WHOOP Podcast - Holiday Hacks: Kristen Holmes and Emily Capodilupo share their best tips to help you travel better, eat and exercise smarter, and reduce stress during what can be a very strenuous time of year.

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

Hacks for holiday stress, travel, nutrition, exercise and more: VP of performance Kristen Holmes and Director of Analytics Emily Capodilupo discuss optimizing a hotel room (3:26), dehydration from recycled air on planes (5:35), why it's harder to sleep away from home (6:10), vitamins and supplements to help you on the road (11:45), combating mindless eating (15:03), why day drinking is better than at night (16:21), extra calories as a chance to build muscle (16:48), finding ways to be active (18:07), journaling what you're grateful for (19:28), 15-second recovery boosts (21:31), how to "fake" high HRV (23:31), and why it's OK not to always be in the green (27:35).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

We discovered that there were secrets that your body was trying to tell you that could really help you optimize performance, but no one could monitor those things. And that's when we set out to build the technology that we thought could really change the world. Welcome to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of WOOP, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. Our clients range from the best professional athletes in the world, to Navy SEALs, to fitness enthusiasts, to Fortune 500 CEOs and executives. The common thread among whoop members is a passion to improve.

What does it take to optimize performance for athletes, for humans, really anyone? And now that we've just launched all-new whoop strap 3.0 featuring Whoop Live, which takes real-time training and recovery analysis to the next level, you're going to hear how many of these users are optimizing their body with whoop and with other things in their life. On this podcast, we dig deeper. We interview experts. We interview industry leaders across sports, data, technology, physiology, athletic achievement, you name it. How can you use data to improve your body? What should you change about your life? My hope is that you'll leave these conversations with some new ideas and a greater passion for performance. With that in mind, I welcome you to the

Whoop podcast. One of the best things you can do for yourself is just these moments of mindful breathing throughout the day. You know, do it these 15 seconds, 10 times throughout the day. And all of a sudden, you know, you're way more present. You're less irritable. You're more tolerant. You have more empathy and compassion.

Like, it just has this, like, incredible cascade effect in terms of your overall outlook on life. And it really puts you in a space where you're in control. Hello, folks. Today's episode is called Holiday Hacks. Woop Vice President of Performance, Kristen Holmes, and Director of Analytics, Emily Capital Lupo. The Fearless Duo, they are back again with a number of tips and tricks to help optimize your performance during what can be a strenuous and somewhat debauchous time of year for many of you. From how to get the best night's sleep when you're away from home to managing your holiday eating, to improving your mindset and avoiding unnecessary stress.

Kristen and Emily are here to help you thrive this holiday season and make the most of your WOOP data. Without further ado, here are Kristen and Emily. Hello, everyone. I'm Kristen Holmes, VP of Performance here at Woop, and I am joined once again by our lovely director of analytics, Emily Capitilupo. Happy holidays, everyone.

With a holiday season upon us, today, Emily and I are going to share some holiday hacks. We want to help you mitigate the stresses of the season and really thrive throughout this time of year. We're going to talk about how to travel, how to think about travel, how to fuel your body, and what else you can do to help with recovery and make the most of the season. Great. So 54 million Americans are expected to travel this week for Thanksgiving. And, you know, your job requires that you travel all the time. So let's jump in with travel. How can our whoop users who are traveling sort of handle? that best. Yeah, so if you're in a hotel, definitely there are some little hacks I can share. I'm in

hotel rooms a fair amount. So I have a lot of experience figuring out how to optimize the room. Number one, obviously start with temperature. Get it down to 65. A lot of the hotel rooms actually have quite like thin blankets. So I always ask for an extra blanket because I like the outside temperature to be cool, but then obviously I want to be nice and cozy. And I usually pack like a kind of a long sleeve and, you know, I'll put my socks on halfway. I talk about that all the time. And then if I get hot, I can just, you know, I just kick them off naturally, like, while I'm not actually awake, but physiologically awake, I end up kicking them off. So that's, I think, a place to start. I think the other piece, when I'm booking the room, I always make sure that I request

for, like, the quietest place. So if I'm in a city and there's a courtyard, for example, I try to be inside the courtyard because that's generally speaking going to be a lot less noisy than being on a street situation and that kind of the higher up, usually the better as well. So just kind of try to find the quietest place. So I think that getting that request in early is is really important. I think the other piece that's really obviously central is just the darkness in the room. So covering all the blue lights, I heard this awesome hack. I think it was Adam Grant, like on LinkedIn or something, but he said, use the trouser hanger to close the curtains. Oh, yeah, that's a great one. It's such a good one. And I actually use, you know, those, like,

prongy, like, hair things that you kind of like, yeah, I kind of use those. They're actually, like, a pain in the ass to pack because they're actually quite bulky. So, and I'm, like, literally, like, a one bag kind of girl. Like, you know, I try to travel, like, as light as humanly possible. So yeah, I'm always looking at what can I not bring. The trouser hangar thing on the curtains is like unreal and super effective. I think the other thing is just really thinking about your nutrition. And I always, you know, if I can't get a good meal in, I generally like avoid eating. But you just don't want to like kind of on your way on route to the hotel. Like you just, you know, you just want to be in a situation where you're kind of putting the best things in

your body and you're really prioritizing your water and whatnot just to handle kind of the demands of a plane if you're flying and just even traveling and, you know, just being in a car, things like that, you kind of, if you're under hydrated, that can definitely take a hit on just your capacity to kind of fall asleep. Yeah, for those of us like myself who are flying for Thanksgiving, thinking about drinking more water than you might realize that you need because the recycled air on airplanes is actually just really dehydrating. And so you might, because you're sitting, sort of not realize how much you're dehydrating, but then you'll just kind of not feel as great afterwards. And when they come around for your drink orders, you'll drink water, grab a water bottle in the airport, sort of drink twice as much as you. think you need to. Is it true that the airplane is 18 times drier than the Sarah Desert? Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's like really bad, right? When someone said it to me, I was,

holy God, we're talking about like you need to really, really hydrate, yeah, and not have that glass of Prosecco. Right. Yeah, drinking alcohol is probably not the call. Yeah, that's just not a good idea. I think the pillow options, too, or the other, that like always gets me because I have, obviously, as you can imagine, very specific pillow needs. So when I get to a hotel and like the pillow sucks, Like that's a little bit of a downer. So if you're really into your pillow, that can prioritize some space and your luggage. So to think about that, I think, is important. And then air plugs, huge, right?

Really, really critical to make sure that you're canceling out of all the random noise. Right. You don't want to become sort of a victim to a bad next door neighbor. And I think one thing that you've kind of hinted at a little bit is that so much of hacking a hotel room is about preparing ahead of time. And so that you can just kind of be more adaptive to a situation that you have less control over. So, like, if you bring a long sleeve, you know, and a short sleeve option, then if you can't control the temperature as much as you'd like, you can sort of do that with your clothing. You know, you can request the courtyard room, but then somebody could be having a party in there. So if you have your plugs, it kind of doesn't matter whether or not they honor that request as much.

Right. You know, and thinking ahead, you know, when you check in, asking for an extra blanket and making sure you have those hangers so that you can close the curtain, getting all those things ready. So you're not like getting into bed at 1130 and you're like, oh, like, you know, now you're going to spend like a half hour. like, you know, DIYing. Yeah, exactly. So kind of like getting on all of that stuff, sort of when you're checking in and early and sort of when you're preparing for the trip. Yeah. Because I think, like, one thing that's just going to, you know, throw a lot of people off is that you're not in your home environment.

And so, like, you know, you have to be a little bit more intentional. Right. And I think another, just one thing to add to this whole idea about, like, how to get the best sleep possible in a hotel room is that, like, we have so many cues in our normal home environment that sort of tell our body that it's bedtime, even things like, being in our bedroom. It's sort of, oh, you know, I know what this is. I'll start producing melatonin and that helps with sleep. So when you're in a foreign environment, you don't get all of these same cues that you're maybe not as even consciously aware that you're giving yourself. And so sort of doubling down on respecting the elements of your nighttime routine that you can travel with is really important. So whatever it is that you do, try and intentionally

bring some of those things with you to the hotel room will help you sleep better. Yeah, those are great points. And I think maybe just the last point would be just deadbolting your door, like feeling safe, you know, like when you go to bed. I mean, I check under the bed, the closet, like, inside the shower, just because those are thoughts that, like, come into your brain, right? When you're trying to go to sleep is, like, how safe, even unconsciously, like, how safe is your environment. So just doing a little quick check, you know, the closet, whatnot, make sure there's no one, no one in there. Because that happens. No, it's true. And there's a really interesting study that showed that we don't get as much,

like, slow wave and REM sleep in hotels as we do at home, even if we sort of otherwise don't have trouble falling asleep. And part of this is a little. because in light sleep, it's really easy to wake up. And so our bodies have this, like, very subconscious, like, I want, you know, keeping half an ear open to sort of make sure that my environment is safe. And so even if it feels a little bit silly, kind of, like, going through these steps to sort of convince yourself that you're safe will help your body sort of, like, relax and trust that, like, this is a good environment because all the other cues, like, you know, the air

feels different and the sheets feel different. All these things tell your body, like, something's not right. This isn't my bed. And, you know, this can be true even if, like, you're at your in-laws or, you know, like a completely safe place that you've been to a million times in trust, like your body's just aware that like, this is not my bed. What's up? Right. And so kind of just being like, hey, this is fine. Yeah. And having that moment can pay off in like getting more deep sleep later. So Emily, you're at the couch on your in-laws. So we don't have the luxury of being in this hotel environment. We're at a house and we're having to kind of get through the holidays with a couple nights on a less ideal environment. Kind of a lot of these principles apply, right, that Emily just, Emily and I just outlined. So. I think definitely making sure, I mean, light is probably one of the easiest things you can kind of control for in the sense that you can just wear a mask. So definitely traveling with mask, earplugs, you know, even if on your, you're on a couch and just do your best to try to prepare the space you're going to sleep in to make it as, you know, comfortable as possible, even though it's, you know, not going to be ideal. But again, some of that pre-planning.

Try to get there early so you can get the best bed. You know, there's a lot of little things you can do to position yourself higher on the total pool as it relates to the room grab. Yeah. And then I think just on top of that is to kind of be a little bit nice to yourself. You know, the reality is, it's like maybe while you're sleeping on the couch in an unfamiliar environment, you're not going to get that, like, you reach your sleep need goal and sort of that's okay. And then thinking about all the other things you can do to sort of support your body in a situation where you're not going to be getting the sleep that you need. So, you know, it makes nutrition that much more important. And so it's kind of about controlling the things that you can control, being nice to yourself about the things you can't and, you know, trying to minimize them, but then sort of accepting what gets left over.

Right. Because a lot of us who are, you know, kind of calibrating our lives around data points and, you know, that there's some good of that and probably is a lot of bad to it. I think the bad potentially is that you get in these situations where you don't have the kind of control and you don't get to optimize the auto regulation that we kind of strive through throughout the week so we can be as good as we can be. So just nutrition, sleep wake timing, you know, how we train, you know, all of these things are going to get a little bit out of whack for the most part during the holiday season. And I think to your point, like just, you know, relinquishing a little bit of control is important. So I think the next piece that we can kind of talk about is how to frame that up, just some things from a nutrition standpoint, just ways to kind of think about the day, some pre-planning, you know, kind of behaviors that you can kind of adopt, you know, position yourself to not get too far off the rails, but also enjoy yourself. We'll talk a little bit about mindset and just dealing with stress generally. So hopefully give you guys some really good ideas on how to, in a less predictable environment, still be able to stay on track and have a great time and really thrive.

Yeah. So as far as nutrition, I have three recommendations. And they're all, I think, pretty easy, which is great. So they're vitamin C, vitamin D, and magnesium. And these three different vitamins are going to help with sort of different aspects of things that get thrown off during the holidays. So vitamin C, everybody kind of knows that's your immune system friend. We're going to be exposed to a lot of people. We're going to be probably living in slightly closer quarters, just sort of obviously general stress. Making sure you get vitamin C, support your immune system so that, you know, the holiday season isn't when you like catch a cold from your elementary school nephews or whatever. whatever, who just tend to be little germ bombs. So, you know, you can obviously do that with vitamin. You can do that by eating more citrus. Things like that. Vitamin C tends to be pretty easy to get in there, but kind of being conscious of that. The next one, vitamin D. So all the holidays, it's wintertime. There's less sunlight. Some people get affected by seasonally affected disorder, which is sort of like wintertime depression. Vitamin D helps combat this. And so just

sort of not super holiday specific, but just this time of year, we should be making sure to get vitamin D. D. Dairy's an excellent source of vitamin D, but just kind of making sure that you're getting sort of more of that than you did during the summer. And then finally, magnesium, it helps us relax. It reduces anxiety. It helps us sleep. And it's really good for your skin. So if your skin is showing any kind of signs of stress, sort of double down on the magnesium, so you look extra cute in your holiday photos. Nice. And so those are, you know, if we kind of are extra intentional about those three things, I think that'll really help us kind of feel good and stay healthy. Is there any timing that you wanted to call out in terms of any, you know,

these vitamins, magnesium in particular, when to take the magnesium, if you're thinking about it in terms of sleep? So magnesium actually, it's not soporific. So it doesn't actually make you fall asleep. There's no need to take magnesium at night. It's like something like melatonin, which we think of as like something you take to first sleep. It actually induces sleepiness. And so you obviously want to take that right before bed. But magnesium actually just helps sort of regulate the systems of sleep. That's why you stack it often with melatonin. Sometimes, yeah, but as long as you have, it doesn't clear that quickly.

So, like, melatonin's half-life is, like, half hour. And so you need to take melatonin at night because you took it in the morning. You'd be, like, weirdly sleepy, and it would be long gone by the time you went to bed. But with magnesium will stick around. Right. So as long as you kind of have that, like, you know, blood magnesium levels up from the morning, that's totally fine. And actually, I tend to take it in the morning because it also helps with exercise recovery.

So having magnesium sort of in my system in the morning right after I just worked out hard just sort of make sense to me. So magnesium, it supports the mitochondria, which are like the powerhouses of your cell. Yeah, helps with the delivery, right? Yes. And so it's this wonderful powerhouse for so many reasons, but it also happens to help with sleep. And sort of stress and exercise consume magnesium. And so athletes in particular are more likely to be magnesium deprived. And so sort of being conscious of getting enough in your diet is important.

Nice. And you can also think about stacking vitamin A and collagen. You know, that's kind of a nice pre-workout, 45 minutes before you work out. You know, just collagen is awesome because so bioavailable, right? Like you can use it right away. And when you stack vitamin C with that, it can just help with adaptation. Make sure you don't take it after training because actually vitamin C can mute adaptation. So go ahead. So go ahead. I was going to say, so vitamins aside, you know, there's also a lot of sort of mindless eating that happens during holidays and obviously like much richer food. than we typically eat. So why don't we jump into how to handle the party food that we get inundated with for the next month? Yeah. I think if you're kind of the one who's, you know, prepping and planning and hosting, just being strategic about where you put snacks. Understand, of course, there could be little animals, for example, and little kids. So you kind of have to be mindful of putting things too low because the dog's going to get it or a little toddler might put something in the mouth. They shouldn't. So, of course, you got to think about that. But getting some food out of the kitchen, actually, I think can be helpful because most people kind of convene. that's obviously where the no duh would be putting the food in the kitchen. But I think that kind of gets people migrating throughout the house a little bit. And also we'll reduce some of the mindless grazing that happened. So I think just being aware of why you're putting food in your mouth is always just a good place to start. But I think, too, if you're just eating throughout

the day, like, you know, the meals themselves become a little less, you know, not as fun, right? Because you've already consumed a lot of calories and you're just already feeling stuffed. And you feel a little lethargic. So I think your capacity to kind of be present is reduced, right? If you're filling your gut all day. So just, you know, just being mind. about what you're putting in your mouth, I think is important. The other idea is, you know, day drink, as opposed to drinking right before bed, where we know that that's going to really influence things. So if you kind of just think, all right, what does my day actually look like? When are going to be these really social moments? And maybe they are, you know, really close to bed. But to the degree that you can, you know, think about stopping your alcohol consumption by 8 o'clock if you intend to sleep around 11, for example, it just, again, will help your sleep and help you be able to help you be able to wake up the next day. And, you know, gosh, if you want to get a workout in, you can work out if you want to just, again, just be able to be present and be active throughout the next day. Obviously, the closer to bed you stop drinking, that will help that end. Yeah, one thing I read that was delightfully positive spin on the fact that like most,

especially like Thanksgiving dinners tend to just be a scary number of calories is to think about this not as blowing my diet or whatever, but as this opportunity because most of us throughout the holidays are actually eating excessive numbers of calories. But that actually puts, it's our bodies in a really great state to build muscle. And so if you sort of say, like, yeah, I'm going to sort of be eating all this extra food that sort of the rest of the year I wouldn't necessarily indulge in. But then I'm going to use that opportunity to go and do like a sort of tough strength workout. You're actually, the excess calories make you very prime to put on muscle. And so, yeah, you might gain a little bit weight. But at least it's sort of like weight the

athletes should want to be gaining. And then you can worry about cutting later. But I like this idea that, like, you know, we are going to eat at excess, and that's fine. And here's how we're going to, like, sort of take advantage of that. And then I think the flip side of that is to sort of, okay, we're going to eat at excess. But then let's sort of be aware of that and then own that and sort of, you know, think about how we want to program our exercise, you know, after Thanksgiving and sort of after the holiday season's over. So that instead of just saying, like, oh, I'm going to like forgive it and ignore it. And then sort of every holiday season, you know, put on however much fat that adds up over the years.

Yeah, I think that's a really great point. I think the other piece to think about is, like, you know, again, in the planning, knowing there's usually a loose kind of agenda, you know, when you're traveling. You kind of know, you know, when the big meal is going to take place. You know, when, you know, if there are any activities, kind of what's happening. But build in activities, you know, if you've got kids, like, think about, all right, is there an awesome mountain nearby that we can go hike or are there things that we can do to, just to kind of break up, just sitting around in the house. That might be the prescription that you need, you know, is to sit around in the house. But, you know, I think building in, you know, moments for activity, you know, going outside, throwing the football around with the kids or playing basketball. I mean, those are all great things. You know, gets them moving and reduces stress. And, you know, there's obviously a lot of ancillary benefits to just, you know, the concept of movement. So maybe that's where we can kind of start next is right. How do we think about, you know, what is just the general mindset around managing stress?

Yeah. So you and I were talking about sort of doing this podcast yesterday. And one of our colleagues who was there in the conversation was sort of like, oh my God, Holly. They're so stressful. It's the worst time of year. And in recognition that there's probably some of our listeners out there who feel that way, we kind of want to talk a little bit about how to manage stress, control that mindset, and to really kind of get back to this idea that, like, the holidays are actually this sort of wonderful thing. So if you're somebody for whom holidays are the worst, Kristen, what would you recommend they do? 100% waking up and just writing down as many things as you possibly can that you're grateful for and try to include things about the folks you're going to be interacting with, you know, just do your best to try to see the good in everyone. And I think if you kind of approach whatever that activity you're going to be doing with that kind of mindset,

it just brings about kind of an openness and a tolerance level and empathy to the situation that you might not otherwise have. So it just creates a lens, I think, with which you're kind of looking at the world in general. but the folks that you're in act with, it just gives a nice positive spin on it. So 100% getting up and writing in your journal, the things that you're grateful for. I think ending the day, just in general, it's a good practice. I think, you know, book ending your day with writing down the things you're grateful for. And obviously it's pretty well documented, a lot of science to support that. But I think especially around the holidays, be super thoughtful about that. So that would be kind of number one. And then really try to get out, try to exercise. You know, I think it's important. You know, it just makes you feel better. I think I'd really struggle if I didn't have the ability to exercise while. I'm on vacation. I actually use those moments to make gains, honestly, because I have a little bit more time and generally speaking. And, you know, even if it means waking up early, I really try to, to the degree that I can, you know, keep my sleep awake timing pretty consistent for the most part, even when I'm on a vacation. So, you know, I want to wake up and move and work out, you know, light stretching, if you can't get out there and do like a kind of a more intense workout or whatever. But definitely just this concept of movement, I think, is really important. Yeah, I read a great hack, which was just when you get up, put on exercise clothes. So, you know, if you're going to sneak in, just a couple of push-ups here, like, that's better than nothing. If, you know, you have 20 minutes and can go run two miles, like, better than nothing. Yeah, knock out 100 burpees. I mean, why not?

Well, that sounds horrible. You know, if you're sort of, like, dressed for it, it's much easier to sneak it in. Then if, like, you get all cute because, you know, you're seeing all these people that you don't see that often. And then it's like, oh, I don't want to exercise because I did my hair and makeup. And now I'm, like, sort of locked in. Right, right. So just kind of, obviously, you have to read the room and not be inappropriately dressed. But, um, you're You know, if you just kind of put it on in the morning, you're just so much more likely to find time for it. I think the other thing that would be a great way to start the day is just with a bit of mindfulness or meditation. You know, whatever your kind of jam is, I think starting the day with just a quiet moment before you kind of hit the masses.

I think that's important. I think, too, just most folks would identify as being either an introvert and extrovert. And just if you are on more of the introvert side, just know that you're just going to have to carve out a little bit of alone time throughout the day. So you can really be present and not be resentful of, you know, how much contact you're having with other humans, you know, so really trying to think about that as well when you wake up and thinking about, okay, how am I going to kind of build in some quieter moments for myself? Yeah, so I've seen a lot of research that suggests that meditation is as short as even like 10 or 15 seconds can sort of do wonders for just sort of like centering yourself and improve your respiratory rate and your autonomic nervous system balance and all these great things. So I think there's probably a bunch of people who are listening to us and they're just like, well, that sounds great, but like I'm busy nonstop. If a user had 15 seconds, can you show them how to do this? Absolutely. Yeah. And we talk about this with athletes we work with.

If you're just literally about to take a foul shot, you know, what can you do to kind of calm your nervous system? And I think just what's happening physiologically is, you know, when you are breathing intentionally, the vagus nerve picks up on the lung expansion and really leases of cytokoline, which tells your heart rate to reduce. So really that's what you're trying to do is you're trying to activate the parasynthetic branch. When you do that, you basically are feeling more relaxed, more calm and just more centered. So just a simple exercise you can do is literally just breathe in through your nose for four seconds, hold for two seconds, and then breathe out either through your nose. or through your mouth. And just doing that for 15 seconds is just an awesome way to reset. If you do it for a little bit longer, the longer you do it, kind of the more benefits you'll see. But it's something that I think folks don't think about a whole lot. And this is just talking to

the array of folks I interact with on a daily basis is they don't think about negative stress accumulation and how that actually impacts sleep. You know, we always talk about these daytime behaviors are really, really core to being able to get into these restorative stages of sleep. And one of the best things you can do for yourself is just these moments of mindful breathing throughout the day, you know, do it these 15 seconds 10 times throughout the day. And all of a sudden, you know, you're way more present. You know, you're less irritable. You're more tolerant. You have more empathy and compassion. Like it just has this like incredible cascade effect in terms of your overall outlook on life. And it really puts you in a space where you're in control, you know, and we know that, you know, that's one of the most important psychological needs we have, right, is to feel in control. And so a lot of the stuff that Emily and are talking about, it just kind of puts you in the driver's seat of your own life. I think that's just conceptually that's really important. And this is one of the best hacks. And I think just when you think about mindfulness meditation, you know, I always say this is not going to change or remove the stressor. It basically replenishes your capacity to adapt. And I think that's really important for folks to understand is that

you want to try to have and come into a room and into a conversation and into a moment with as much capacity as possible. And that's for me, that is what mindfulness and meditation does. for you. Yeah. I think that's great. I think the other technique that's, it's a little bit more intense, but it basically combines kind of calmness and alertness. So you're kind of getting at both sides of the auto nervous system.

And that's basically, and you can just literally just Google box breathing and there'll be all sorts of techniques. But I think one thing, once you kind of get the technique, I think one important add-on is when you hold your breath, making sure that you're not clamping down and creating pressure in your back, but you're actually maintaining kind of an expansive open feeling even though you are not inhaling. Okay. So that's, I think, a really important little hack to think about as you go through box breathing. And, you know, they're going to recommend, you know, up to five minutes. And that's something you actually really, really have to build into. It's a little bit more technical type of breathing. But like I said, it kind of combines both the calmness and the alertness. So if you want to talk through kind of just physiologically,

what's kind of happening there and why it's beneficial. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, we talk a lot about heart rate variability, it's all over whoop, right? So what heart rate variability is is it's that sort of balance. My favorite little biomarker. And yours too, Emily. It's my faith. So it's just that balance of like how strong is your parasympathetic nervous system relative to your sympathetic nervous system and are they sufficiently matched that our bodies responding to inputs from both sides simultaneously. And so what you're sort of doing is you're sort of feeding one and then feeding the other and then feeding, you know, one and then feeding the other. And so you're creating this almost like artificial balance. And then when you stop intentionally meditating,

you've almost like kind of given it this, you know, head start little push. And then it will sort of naturally maintain this like higher level of balance. So you're sort of faking with your respiratory rate high heart rate variability. But then that higher heart rate variability maintains itself. And so it's almost like getting, you know, a couple seconds of sleep in there without trying to fall asleep. And so you get that like recovery boost throughout the day. It's like a power now. It is. It is like a 15 second power nap and certainly no substitute for sleep. But, you know, the kind of big theme we're trying to get at today is that like things are imperfect during the holidays, you know, eating conditions, sleeping conditions. There's more sort of just ambient stress going on. But we don't just need to like, therefore be worse. And you're not going to fix everything. It's not going to be ideal all the time. But what can you do these kind of little interventions to just get these kind of small boosts so that you're not just sort of a victim? of the holidays, and it's like, well, I give up this sucks. Like, we don't have to give up. We can sort of practice this meditation and get these little recovery boots, you know, 15 seconds at a time

or five minutes if you have it, and then sort of like let these stressors, therefore have the smallest possible effect on us so that it's easier to then sort of like get back into our routines when we're home. Yeah, yeah, I definitely use box breathing before working out, you know, just, you know, 30 seconds to admit it, again, just to kind of capitalize on this calmness, alertness. And that's kind of what you need when you're working. working out to a degree, you know, you want bodily control, but at the same time, you know, you want to have this, you know, be really alert and, you know, have that sympathetic, obviously, drive going. Maybe we can end by just talking about, you know, how to think about whoop data, you know, over the holidays. And I think, number one, you know, make it work for you.

Whatever that means in your life, you know, I think some people, they take their whoop strap off or they kind of ignore the data. But that's actually, I would not recommend. I totally. I was, if you're going to get stressed out about it, like, sure, like don't, you know, obviously, whoop doesn't want to. add to your stress. But I think like pretending that, you know, these bad sleeps and these like low recovery days didn't happen and that like, you know, when I got really drunk last night, that didn't like have an effect. It's just sort of doing yourself a disservice. Like go have fun, do it, own it. But you're not going to be able to manage your recovery process if you have no idea what kind of damage you've done. Exactly. And you like fudge with your baseline.

Yeah. Do you see how I didn't swear there, folks? I know. I'm trying to like be better. Yeah. So I'd say like, you know, keep your whoop on, but be nice to yourself about the damage you're doing. Own it. You know, respond to it as much as you can. But don't try and like punish yourself for it. You know, and I think like, you know, we get this question a lot. We talked about it sort of in the sleep podcast and the recovery podcast, this idea of like, am I supposed to be green every day? Am I supposed to get 100% of my sleep every day? And the answer is like, no. The idea is like you want to be green when you need to be green. And sort of the more you're green, the better you're going to feel. But sort of, and sort of same. with sleep. You want to get all the sleep you need, but we give you that 85%, which is sort of perform level, which is like, you're going to be fine. You know, you're not doing any long-term damage by getting a little bit less sleep and, you know, enjoy your relatives and, you know, whoever you choose to spend your holidays with, if that means like staying up a little bit later or whatever. But then just be aware that that's what you did to your body. And so, like, you know, if you eat more kindly to yourself, you know, if you meditate a little bit more, if you sort of add

in these practices of, you know, practicing gratitude and mindfulness and being present, you'll minimize the negative consequences of that. Yeah, totally. I think that's the right, definitely the mindset to kind of approach it. And I think just like having a plan in general is always helpful going into the holidays. And hopefully we've given you some really good tips and tricks on how to think about it and how to frame it. I think, too, as it relates to just the data specifically, if you want to get fitter over the holidays, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, right? You know, you can kind of think about the moments leading up to that and make sure that positioning yourself to have harder workouts during the, you know, during that time frame. So maybe thinking about, you know, a small taper and then really being able to hit it hard and during a time when you know you're going to have just extra, you know, extra moments throughout the day to get little workouts in. Yeah. And the opportunity to cross train, too, especially if you're in like a different kind of environment. That's such a good point. Yeah. If you're like ice skating, for example, or, you know, yeah, just doing like some random stuff. So doing something different, just creating a different stimulus. It doesn't even need to be particularly intense. But the fact. that it's different can kind of challenge your body in a new way.

Yeah, that's a good point. Awesome. All right. Well, I think that does it for our holiday edition. Yeah, so just let us know if you have any other great hacks that, you know, the whoop community should know about. And as always, if you have any questions, you'd love for us to address on the podcast, we'd love to hear them. All right. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Thanks always to Kristen and Emily for sharing their tips with us today. I'm feeling inspired for a better holiday season as a result and a very, very happy holidays to all of our listeners and whoop members out there. If you're not already a whoop member, you can join our community for as low as $30 to begin. We provide you with 24-7 access to your biometric

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