Heart Rate Variability: Future of Biometric Data in Business

Heart rate variability expert Leven Lindon discusses the impact of heart rate variability on health and performance, using data to drive behavioral change.

### Heart Rate Variability: A Key Metric for Health and Performance
* 💓 Le Van Lindon, a heart rate variability (HRV) expert, discusses his personal and professional journey with HRV, highlighting its **importance in health and performance**.
* 🏃 Le has a background in ultra-endurance sports, having completed races in challenging terrains like the **Moroccan desert** and **Brazilian jungle**.
* 📊 He emphasizes the significance of HRV in his work with business leaders, using it as a "**Northstar metric**" to track **performance, resilience, and antifragility**.
* 📚 Le wrote a book titled "Fully Charged," which simplifies complex HRV concepts and provides **practical tools for improving nervous system function**.
* 👥 He works with organizations to introduce HRV monitoring, often starting with **biometric assessments** to create awareness about the body's signals.
* 🛌 Le discusses the future of HRV technology, foreseeing **increased integration in corporate settings** but also emphasizing the importance of **balancing tech use with personal awareness and space**.
* 🌐 For more information, Le can be found on LinkedIn, and an English version of his book "**Fully Charged**" is expected by the end of the year.

just a quick note for those watching us on YouTube. Uh, we had some technical difficulties. Uh, in this conversation, uh, you will see, uh, that our guests change clothes about halfway in between. So, we record on two different days. Uh, we hope that that doesn't at all, uh, you know, diminish the quality of the conversation. I think we got a lot of really good stuff here. Just want to give you heads up on that. We tried to make it as fluid as possible. Uh, if you were listening to it, it, you may not even notice the transition, but you will, you will see a little bit of change in scenery there, uh, a little bit. So, I just wanted to give you heads up on that. Um, I appreciate our guests for their patience, uh, with, you know, between here and Belgium. Uh, we, we had some technical glitches, but, uh, hopefully we're delivering you a high-quality video experience of the heart rate variability podcast. Enjoy this episode. Welcome, friends, to the heart rate variability podcast. I'm here with a

very special guest today Le van Lindon who I met talking about heart rate variability realized that we had a shared passion for this work. Le has a fascinating backstory. I remember Le before our first call. I looked at your bio on the built for endurance website, and I just got like, I cannot wait to talk to this guy. We talked, and I immediately asked you to join the podcast. So I'm really excited to talk about your personal journey and your professional journey with heart rate variability because you are a fascinating individual, and I love how you think about this. So just a little bit of introduction for our audience. I'd love you just to introduce yourself before we dive in. Yeah, great. Thanks, Matt, for having me. It's great to talk with someone who's also so passionate about heart rate variability because, to be honest, I don't meet that many people nowadays who are already that passionate about heart rate.

variability. I try to share a little bit of the passion, but uh, it's still somewhere under the radar. Well, all that passion can just flow out through the next hour or so. So yeah, yeah. So yeah. Like you mentioned, my name is Leeven. I live in Belgium. So uh, Belgium, Europe, very small, very small country. Um, I am 39 years old. I'm going to marry in about one month. Thanks. I was already married some years ago. So it's my second marriage. Uh, so this time, it's a good marriage. Um, I'm an entrepreneur. I have my own company. Like you mentioned, the name Built for Endurance is the name where the name originates from my own journey of endurance races in life. Um, so yeah, I'm an entrepreneur. I work with Business Leaders, with managers, people who try to make a difference in business life, but also in their own private life. Um, and we use data and often, of course, heart rate variability is in the center of the data.

that we use to help them understand their body in a better way. Give them some insights about the impact of their lifestyle on their nervous system, and on their heart rate variability, and then also give them the tools to help them to improve their health. But of course, not only their health, also all the other areas in life and business which improve when you improve your heart rate variability. Um, so that's what we, uh, so that's what we do. And I'm also passionate about challenges in life. Um, let's talk about, let's talk about some of those because, um, like I said, they jump from out of your bio like, wow. Um, so, so what I, I, I, we, and we haven't had this discussion yet either. I'd love to just, what drew you to, I'll let you share what you've done, um, but, but what led you to taking on some of these incredible challenges, um, that, that I, I just can't even imagine what they must been like. So, I, I just love to what

what got you into this Endurance Sports and share some of your highlights uh with our listeners yeah sure my pleasure so I've been running in did a couple of endurance races all over the world H these endurance ultramarathon races so where you have to run for a couple of one couple of hundred kilometers couple of hundred miles uh across yeah very um very challenging areas uh I've run in the Morocco desert uh I've run in Brazil a marathon in the jungle a marathon multiple marathons it was 260 kilometers divided over six days where you had to carry your own backpack your food your water supply uh so it was a fully s self-sufficient race of course water was given by the by the organizer organizers of those races because you cannot carry water for six days in your backpack so they had to support us a little bit um so yeah for some reason and I think there are a couple of reasons why I started doing those endurance races but yeah I always enjoyed and I'm still enjoying the

outdoors the unknown challenge because I think to grow as a human in life we yeah we do not grow from staying in our comfort zone. We need to challenge ourselves a little bit once in a while and maybe a little bit hard once in a while to grow um so and that's what made me do this kind of endurance races because actually I'm a soccer player uh or I was when I was still younger a soccer player but it didn't give me enough enough challenge in life. So uh there was this one moment where I said okay I'm going to quit and I'm going to look for something else um what is it about you though because some like there there's a lot of people that might hey I'm gonna run a half marathon or or I might run a full Marathon you you decide to go to the jungles of Brazil and run hundreds of M like well what what was it to say like yeah you know was it right off the bat you wanted to do these big endurance things or did

something kind of Click along the way that said, hey, I really want to do something, uh, out of the ordinary. Yeah, um, it's not that I gradually build up towards this challenge. So, there was this moment where after I quit playing soccer for one year, I was, I was partying, I was going out, uh, I was gaining weight. And then there was this Belgian TV producer who ran this Marathon, the sabla in Morocco, yeah. And, uh, it was for me like, wow, this must be amazing to do it. And, um, I'm quite, uh, how you call it, risk averse. So, I'm not seeing too much of any risks in life. So, uh, I'm just like, yeah, whatever, I'm going to register myself for this race, I'm going to start training, I'm going to see a doctor who can, uh, support me a little bit along the journey. And, that's, that's how it started. And then I did this one race in Morocco, and I finished 29 out of thousand participants from all over the world. So, I was this, this, this

green guy never ran another race before who finished somewhere at the top and was like H maybe maybe I'm made for this or uh and that's when it all started and I started to to yeah run multiple races and afterwards um also maybe a little bit driven by external motivation back then. I was always looking for meaning in life purpose how can I grow um working hard on my career and I was always looking for these external big events that hopefully would give me enough satisfaction uh so it was there was always also this this sense of purpose which was linked to to running these ultramarathons uh because it's true suffering that you try to find meaning in the suffering uh so and this during this races you you suffer a lot yeah I can only imagine uh what that went through so was it during this training and these events when did you find heart rate variability when did that come on your radar um actually it's it's only for me I think five six years ago right before covid because when I was running these first

races. I was just wearing it. It was 2013, 2014, a regular wearable was not yet measuring heart rate variability. It was just heart rate that we're measuring. Uh, a bummer because I would love to see your what. What does uh a couple hundred kilometers due in the desert to your heart rate variability. Yeah, indeed, maybe that's that's worth trying. Uh, doing a new challenge. There you go. You got to do it again for me because I want to see the now. Nowadays, people who, the these cyclists who train for the Tour de France or who do the Tour de France, they measure their heart rate variability. Uh, and they see a big difference between the mountain races and and regular races in their recovery abilities. But um, but yeah, it was it was not yet there when I discovered heart rate variability. It was actually yeah, a little bit later. So 2, I think 2019, um, 2018, 2019 when it became more popular already in in standard variables. Um, because of my my job as

an entrepreneur with my company built for endurance. We help Business Leaders to improve their well-being and performance. And you know when you want to help Business Leaders, they want to see data, they want to have science, they want to have it backed, and well-being as a topic, it's still kind of fluffy in the business environment. So I'm an engineer as a background, so I'm always looking to find the signs and the proof behind things and why they work. Um, and that's how I stumbled upon heart rate variability at first through the breeding techniques to improve your heart rate variability like heart coherence breeding. Um, I discovered heartmath, um, and then I went into the hole and I found that yeah, heart rate variability is actually influenced by so many lifestyle factors that um, yeah, I started writing a book on it. So now there's a book, book on it. So now there's a book. Okay, you cannot see fully charged. There is where, yeah, yeah, like this. So fully charged. So because I found out, yeah, for me, heart rate variability is

Northstar metric. If you want to track your performance, your resilience, your antifragility, however you want to call it. So, yeah, that's why we use heart rate variability. Now, in our professional life, but also me personally, I track it. Not completely as a freak, or I try to not be a complete freak in doing so. Um, but yeah, I track it to see and to have supportive data to see how I'm doing in life. Yeah, it's awesome. So, how do you go about working with B in the business world? Because obviously it's something, you know, I've thought a lot about with my heartbeat, a business book. And how do you, how do you think about how do you introduce it to executives or other business people who may have not have heard of heart rate variability before? Yeah, um, yeah, at first instance, we asked them the question, okay, how do you monitor or track or what's your KPI to track your own personal performance and how do you

how do you measure it and there's no one who has like a clear a clear answer to it uh so so that's already an entrance point for heart to to drop heart rate variability and show why it is of so importance not only for your personal health but also for your your thinking your decision making uh your behavior uh and your even Financial results so there are there are any reasons why to introduce and heart rate variability often clients or potential clients they come to us with the question okay our executive team is having a hard time uh they're exhausted uh they're suffering um they want some some tools to help them to to perform in a sustainable way um and that's where we then first yeah come with this kind of Assessments where we give them ins sites about their nervous system when they are in stress when they are in recovery in relaxation so and these assessments of course they also measure heart rate variability or use heart rate variability to indicate whether you're in activated state or in a relaxed State um and and then we help

them to understand when their body is activated and when is it relaxed, and whether it's balanced or not, and how their sleep is. And then we dive in in all these lifestyle topics, and we help them to discover for themselves the relationship between their lifestyle and the signals that their body, their bodies are giving. Very cool. So I'd be interested what led to the book. Tell us a little bit about fully charged. Yeah, so what led to writing fully charged, um, yeah, actually I noticed over the past five, six, seven years when I was working with different types of corporations and business that this topic of well-being, um, resilience, how you can call it, that it's always have been perceived as a quite fluffy topic. Um, so it was positioned in the HR department, and they try with all the good intentions to help employees to improve their well-being or their resilience, but I noticed that for many employees these topics remains fluffy, and people had difficulties to get engaged. So with my background as an

engineer because I'm a mechanical engineer with that background and my experience as an ultra Runner. And also my experience in working with corporations. I was thinking about a framework which could help people to understand what the relationship is between a good functioning nervous system and behavior on the outside and results on the outside. Because for many people in companies, having good results still remains a cognitive topic and they do not understand the role of the nervous system in results and doing business. So I wanted to make it more tangible. I wanted to give some explanation about the role of the nervous system and also give a lot of tools to help people in a scientific based way to improve the functioning of the nervous system. Also measure of course with heart rate variability. As the nordstar metric. That's how I position heart rate variability in the book. A nordstar metric to make it a little bit more tangible when you work on your own health and resilience.

would love to hear some of the reactions that you have gotten because I think here in the states, at least, you know, self-care, which is a term I don't use anymore, but it was like it was on the individual to sort of go home and take care of themselves and come back magically. If you think about it from a nervous system pers, magically come back to work the next day ready to perform at their best. And I wonder as a leader who may been under, you know, not thought about this from a scientific perspective, how do you start to get buying? Because I'm assuming the leadership are probably the ones reaching out to you, at least initially, the ones, you know, approving the contract for you, uh, to work with them. So I would love to to just get some coaching from you and and how do you help, uh, leaders kind of see to start to look at their employees and their Workforce, uh, in in a different way and connecting that to Performance. Yeah, very very good question, um, if if I look from a from a distance.

to current business leaders, and that's with all due respect, but many of them, they're walking brains, and they're the whole day they're in their head, yeah, making decisions, and people have forgotten that they also have a body, which is giving signal to the brain, and also in the other direction, um, so people lost their awareness of having a body, which is quite important in also doing the brain work, yeah, um, so yeah, as with many interventions, the first step towards change is bringing awareness into the situation, and that's where I noticed that to get people engaged in these types of topics, you have to meet them at the place where they are. You do not have to say immediately, okay, start breathing, connect with your body, feel the sensations, and these fluffy words, it doesn't match with how they work, so you have to meet them where they are, and that's in their brain. So we use data then and heart rate variability and stress measurements and bi these biometrical.

assessments as a way to show these Business Leaders what these signals are that they are receiving from their body. That when they are during the day having a lot of back-to-back meetings, that they're working late in the evening with a lot of blue light, that it's really impacting their nervous system, their sleep. And that's when you get these aha moments like, Oh my God, yeah, I knew that alcohol was completely destroying my sleep, but I didn't know the impact was so big. So, it's a lot of Open Door course, but um, yeah, you just create awareness. And because it's so personal, it's about the own physiological reactions of the body that they, they see on a graph, that they have something like, Oh my God, yeah, this is real. I have a body. It's giving me signals. I cannot feel them anymore because I'm always in my brain, but now I see it. And now I start to believe it. And that's when you start to get engagement in to in this kind of, uh, in this kind of programs.

we uh that we run with with companies and with leaders so we meet them in their brain with showing them the data. The insights we take them into these Journeys where we use data and combine it with with experiences cold Bots uh intense exercises breath work experiences like Wim Hof breeding. The combination of of data and experience is very powerful. We notice in in driving behavioral change awwesome. So so how do you I I'd love to kind of talk about how you set up that behavioral change because one of the things that that I I spend a lot of time how do we help people build healthy habits. So is that where kind of heart rate variability as a a metric really comes into play as well. Is like showing them that you know whether it's like a cold shower or whatever it might be different breathing exercises that this can actually really improve uh HRV. And that they can see it more t ably over time. Yeah it's it's really having the the bio feedback and and this device.

telling them that oh yeah, your HRV is improving, or your baseline is improving, you're doing well, or oh, you have a downwards trend, so you need to watch out because maybe you have too much stress and you're overloaded. Um, it's this continuous loop of feedback that's really helpful for people to change behaviors and to support them on their way. There are so many people who buy an aura ring and a whoop after a workshop with us that they're like, Oh my God, this HRV is so interesting, I'm going to start to measure it, and people buy all these gadgets, of course, and these variables, although we know the accuracy is not the best in the market, but still, it gives an indication, it gives a trend, and it gets them started. Yeah, absolutely. I'm wondering because over here in the States, we have an epidemic right now with burnout. You know, Gallup just came out with 60 59% of the

population says they're they're burned out, which is which is really a public health uh potential catastrophe for not just the work, you know, the the employers, but for for Everybody's Health. I wondering if you're seeing I'm I'm sure you run across people who are potentially really struggling, and I wonder kind of how you know here you come in. You've run hundreds of miles through jungles and deserts, and you may be may find someone like me who's just like barely getting through the day. And if I get through the day at work, I'm not necessarily being you know, maybe the parent or spouse I want to be when I go home. So I wonder, as as a a a role model for like Peak endurance performance, yeah, I'm sure you meet some people who might be really really struggling in borderline mental health issues because of disregulated nervous systems. How do you sort of approach those folks uh knowing they're not ready to jump up to sort of that maybe High performing level, but kind of meeting them where they're

at and getting a plan for them to, I like to call it a recovery plan to kind of get back to a healthy state. Yeah, maybe to start with, of course, I'm not encouraging anyone to run multiple marathons in the desert. That's not the end goal or the end destination. That's the Platinum package if you want to get. I think it will do more harm to the people. But yeah, what we notice is, of course, many people we work with, they are many of them are going towards exhaustion. The figures you're mentioning, Gallup, also in Europe, we see in Europe and Belgium and Netherlands and France and the countries you work with, we also see the same trend, a lot of people going into burnouts, into exhaustion, having difficulties to manage themselves. What we very practically do is we just look at their calendars and with the measurements that we do, the devices that

we use people need to register their their behavior the their uh their meetings their whole schedule into this application and they get this yeah confrontation with how their nervous system is is functioning and based on that we we start with very small changes to see okay where in your routines in your morning in your evening where can you just adapt your schedule a little bit which can give you a little bit more head space um so it's it's about finding the the The Sweet Spot because those people they're over busy it's from morning until the evening they have like there's always more work to do um so of course it's first thing they they there need to be a willingness to change and this willingness you can get to that point by showing them the data about their own body and once you have the the willingness to change we very practically dive into their schedule and see okay what are you doing from Monday until Friday how are you managing your mornings what do you do in the evening

last hour before you go to sleep. Two hours before you go to sleep so very practically, we dive into the schedule, and we're then going to see, okay, where's the disbalance? What's going to take the least time to have the biggest impact? And that's how we try to see where we can drive change. Awesome. So, I love to ask this question about people who've taking the time to write a book because one of the things I love about writing the book books, as you can see in my background, I just don't stop, basically because I want to write them. If other people want to read them, it's just on top of it. But I love it because you have to think about things in a kind of a different way. If you're talking to somebody about something, that's one way. I do a lot of presenting, so that's a different way. But when you really put it down on paper, you know it's going to stay on that page for

the foreseeable future right that that you can't like go back and necessarily you don't want to go change it every week. Uh that you can do with how I talk to people how I present you know my my my pres presentation two weeks later could be totally different if I wanted it to be a nobody would be the wiser so I wonder as you went through writing the book I I just you know what insights kind of popped out to you what were some of the the things that you may have had to like just kind of epiphanies or insights um through putting all the knowledge you've accumulated in written form for maybe somebody who's just just heard about heart rate variability or or heard you speak or talk and wanted to learn more uh I'd love to just hear any uh what your process was like in putting a paper and writing the book yeah yeah really really interesting because yeah indeed I didn't it's my first book which I have written so uh I didn't know up front what I was getting into what I

which journey I started so just with the blank page. I started to write and then I noticed, oh my God, there's so much information. How can I just bring it back to something readable for someone who doesn't know about an autonomic nervous system or heart rate variabilities, all these complex topics. How to make it more easy through it. It was really, really big challenge, but it's something I love because I've been a consultant before, uh, Strategic Management Consultant. So I always loved to have complex problems and try to conceptualize it into a framework or something, a one-pager which is understandable by people. So also for my book, I came up with this energy model. That's how I called it, which is actually I tried to understand. I've always worked in companies on process optimization. In a process, you have an input, you have a process, and you have an output. It can be in a production line or anything. I also wanted to understand as a human being what's our inputs, what's happening then.

in inside of us that is causing the output. And with the output, I said I mean our behavior and our results. So what's in the end causing a specific behavior, and that's how I approached it. And then I started to dive into, okay, we have a conscious part of what we are doing, but 95% of what we do is unconscious. And then with the unconscious parts of what's causing our behavior, what's the role of the autonomic nervous system in this? And so that's where I designed in this book, this really, this, I really like it, this framework, this process where it comes down to, okay, if you want to change your behavior, 80% of this behavior is caused by your autonomic nervous system. So if you want to start at some point to change, start with your physiology. That was actually what I wanted to prove. And then I make this metaphor between the nervous system, that it's actually influencing your body battery. It's like Garmin is visualizing it because I really love

this this way of looking at it. When you're activated, your body is draining energy. When you're relaxed, energy and that's actually how I divided my book. I have this chapter on okay, when you have I let's say 100% of energy level, how can you use it as efficient as possible. So this chapter is on Focus productivity, doing one task at the same time. So that's about energy usage. A second chapter is on okay, if you have used your energy efficiently, how can you replenish it. It's about sleep breaks, what are things which can bring your nervous system into relaxation. And then the third chapter is about how can you, if you have 100% energy now, how can you improve your energy level to 120%. So these are interventions on improving your heart rate variability, and bringing it to the next level. So this makes it really easy for the readers to understand a little bit what's happening in the body. It's of course a simplified version, but it's

very tangible and practical to work with. I love it, and I love that you mentioned this. I won't go down my own Rabbit Hole here because this is kind of what I've been obsessed about, uh, you know intellectually is the unconscious. And I think in many ways in my fields of psychology that we, we Freud and all the focus on the unconscious, we kind of, we, we remove, we, we moved away from that with behavioral therapy and other more evidence-based models. And I've just been really fascinated, especially, you know, with the autonomic nervous system reacting and maintaining homeostasis really independent of Consciousness for the most part. Now I think you and I both agree if you can catch yourself with and heart rate variability is a great metric to do that, you know, getting stressed out, you know, you can take conscious action to regulate. But so much of that is done so a neuroception and am I safe or am I in danger adjusting to stress without

conscious intervention that that I that's. I mean I've just been so fascinated by that um. So much of this is just under Consciousness and I I kind of point. If you're listening I'm kind of pointing the brain stem down. Yeah you know and obviously it's one integrated system but so much of that is unconscious and I I'm like how do we bring this back into our thinking uh because it really is so scientific now. We just like it's not necessarily it super ego you know ego. We're talking about parasympathetic sympathetic nervous systems which are actually I think a lot more powerful than libido and other things that we were trying to label things we thought we were seeing. So I I love that you bring that up and because I think it's something that we need to talk more about too. Yeah yeah indeed indeed and then an important topic which I actually do not tackle in in this book. I will say maybe in the next one know book. There you go that's everything about trauma uh.

because of course trauma is having a lot of impact on on the unconscious uh Behavior. Important topic also when you talk about disregulated nervous system. So but let's say this is the first step, the superficial layer of of Health, which I try to to tackle. But if you then talk about trauma, of course it's an all other world that you're opening up and and in a business environment, it's still like uh it's early stage that this is um yeah, some maybe more mature corporations they also work about trauma in the organization but there are not too many companies yet who are on that level of Consciousness, I would say yeah. And I'm and I I'd love to get I'm just going to use you as a coach for the rest of the podcast because I but but I think what I've been doing and I I work over here in the states with the highest uh with industries that have the highest rates of burnout so we're in a burned out Society right now and Health Care education Social Services.

you know government. Those are the industries I primarily work in, and they are the most burned out. I really want people to think about. You know, and I use a scale for Burnout. I don't think one bad day is traumatic unless it's a really, really bad day. Somebody gets hurt, or there's a life-threatening situation. It can be there can be an event there, but like over time as people exist for weeks and months and years in Burnout, that can be traumatic. We have something called chronic trauma, um, that is, you know, not the traumatic event somebody pulls out a gun, you know, that's a traumatic event, but we know existing in high-stress situations for sustained periods of time, which I think is a good definition of burnout, is traumatic for folks, um. If you look at the outcomes of burnout over time, you know, stroke, diabetes, cancer, anxiety disorders, all these different depression, you know, you put up trauma symptoms, and they're almost a perfect match in that so that's

one of the ways you know and I don't start there with the conversation but I think it raises the idea of burnout to a more important mental health issue than sometimes oh that person's weak that's why they're burned out. It's like no, this is an organizational phenomenon which can at times, I'm not saying everybody's traumatized, but can at times lead to a traumatic response which can be devastating for folks. Yeah, yeah indeed indeed. And I just to build on that conversation, I think the difficulty is that many organizations, they struggle with the question, okay up until where do we have as an organization the responsibility to do something to help people with these type of topics. What is part of the personal life and what's part of the work environment, and of course those are not those two are not separated and with with with covid those two uh are are just melting into each other. They've always been melted into each other but now it's becoming really obvious.

um, and these are questions that many organizations struggle with. Okay, what's my responsibility? What should I do? And, the employee is often looking to the employer as in, Help me, but actually it's your responsibility, employer, and I'm not going to take the responsibility, and that's also a wrong idea. So, there's a lot, this tension on, Okay, who can do what? Um, yeah, and I love that what you just mentioned perfectly sums up like what I'm trying to get people to talk about, and is the dilemma of, you know, and I, you, you may, I assume you're going to agree with me on this, but like the number one thing you and I can do probably to bring our best self to work tomorrow is to get eight hours of healthy sleep tonight, that sort of rises very quickly in the research and kind of stays number one for most people. Um, your employer has nothing to do, hopefully, with you getting eight hours of healthy sleep. Now, we could talk about sleep hygiene and

other things but really that's the personal responsibility. But like things like burnout are a work phenomena about something might be toxic within the work environment, and I think that gives us a great Dilemma to talk about. That's what I'm encouraging leaders to do right now is talk about hey our ability to perform at our best and get the best outcomes, uh for our business is a mix of that personal responsibility and creating, collectively creating an environment that is healthy and people can really th dve and supporting healthy habits at work as well. And I think it's that dilemma that if we have conversations around it, hopefully we find we find both is H. How do how do we train people on sleep hygiene like you're I'm sure you do like not everybody knows the imploring. I think we're getting more there but of eight hours of sleep or eating anti-inflammatory versus inflammatory foods or getting movement, the zone two craze which I I I don't think's going to go away there may be something trendy.

come up but I think that's the science there is so strong so that's what I find is is really important as we talk about this and it sounds like that's what you're that's what you're doing as well with h. The folks you work with too. Yeah, yeah, completely, completely, and that's also the interesting thing when we work with these biometrical assessments. They, the device we use, it measures the autonomic nervous system in a period of four to five days, and it's day and night. So automatically, okay, every individual gets their own report, but automatically the topic of sleep gets into the conversation, and people see their own sleep scores, yeah, whether it's green or red, uh, and they start to compare. So automatically by showing them the data and the insights about a 24-hour or yeah longer measurement, this conversation gets onto the table and gets into the discussion. That's really interesting because before people wouldn't start just talking about their sleep. They have some like, yeah, my sleep is it's private, so, uh, yeah, we bring all

these things together. And yeah, I love it. So the final question I have, I love to ask thinkers like you about this is, let's look five, 10 years into the future. Technology is getting better and better, awareness of the things you and I are so passionate about because your book is going to be translated into English. So that gives us a good second episode follow-up. I can't wait to on it. Well, what do you think? Where's this all going? If you kind of look in, you know, and you can also throw in here where you want it to go as well, but we weren't even able to have this conversation probably 10 years ago because technology, it was just too expensive. They had to probably go do a sleep study at a lab, you know, all this stuff was really, you know, kind of priced out or inconvenient. Where do you see us going now that we've got garments and Apple Watches and Oura Ring and HeartMath and all these Whoop's around? What, what where

do you see us uh where where do you see five 10 years in the future uh where are we going to be yeah yeah yeah like the question and actually I haven't thought into detail about it but yeah I think of course technology AI you can you cannot think it way anymore it will be there forever so more and more uh having a wearable a whoop wearing technology or having a chip put under your your arm to measure your glucose I it will only get more crazier and crazier um and it will get more accepted also uh by by Society so you cannot think it away and this is for sure not a bad thing uh because I notice in in the work that I'm doing that this technology can help to bring a lot of awareness on the other hand with technology comes a lot of addiction or dependency of okay oh my God my wearable is saying that I have slept badly now I feel bad this this placebo effect is also there there are a lot of studies showing that um that there's a placebo effect so with

technology comes also the responsibility of doing something or using it for your goods and not being dependent on it. So I hope that as technology improves, that also the level of consciousness of our human beings is going upward and that we use this technology for the good and not for the bad. I think that in companies also, and there are also some recent research from Deo indicating that more and more leaders see themselves within 3 to 5 years using more and more biometrical data, biofeedback, even data from brain waves, etc. All these kind of things, they see it more and more being integrated in company policies, processes, etc. So I think Deo has a paper written last year about the Quantified organization and all the data which is being collected and to do something. Of course, you have all these privacy issues. So I think it's a positive trend if we use it in a

good way because there will be many companies using it to maybe say to uh specific business units. Okay, you're not performing well, you need to get get rid of you. So, uh, yeah, it's, it will be a knife which is cutting on two ends. I don't know if you say it like this in in English, but um, um, so you have this technology which is, yeah, rapidly improving. And then I also think it will be important to have enough time to deonn and get away from technology because that's actually also what we do in our programs. We, we use technology as a tool to support you in your journey, but on on the other hand, we try to bring people out of their regular daily environment to take a step back and take the space to look at their own life and and and the work environment from a a little bit more more distance. Um, to to increase the awareness about the red ray they're living and and so I, I, I think I having more space away from technology, uh, will also be important to to stay

aware about what you're doing with it. I don't know if it makes sense. Uh, yeah, I mean it is sort of like the interesting space. It's like I know for me personally like sometimes and I really like disconnecting and heart rate variability. I hope for a lot of people. I know it is for me even on vacation. I want to know like it's just part of my habit to wake up and see. I know what a low score does now. It's not the end of the world but I've also been doing this for five years every morning. So like it is that another dilemma right is we're asking people to be on technology to improve their health while there's a lot of movement. I imagine around the world around like things like social media and other things have a really detrimental impact. And then we work with executives. I'm sure you do too who won't stop checking their email and stop checking their people are going to be.

checking it and so that there's this mix of hey we're trying to do the good with it in a realm of where technology can be really harmful to people's lives and mental health. Uh, you know, is everything like you said that double-edged sword. Uh, as we say over here, yeah, it plays both ways with this, which I think is it's good to be. I think on the good side of the force and not the dark side. So yeah, indeed, that's what we tried to do. Well, we already got a second episode. When I get my hands on the book in English, we'll have to have you back. I can't wait to read it. But just and we'll put information in the show notes about where they can learn more about your work. But just if somebody's interested and they're just listening to this, where might they find a little bit more about you and your work? Yeah, for sure, they can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm mostly active on

LinkedIn, um, so, so that's where people can find me. Uh, awesome, and I hope, indeed, yeah, yeah, indeed. And I hope, indeed, at the end of the year, there will be an English version, uh, available of Fully Charged, of the book, uh, because more and more people just start asking. Um, so, yeah, I think it will be, uh, work for over the summer. There, there, there you go. Well, I want to have you back when that happens and, uh, uh, once I, once I get through it, I'm sure I'll have a million more questions to continue the conversation, but it's been great to learn about you, learn about your work. Like I said, I can't wait to get the books in my hands. So, yeah, um, yeah. So, thank you so much. And as always, thanks for listening. You can find show notes, everything else at optimalarb.com. And we'll see you next week.

Lieven Van Linden Discusses his Work and Book

Matthew Bennett

Discussion with Le van Lindon on Endurance Racing and Heart Rate Variability

Le van Lindon, a passionate advocate for heart rate variability, discusses his journey as an entrepreneur using data to help people understand their body and improve their health.

He shares his personal passion for endurance racing, including ultramarathons in challenging environments like the Morocco desert and the jungles of Brazil.

Lindon explains that he was drawn to these extreme challenges as a way to push himself out of his comfort zone and promote personal growth.

From Ultramarathons to Business Performance: The Journey of Heart Rate Variability

A TV producer's marathon in Morocco inspired a risk-averse individual to start running ultramarathons, seeking meaning and purpose through the suffering of the races.

Heart rate variability became a crucial metric for tracking performance and well-being, leading to its integration into a company that helps business leaders improve their performance and health.

By using assessments that measure heart rate variability, the company assists executives in understanding their nervous system function and achieving sustainable performance.

Understanding the Body's Signals for Well-being

The book "Fully Charged" was written to help people understand the relationship between the nervous system, behavior, and results, providing scientific-based tools for improvement.

The author uses data and biometric assessments to create awareness and engagement, showing individuals the real impact of their lifestyle on their body's signals, which helps them to believe and invest in well-being programs.

Business leaders are encouraged to see the importance of considering the body's signals in relation to their employees' performance, using tangible data to bring about aha moments and drive engagement.

Using Data and Experiences to Drive Behavioral Change

Companies and leaders are met with data-driven insights and immersive experiences to drive behavioral change, including breath work and intense exercises like Wim Hof breathing.

The combination of data and experience has a powerful impact on driving behavioral change and helping people build healthy habits.

By using biofeedback and devices to show individuals how their heart rate variability (HRV) is improving, they are able to make small changes to their routines and schedules, ultimately reducing stress and avoiding burnout.

Writing a Book: Navigating the Complexity of Putting Knowledge into Written Form

The process of writing the first book was challenging, as it involved condensing complex information about the autonomic nervous system and heart rate variability into a readable format.

The author approached the book by creating an energy model framework, emphasizing the impact of the autonomic nervous system on behavior and advocating for starting with physiological changes to improve behavior.

The book is divided into chapters focusing on efficient energy usage, energy replenishment, and improving energy levels, making it easy for readers to understand and apply the concepts.

The Unconscious and Its Impact on Health and Trauma

The unconscious mind plays a significant role in regulating the autonomic nervous system and responding to stress without conscious intervention.

Prolonged burnout and high-stress environments can lead to chronic trauma, impacting mental and physical health.

Many organizations struggle to determine their responsibility in addressing these issues, especially as personal and work life become increasingly intertwined, particularly with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Shared Responsibility of Employee Well-being

The responsibility for healthy sleep lies with the individual, but work-related issues like burnout are a result of the work environment.

Leaders are encouraged to have conversations about the balance between personal responsibility and creating a healthy work environment.

Biometrical assessments and advancing technology will continue to drive awareness of well-being, but may also lead to a dependency on health-tracking devices.

The Ethical Use of Technology in Companies

As technology advances, leaders are increasingly considering the use of biometric and brain wave data in company policies.

This trend raises privacy concerns and the ethical use of data in evaluating employee performance.

It is important for individuals to have time away from technology to maintain awareness of its impact and to prevent potential harm to mental health.