Ben Greenfield, one of the top biohackers in the U.S. and founder of BenGreenfieldFitness.com, has intriguing insights into health and fitness. 

The Benefits of Heart Rate Variability Testing

Heart rate variability (HRV) testing is another biohack Greenfield takes full advantage of.  Greenfield prefers an app called NatureBeat, available on both Android and iOS.

“The reason I use that … for self-quantification … is that unlike the ring, it allows me to delve into both sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system strength (your low frequency or your high frequency power). That allows you to see which element of your nervous system may be affecting your heart rate variability.”

The NatureBeat app also provides special benefits for elite athletes. Greenfield explains:

“There are certain periods of time during the year, especially, leading up to important competitions, where I purposefully sustain a low heart rate variability for a number of days, typically anywhere from three days up to a week. After a week, you really start to see an increase in propensity for injury or illness. That’s called super compensation. Rather than over training, all you’re doing is just a little bit of under recovery, meaning you’re purposefully digging yourself into a bit of a hole …

Tudor Bompa … wrote some of the better books … on periodization, [which] is based on the concept that you don’t maintain peak fitness all year long …

If you’re specifically trying to perform [at the cutting] edge, where you’re digging yourself into just a bit of an under-recovery hole, then by allowing yourself a taper after … [you allow your] body to bounce back from that slight amount of over-training. You super compensate. You wind up even more fit than you would have been in the first place.”

Biohacks to Improve Your Deep Sleep

The amount of deep sleep, REM sleep, light sleep and the times you’re awake and how long you’re actually sleeping at night useful information provided by different trackers. When I initially started tracking my sleep, I was shocked to realize just how little deep sleep I was getting, which is when your brain detoxes and cleans itself out — a truly vital process you don’t want to miss out on as it helps prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s. There were times when I was getting no deep sleep at all.

So, how can you improve and increase your deep sleep? As noted by Greenfield, one of the requirements for repair and recovery to occur, especially of your nervous system, is a lower core temperature. Common ways by which people sabotage their deep sleep is by doing things that prevent the lowering of their core body temperature, such as:

• Eating a high number of calories late at night

• Drinking alcohol before bed

• Sleeping with too many blankets

• Keeping your bedroom too warm

• Exercising with high intensity too close to bedtime (within three hours of bedtime)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOeqITPvI8g