compared to their wearable sleep data.
Research shows that people who are actually sleeping five hours per night overestimate their sleep by eighty minutes on average. 🤯
Imagine that: you think you are getting close to seven hours of sleep per night (optimal), when you are actually sleeping an amount that puts you at a high risk for a range of metabolic issues.
We need to get seven to eight hours a night of good-quality sleep for our bodies to be protected from metabolic dysfunction. Sleep deprivation almost immediately impacts our ability to make energy, with studies showing that sleep deprivation decreases ATP production in several brain regions in mice. No one wants a brain with less energy to run itself.
One study found healthy, normal-weight individuals who slept fewer than 6.5 hours per night had to produce 50 percent more insulin than normal sleepers to achieve similar glucose results—placing the short sleepers at significant risk of developing insulin resistance in the long term. Remember, prediabetes and type 2 diabetes are insulin resistance—a root of nearly every other chronic symptom and disease. Just a couple of nights of low sleep can severely impact insulin sensitivity.
Cortisol (a key stress hormone) tells our body that something “stressful” is happening. It also partially controls the regulation of glucose and insulin. Unfortunately, in cases like chronic sleep deprivation or chronic psychological stress, chronic cortisol stimulation causes damage. Cortisol decreases insulin sensitivity, meaning cells are less able to take up and use glucose for energy, and are more prone to store it as fat.
🕊️ Restorative Time
📈 How my data changed: In this image, you can see that my restorative time increased to 3 hours 13 minutes per day in July compared to an average of 45 minutes-1 hour 35 minutes between March and June.
💡 What it means: To my knowledge, this is a non-standard, non-evidence based proprietary metric defined strictly by Oura, so I’m taking this one with a grain of salt. According to Oura’s website, it combines temperature readings and physical rest. It was interesting to see it improve significantly, though!
Vacation-inspired learnings and action items ✍️
In trying to assess WHY my data might have been different, I’ve been reflecting on what was different on my trip compared to my normal, pretty healthy home life. Here are a few reflections:
🙅📱 I was truly unplugged and away from digital devices
🍃 I did not check email, did not read the news, did not engage with social media, and opened my computer on only 1 day. Not only did this get rid of a daily source of blue light blasting my retinas, but it also let my brain think about totally different things than I normally do. I was so grateful for my amazing assistant Nina for keeping the wheels turning while I was out-of-office!
⛺️ I spent virtually NO time indoors
The concept of “indoors” is very different where I was in Costa Rica. For the first week, we were never actually fully indoors. On our jungle trek, we stayed in bunk beds on an exposed sleeping porch, just covered by a roof. And when we were staying in Osa, our house had no external walls (it was like an indoor/outdoor tree house!). Because of this, from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning to the moment I went to sleep, my skin and retina were exposed to photons and the natural rhythms of the sun and moon. I can’t imagine how much this positively impacted my circadian rhythms and melatonin secretion! (See Chapter 7: Respecting Your Biological Clock: Light, Sleep, and Meal Timing of my book for much more on this topic!).
🌊 I was in the ocean or natural bodies of water every day
There is much evidence that being near water and the ocean is good for our health in a number of ways, from the sounds to the grounding impact of highly conductive salt water on our electrochemistry.
🐞 I was surrounded by extremely diverse life forms
The jungle in the Osa peninsula is teeming with life. In fact, there are around 250,000 species in this area, including 323 species of endemic plants and animals that are not found anywhere else on the planet. This is compared to just about 4,000 different species that live in the Los Angeles area. I have a hunch that being surrounded by the energy of so much life positively impacted my biology.
While I was in Costa Rica I read a profoundly fascinating book about DNA called “The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge” (can’t recommend it highly enough! Quick and riveting) and one of the premises is that our bodies respond on some level to the DNA that surrounds us in other life-forms. Remember, DNA is the common, miraculous, universal, simple language of 4 molecule “letters” which is what dictates the uniqueness and form of ALL life, from bacteria, to fungi, to plants, to animals, and of course humans. Every person has about 10 BILLION MILES of DNA in their body if it were all stretched out, enough to go back and forth from Earth to the sun 61 times. Also, DNA emits photons and is a crystalline structure. It’s wild stuff that we probably aren’t thinking deeply enough about and have barely scratched the surface of understanding its true nature.
Given that in urban environments, we have replaced or killed a lot of biodiversity and life forms (like trees, biodiverse landscapes, healthy soil, animals, insects, etc) with non-life or un-diverse life forms (concrete, bricks, houses, walls, monoculture farming, grass lawns, lifeless dirt due to industrial agriculture, etc) or we separate ourselves from life in the 4 walls of our homes (the average American spends 93% of their time in a virtually lifeless car or home 🤦♀️ ), I’m curious how this abundance of life and biodiversity around me impacted my health in the jungle. Regardless, it is almost guaranteed that the mass extinction of biodiversity taking place on Earth right now due to human activity is not good for human health, since we’re inherently interdependent with all other life-forms on Earth.
📚️ I was reading a ton and my mind had time to creatively wander
While I always have a book or two going at home, my reading intensity was much higher on this trip, reading ~4 total books while away that each expanding my mind and thoughts. I read The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby, PhD, Natural Pregnancy: Practical Medical Advice and Holistic Wisdom for a Healthy Pregnancy and Childbirth by Lauren Feder, MD, The Body Electric: Electromagnetism And The Foundation of Life by Robert Becker, MD, almost finished Power Versus Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David Hawkins, PhD, and read some work by Jospeh Mercola, MD. These books let my brain go in new creative directions compared to my day-to-day professional life that felt so good.
🔌 I was somewhat “off grid” and away from electrical poles and the power grid
In the Osa Peninsula, the structures we stayed in were solar powered and there are no electrical poles. Very different than the US.
So with that, here’s how I’m going to tweak my home life, inspired by my time in Costa Rica:
More life: Bring more LIFE into my office: surround myself with more diverse plants during the workday when I’m indoors. Find ways to bring more biodiversity into our garden and yard (there is an amazing movement towards replacing grassy lawns with biodiverse wildlife friendly ecosystems! How can each of our yards or balconies be more like little nature preserves rather than homogeneous lawns??).
Less tech: Keep using my K-safe to LOCK my electronic devices away (phones, tablets, etc) for chunks of time each day. I LOVE this K-safe (it is truly impenetrable), but I plan to use it even more each day going forward! Continue working to make tech strictly a TOOL for learning and sharing light, and NOT a diversion from this beautiful, brief life we get to live. Reminding myself that scrolling and mindless use of tech is the matrix and the enemy.
More sunshine: Spend even more time doing work, social activities, and workouts outdoors. How can I spend 50%+ of my daytime outdoors?
More reading: Strive to finish at least one mind-expanding book per week.
More walking: I want to bump up my monthly average from about 10,000 steps per day to closer to 15,000. I’m going to do this by moving my under-desk treadmill outside each morning so I can work and walk outdoors… we’ll see if this is possible! 😄
Learn more about the impact of electricity on biology: I am going to learn more about electromagnetic radiation and how this impacts health (my next book I’m reading is: The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life)
More water: Jump into the ocean at least once per week (I live close to the ocean so this is do-able!).
Less work, more impact: Reflecting on how to invest in my recovery time even more so that what I create in my professional life is as impactful as possible, without damaging my physiology.
A glimpse of the incredible biodiversity in Costa Rica!
What are your reflections? Reply with a note to tell me how you’re going to have a healthy week - I read ALL of your emails.
With good energy 💓
Dr. Casey
👀 In Case You Missed It
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🎗️ Help protect a landmark research study for schizophrenia
Maryland Health Department abruptly shuts down an IRB-approved, privately-funded study on dietary intervention for schizophrenia/mental illness backed by top researchers like Dr. Chris Palmer from Harvard. Read the full story here on the Baltimore Sun.
Why would we be shutting down studies for low-risk interventions for devastating conditions with minimal-to-no adequate pharmacologic treatments?
My inspiring friends Jan Ellison Baszucki and Dave Baszucki (co-founders of Metabolic Mind) co-wrote an OpEd explaining the situation and asking for a reversal of this perplexing decision. Read it here.
Sign Dr. Chris Palmer's petition if you'd like to take action to see the research reinstated: https://chng.it/xz78wPNzgj
👩❤️👨 A biohacker’s love story on Fortune Well
My INSPIRING friend Kayla Barnes and her husband Warren Lentz share their beautiful biohacking love story in Fortune, including having a Levels glucose monitor on their arms during their wedding day! 💕
Read the full article here.
I admire that Kayla and Warren show how it’s possible for your romantic relationship to be a key source of health in your life! This is definitely true for me and my partner - our relationship makes it much easier for me to be physically and mentally healthier!
🎙️ New podcasts!
Check out these recently released podcasts where I talked about metabolic health and Good Energy:
The Fit and Fabulous Podcast (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube)
Rooted in Wellness with Mona Sharma (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube)
The Next Big Idea - Part 1 (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube)
The Next Big Idea - Part 2 (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube)
Commune with Jeff Krasno (Apple Podcasts, Spotify)
The Liz Moody Podcast (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube)
📚️ Good Energy has been on the New York Times Bestseller List for 8 weeks!
Thank you so much to everyone who has purchased the book. I cannot express how much I appreciate the support Good Energy has received! You can get a copy of Good Energy here (it’s on sale for $20.99!!!). If you’ve read it, please consider writing an Amazon review - each review is incredibly helpful!
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