Your Smartwatch Says You’re Healthy. Should You Believe It? | Dr. David Hopper
Your smartwatch says you slept great—but you feel exhausted. So who’s right: your wearable or your body?
We’re surrounded by sleep scores, readiness scores, HRV, heart rate, recovery data and stress metrics. But Dr. David Hopper says there’s a problem: we may be getting better at reading our devices while getting worse at reading ourselves.
In this episode of the Crackin’ Backs Podcast, Dr. Hopper joins us to explore how to use wearable technology without becoming controlled—or overwhelmed—by the data.
We get into:
The one wearable metric Dr. Hopper believes deserves the most attention: HRV
Why your sleep or recovery score may disagree with how you actually feel
What HRV can tell you about stress, recovery, sleep and your autonomic nervous system
Why constantly checking health data may actually create more anxiety
How to use an Oura Ring, Apple Watch, WHOOP or other wearable to better understand your body instead of replacing your instincts
The overlooked roles of breathing and sleep in health and recovery
What you might discover if you took your wearable off for an entire week
Dr. Hopper explains that HRV can provide useful insight into how the autonomic nervous system is responding to stress and recovery—but emphasizes that wearable data needs context. His approach starts with something remarkably simple: before checking your watch in the morning, ask yourself how you actually feel. Then use the technology to help confirm and understand those signals rather than dictate them.
Because the future of health may not be about collecting more data.
It may be about learning which data matters—and knowing when to trust your own body.
WATCH TO THE END: Dr. Hopper shares the three things he would teach someone to pay attention to if every wearable disappeared tomorrow.
QUESTION FOR YOU:
Have you ever felt great—then looked at your watch and suddenly questioned your recovery because of what it told you?
👇 Tell us in the comments.
To learn more about Dr. Hopper, his work, educational resources, and his new book, visit his official website and social media channels. His latest book takes a deeper look at many of the concepts discussed in this episode and offers readers practical ways to reconnect with their bodies while using modern health technology more intelligently.
And if conversations about health, longevity, human performance, recovery and the science behind how your body works are valuable to you, subscribe to Crackin’ Backs and join us each week.
Share this episode with that friend who checks their Oura, Apple Watch or WHOOP before deciding how they feel.
We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.
Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast
Dr Spencer Baron (00:01.431)
Your smartwatch tells you that you slept great. Your heart rate is normal, your stress score is low.
But you still feel exhausted. Or or maybe your watch says you're having a terrible recovery day, yet you feel like you could run a marathon. Who's right? Who is right here? Have we reached a point where the trust piece of technology, mo more than the signals of our own body, has, I mean, which has spent millions of years learning to send us? Today we're asking one of the biggest questions in modern healthcare: Are wearables helping us reconnect with our bodies?
Or replacing our ability to listen. Welcome back to the show, Dr. David Hopper. How are you doing, buddy?
David Hopper (00:46.933)
Hey guys, great to see both of you again. Great to be back on here. So thank you so much for having me. I'm I'm excited to have a great conversation with you all today.
Dr Spencer Baron (00:56.855)
Well, let's start with first things first. Dave, if you had to choose, now I don't mean to put you on the spot right in the starting blocks here, but if you had to choose one, would you rather someone become an expert at reading their own body or become an expert at reading the data on their smartwatch? And why?
David Hopper (01:17.557)
Yes. well I I think there's a very clear winner here. so reading the data on your smartwatch you know, will will tell you very little about yourself. it's and and we're not all that great at at reading that data anyway. because that data is relatively meaningless unless we have some kind of subjectivity attached to it. so
If you don't understand your own body, that data is useless, right? and and that's what we wanna do is we wanna get people to fully connect with their own body. We wanna get people back to a place where they understand the signals that their body is sending them. and where they can connect with their own body again. And that's the easiest way to care for yourself. It's the easiest way to create optimal health and well being.
Dr Spencer Baron (02:17.891)
So we understand marketing is magnificent these days, and yet 50 years ago when people knew that they were tired or stressed or overworked or getting sick, they just they just knew it. They felt that way. But nowadays people don't even trust, they they don't trust what they're feeling, and they're basing their their experiences on that data. I mean, now how did how did that change an opinion?
You know, i how did that change their opinion?
David Hopper (02:50.935)
So, Dr. Spencer, it's twofold. one is one is largely that we don't spend much time in our bodies anymore or working with our bodies anymore. You know, where we used to be a lot more laborsome of a society, and and we've gotten out of touch with our bodies where we're mostly just using our minds for work, which arguably is great, right? in some regards, but we've lost touch with our own bodies and and
We don't really understand what our body is saying anymore. as a result of that. So that's one big piece of it. another big piece is that we've also been taught that we don't understand this machine anymore. Right? we've been taught that there is only a certain group of people who wear white jackets and stethoscopes, and those are the only people who really understand what's going on with our body. And we have
no idea what's happening inside of this thing, even though we live with it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, right? so we've been we've been taught that in a lot of ways too and and unfortunately a lot of us have taken that bait
Dr Spencer Baron (04:06.754)
Although I will say a lot of people these days aren't trusting the men in white coats and stethoscopes. I'm just saying
David Hopper (04:15.001)
Fortunately fortunately we are making a move in the right direction. I agree, yes.
Dr Spencer Baron (04:21.374)
A and even nowadays it's it's all about Doctor Google, right? Patients come in, they go, I looked up my symptoms on chat and th I go, God, here we go. Right, Terry?
Dr. Terry (04:30.116)
Right.
Yeah. absolutely. And you know, on that note, yeah, we were I remember when the cell phone and and Spencer remembers this when they first came out, be even before the internet. that this is gonna simplify your life. And then the internet, this is gonna make things so much easier. And it's gotten so much more complicated and now we're just bombarded with information. And you got people glued to their phone because they're become obsessed with information. You have a conversation before the you're
questions even out, people are looking up the answer, you know, they you know, there is no, you know, sit and wait anymore. And and with that, with this bombardment information, in your opinion, what's the symptom that just keeps hitting us that we ignore?
David Hopper (05:19.597)
well I mean there's there's a there's a ton of those of those symptoms that that keep hitting us that we keep ignoring. but but but you're you're right on though. we we we can just look anything up and and I and I'm sure you guys get very frustrated with that as well, right? If you plug in any symptoms that you're having right now
It can match up with just about any disease that you want it to out there, right? You can make it as big of a deal or as little of a deal as you want. And and you can keep diving down that rabbit hole, right? With Chat GPT, like, well, I'm having this symptom. Well, it could be this. Well, what else would I notice if it was this? And it could be this, right? And then you keep going down that rabbit hole and by the time you're you're all the way down there, you're like, I need to go to the emergency room right now, right? And it was just a cough. but but hey, that's you know,
But yes, as far as and Dr. Terry, I believe what you're asking was about biggest symptoms that we're ignoring from our bodies. and and I mean, you know, I think fatigue is a huge one. fatigue, lack of sleep, lack of quality sleep, these are these are huge symptoms that our body is sending us all the time. And and we are just ignoring this nonstop, right? and part of that is that we've been taught to push through a lot of these things.
And kind of ignore these things. and I know especially people of you know, of my generation and and even more so of of older generations have been taught that, you know, any sign of tiredness, fatigue, that's weakness, right? you just push right through that. but it's a different type of fatigue that is that is hitting us nowadays. It's not a physical fatigue, right? It's a mental fatigue. It's a fatigue from sitting like this all day and using the wrong muscles when you're breathing.
It's a fatigue from your brain not working properly because you're sitting with improper posture. You're breathing improperly all throughout the day because you're scrunched up like this on a computer, right? in positions that our body was never meant to be in for extended periods of time, especially. So so those are some things that that without a doubt we are we are completely ignoring nowadays. and we are just pushing through. We're taking ibuprofen when we get a headache.
David Hopper (07:41.482)
we're drinking drinking more coffee when we're tired, right? we're we're just pushing right on through all those warning signs that our body is giving us. And that's what I do like to look at those as. Those are our warning signs, those are our dashboard lights coming on when we do have symptoms like that pop up.
Dr. Terry (08:01.574)
All right. So on that note, I mean sometimes you you know, we'll get these patients coming in, they get a new smartwatch, they get a new ring, a new wearable of some kind, and there's so much data available to them. W what is y and they go, Well, what do I look at? What's this HR V? What's this heart rate? What's this oxygen sleep? You know, am I re am I ready for the day? Am I not ready for the day? Did I sleep good? You know, they get overwhelmed and sometimes they just ignore it all. They just wear it as a watch again. So, you know
Or they wear it as a ring and th they don't even pay attention anymore. What's the symptom do you think is being ignored the most that for a new person with a wearable should start focusing on to help them integrate their brain back to their listening to their body?
David Hopper (08:45.613)
Yeah, I so I I might be a little bit biased, but I don't I don't think I'm completely biased. in that I think heart rate variability is gonna be your most important signal. because that's looking at everything that your autonomic nervous system is doing. So we're looking at fatigue with that, we're looking at you know, possible exposure to pathogens, we're looking at you know, if your body's overworked, we're looking at sleep quality, we're looking at breathing quality, right? we're looking at
all of these things in one when we measure heart rate variability because that is a measure of how your autonomic nervous system is functioning. So if we understand that and it's actually not that difficult of a metric to understand, it's basically are you staying about the same or a little or a little above? You're doing great, right? Are you falling below your norm? And that might be a signal that something is starting to go wrong or just that you're challenging yourself, right? depending on how we are
and what's going on in our life. that would be one of the easiest things. But you're right. These these watch companies, these these and don't get me wrong, all all of these wearable companies are doing amazing things. but it is too much information and it does start to create an anxiety in a lot of people where you look at this and you go, man, my sleep score is in the sixties every single day.
And rather than that being cue to say, let's go look at why, it's it just keeps beating you down and it's defeating you. And you say, you know what, I'm just gonna stop looking at this, right? And then what gets worse is you look at you know your quote unquote readiness score from say Aura, and then you also have Apple Watch, and you look at you know your data on that one, and it tells you two completely different things, and then you're left there going.
Well, which one do I believe? Right. And never do you check back and say, Well, how do I feel? Right? but rather it's which of these smart devices that are supposed to be so much smarter than me is telling me the right information. Right. so so we have all this going on throughout there.
Dr. Terry (11:03.706)
What's some strategies for the person that may have an addictive personality or may be borderline, depressed, or ex anxious and trying to get healthy and trying to be healthy? What's some strategies that you've seen in your years of working with these devices that you would want to pass on to these people to go, okay, going into this, it's a tool, not an obsession and how do you how do you counsel people to use it so they don't go down those pathways?
David Hopper (11:33.718)
Well, one of the absolute easiest ways to use that is to just say, Hey, put me as your physician on your on your data and I will look at your data for you and I'll tell you what you need to know. Right? I will I will alert you when you're overworking, I will talk to you about your sleep when we need to talk to you about those kinds of things, right? And we'll and we'll work through it like that. so that way you don't have to see it at all. You're just
wearing the aura ring or you're wearing the whoop strap and that information just goes to your goes to your physician, goes to your you know health health care provider, health coach, whatever it is. that's a very simple way. obviously there's cost associated with that and we we might not all want to do that. so if you're not gonna do something like that, then I would just say first ask yourself, right? Always do this. First thing when you wake up.
Sit there and ask yourself, how do I feel today? How was my sleep last night? Right. And if you start tuning into your own body and asking yourself these simple questions, then when you look at your data and you go, and you're saying to yourself, man, I slept really great. And then you look at your data and you go, huh, that's weird. It says my sleep score was 60, but I felt like I slept better than I've slept in days, years.
whatever it is, that, you know, that's a lot more powerful. Then we can then we can start to ignore those things and we can start to value our subjective input a lot more. 'cause that that matters a whole bunch more, what we're feeling and we can train ourselves to put that as the primary.
Dr. Terry (13:22.938)
You know, Dr. Spencer brought up some earlier that, you know, people come in and go, Well, Doctor Google said this or Doctor Chat said this. How do you know, do you see the bell curve and where people are stopping they're they're not trusting themselves anymore and they're trusting these devices and how do you see us getting back to where we actually trust how we feel like we did before we even had these devices and these devices become something we can build trust with ourselves versus take it away?
Dr Spencer Baron (13:32.689)
Mm mm.
Dr Spencer Baron (13:51.73)
Mm-hmm.
David Hopper (13:53.454)
So again, it's gonna be right back to that, right back to that same idea of we're looking for we're looking for I I call it a morning subjective check-in, where you check in with yourself before you look at any of the objective data. that way when you start to see that what you're saying and what you're feeling is aligning with what's going on with these things, it reinforces your feelings rather than
rather than tells you what you should be feeling. Right. so and I think that that's where we can actually use wearable technology to reconnect with our bodies and start to trust these dashboard lights that our body's putting up again. you know, these these symptoms. We can start to trust these things again when we see that. When we see that, man, I felt like I slept great. And I can confirm that because my aura ring told me I slept great.
Dr Spencer Baron (14:34.562)
Mm.
Dr. Terry (14:51.698)
Right.
David Hopper (14:51.991)
Right. I felt like aga I I felt like I recovered well from my workout. And you know what? My ring said that my HRV climbed back up. Look at that. man, I I actually did recover from my workout. and that's where we can start to build that reconnection and we can start to prove to ourselves that, man, I do know what I'm talking about. It turns out that as Dr. Spencer said, right, these these thousands, millions of years that that we've been working on this system for,
We you know, it turns out that there was something to that. We did learn something along the way, right?
Dr Spencer Baron (15:29.888)
Dr. Dave, I think about back in the days of Star Trek, where you had that recorder that the doctor had that he would just wave over your body and how it would register whether you were ill or not and what was actually wrong. it seems like those that era is upon us as some of the things that are out there. So is there an
Dr. Terry (15:53.735)
I thought you were gonna say the Jetsons
Dr Spencer Baron (15:56.563)
the Jetsons, no, Star Trek, man. But the Jetsons too, right? But if there was a down would there be a downside to constantly being told something's wrong or you know, or that might be wrong? What do you what do you think about the stresses that would cause if that if you're depending on something every single moment of the day?
David Hopper (16:19.745)
absolutely. absolutely, right? our default is to go into into worry. Our default is to go into that that sympathetic right I wanna protect myself. and you know, whether that's toxins, traumas or thoughts in this case, right? we are gonna worry ourselves into a problem. I always I always like to say
especially this is a big one with you I got I got two young kids. I especially like to say this when my wife is worried about something going on with my kids. It's like to say, if you go looking for a problem, you're gonna find one, right? And and that doesn't really do us a lot of good majority of the time, right? 'Cause 'cause it as it turns out, our body has made it pretty darn far.
Right? humans have made it pretty darn far without all of this stuff. so so yeah, we don't always have to go looking for a problem. And if you are telling somebody that there is something wrong with them on a regular basis, they are going to manifest that, right? that will become their reality. that is that is absolutely part of it. And along the way, you're gonna turn somebody from
you know, somebody who might be a relaxed, healthy person into a essentially a worry war, right? Somebody who is constantly saying, my gosh, I have this going wrong. Look at what my watch is telling me today. I can't believe that, you know, this is a risk for cardiovascular disease. And then I look this up on Google and it's telling me that I need to go I need to go see a cardiologist and you know and and we can we can very easily spin spin down that way. so yeah, that that could be a that could be a huge downside. but
But I I don't see wearables as for the majority of us, I don't see wearables as being a a red alarm telling us that there's something wrong all the time. I see them more as that adjunct that is going to help us understand our body better.
Dr. Terry (18:28.132)
I wanna inject something for some and go back. You mentioned the word HR V, it should be the one that we pay attention to the most. Can you actually explain what that is for the layperson who sees that HRV and what the numbers should be for health you know, you see people in their twenties and their sixties and with numbers. Can you ac actually just dive in a little deeper on what HRV is?
David Hopper (18:49.261)
Yeah, absolutely. so heart rate variability is going to be looking at the moment to moment difference between each heart beat. So like on an on an EKG recording, that's that big spike, right? We're looking at we're looking at the time difference between each of those spikes. And the more variance that we have, so the bigger the difference in time from one to the next to the next, the more
space we have for adaptability essentially. And that's not just you know, that's not just adaptability to any one thing. That is our nervous system's ability to adapt to any change that is placed upon our physiology. Right. So whether that be some kind of internal threat, whether that be some kind of external threat, right? Our ability to adapt to that change is strongly based on how variable our heart rate is or isn't. And that means that
That means that the larger the variability or the higher your HRV, the easier we can adapt to any stressor that is placed on our body. Right? whereas the opposite is also true. The less variance we have, that says our nervous system is that less that it will take that much more time, or it'll be that much more difficult for our body to adapt to those changes. so I like to think about it like like holding a stack of bricks.
Right, where if you're just walking around with one little brick weighing you down, right? And I like to call these things life metrics. one little brick weighing you down, it's very it's very easy to adapt to any change in your environment, right? so like you know, say say somebody asks you a question or tries to joke with you, it's no problem when you're holding one little brick, right? But then say there's more life that is dropped into your lap, right? So if you take things like you
you know, your spouse, you take things like your kids, you take things like your finances, you take things like your your practice, right? All these bricks. Now you're carrying this huge load of bricks. And when something else comes into your environment and tries to disrupt you, right? It's a lot more difficult to be flexible. Right? If somebody tries to joke with you, jokes aren't funny anymore, right? they're just annoying. if if your kids want to play with you, right? It's really difficult to play when you're carrying this huge load of bricks, right?
David Hopper (21:16.905)
So I like to think about it that way because it gives people a a much better mental picture of what's going on. so you can think the higher your HRV is, the lighter your load of bricks, right? The lower your HRV is, the larger that load of bricks is.
Dr. Terry (21:33.308)
So how do we get rid of these bricks for people that have a low number? And and and how do we train our HRV?
David Hopper (21:35.833)
Yes, I
So it's not necessarily about getting rid of the bricks, right? Not necessarily about getting rid of the bricks. it's it's about learning how to balance them and play while you're while you are balancing them, right? so so that's tuning the autonomic nervous system. and a lot of that is vagal stimulation, a lot of that is you know, a lot of that is lifestyle medicine. and do you guys want to know something crazy?
Dr Spencer Baron (22:10.284)
Yes.
David Hopper (22:10.325)
If you measure and I and I may have told you guys this before, but if you measure a patient's heart rate variability before a chiropractic adjustment and immediately after, it almost doubles. Right? Which which means that you can go from carrying bricks like this that are weighing you down, you get your chiropractic adjustment, and you and all know how you feel after that, you go, right? And then that load of bricks turns to a load of styrofoam, right? You're like, huh, all right.
Dr Spencer Baron (22:30.809)
Okay.
David Hopper (22:39.117)
This is no problem anymore. Right? so it's it's kind of crazy, but we see that huge increase in vagal tone immediately after a chiropractic adjustment, which is really cool. and then how long that lasts? Well, as you guys know, it's different for every single patient.
Dr Spencer Baron (22:59.01)
I actually read research a long a while back on cervical manipulation and its effects on blood pressure. So it i there is validation in what you're saying. I really like that. That's cool. Let me ask you, this is this is not a rapid fire question, but it could be. W if if if there was if we took two people
David Hopper (23:06.797)
Yes.
David Hopper (23:13.527)
Y yes, absolutely.
Dr Spencer Baron (23:27.412)
A twenty-five year old a twenty-five year old and a seventy-five year old that had no technology, you know, and that the twenty-five year old did. Who do you think would actually understand their body better?
David Hopper (23:43.179)
I in a twenty five year old. a twenty five year old who's never been exposed to technology in their entire life, like a twenty five year old from the nineteen fifties.
Dr Spencer Baron (23:52.49)
Well, yeah, let's go with that.
David Hopper (23:54.01)
so so a a twenty five year old from the nineteen fifties would probably understand their body a whole lot better. a twenty-five year old a twenty-five year old nowadays, who has a wearable would actually probably have better insight into their own physiology. because again, right, we're we're put into this
this dogma that we don't quite understand our bodies. and and once we have these devices, we begin to understand our bodies. And I think that young people are doing a really good job of using the technology in a positive way. Meaning that they're checking in with their bodies and they're beginning to understand, right, that that when I feel like this, this is what my watch tells me. When I feel like this, this is what my watch tells me. Right.
So they're beginning to make those connections and and I think that's really great. I think it's very powerful and I think it is beginning to to bring back that connection.
Dr Spencer Baron (24:59.724)
Well, that's a surprise. I'm glad to hear you say that. Cause you get these kids checking on their phones all the time. And every s it it seems like, you know, these apps are coming out much more technological. Ones that you can check heart rate by putting, you know, there's an accessory where you put your two fingers on there and you could check your heart rate. I find it hard to believe, but it supposedly it's pretty accurate.
David Hopper (25:24.632)
Yes.
Dr Spencer Baron (25:25.822)
A lot of that technology has become so sophisticated. Imagine what the robots will be able to do, huh? All right, Dr. Dave, let me ask you, if everyone everyone that was listening on the show right now took off every wearable device for one week, what would you tell them to pay attention to that they probably wouldn't have noticed in years?
David Hopper (25:32.693)
It
David Hopper (25:53.452)
Yeah, well I I start with the thing that we all do the most that impacts our health our most the most, which is breathing. so I would tell everybody to pay attention to the way that they are breathing. it during the day is huge. so that is the posture of your mouth, your lips, your jaw, are you breathing through your mouth, your nose, where is your tongue at in your mouth when you're breathing? what's your posture like?
when you're sitting, when you're standing, are you allowing your diaphragm to move properly when you're breathing? And then almost most importantly, how are you breathing when you're sleeping? 'cause that is one of the largest impactors on your health. when we get into things like not not even necessarily obstructive sleep apnea. but but when we talk about things like just simply snoring and what an impact that is on your health,
Dr Spencer Baron (26:32.074)
Yeah.
David Hopper (26:50.869)
as so many people believe that that is a sign of great sleep, right? and in fact that's a that's a huge red flag that you're having a a very big problem breathing actually while you're sleeping. so so that that is what I would focus on. I would tell everybody to turn towards breathing, right? What's what's happening there?
Dr Spencer Baron (27:01.964)
Yeah.
Dr Spencer Baron (27:10.914)
Interesting. Hmm. Anything else? Or is that?
David Hopper (27:16.745)
well next to breathing would be sleep. those are those are my that's my health hierarchy. so how how are you breathing, number one, and then how are you sleeping? And as I tell all my patients, it's a it's a simple if you're not breathing well, right, then anything else that we try to do for the remainder of your health for the remainder of your body, it's just gonna be like spinning your wheels, right? We're gonna we might see a little bit of progress.
Dr Spencer Baron (27:21.09)
Yeah.
David Hopper (27:43.908)
But we're never gonna get you to optimal health unless we solve this breathing problem. And then next would be sleep, right? If you're not if you don't have quality sleep going on, then it's gonna be the same thing, right? That's just the next major thing. If we don't have you sleeping long enough, if we don't have the quality of your sleep high enough, then again, we're never going to get you to a point where you can achieve optimal health. Right. And then from there we can talk about things like, you know.
nutrition, we can talk about things like movement, we can talk about things like habits, we can do all of that, right? But I but sleep and breathing are will always be the two highest things on my list. and that's obviously a lot what I focus on in practice as well. and and I use HR V as a as a large guide for a lot of that.
Dr Spencer Baron (28:31.796)
And probably worth repeating, but
sleep as far as quality, not quantity. Because I I always find it funny how people go, I did I put eight hours in and still tired. Or or the vice versa, somebody slept is able to sleep for three or four hours and be sharp as attack all day long, you know. So quality, but to get quality and good breathing, you know, there's there's do you have any suggestions for, you know, what someone could do as preparation for a
Good night's sleep and a good HRV reading the next morning.
David Hopper (29:11.007)
Yes, I'm in pardon me, I feel like I'm gonna cough. so the first thing is is I like to go through a what I call a sleep hygiene checklist with all my patients. So this is something that is what you these are the things that you're doing all day long that are going to impact your sleep for that night. Okay, so so we're talking about
Everything from the moment you wake up, what are you doing, right? what are you putting in your mouth? what are what are you doing with your body? until all the way before, you know, those couple hours before we get to sleep, and that's where you start to break into what is called your sleep routine, which is those things that be that happen within a couple hours of bed that are going to cue your body into being ready for bed, right? It's gonna start to cue your body to begin to release that melatonin.
get you ready for sleep that is going to come. And then and then if we're nailing all these things throughout the day, then by the time we get to actually sleep, we should be able to have sleep onset come relatively quick. We should be able to see that we that we stay asleep throughout the night. We can see our sleep architecture throughout the night should be in a should be in a a a relatively good pattern. and and
Yes. then hopefully the next day we're waking up more refreshed saying, All right. All right. I I had a great night's sleep. I feel wonderful. and your HRV would also reflect that.
Dr Spencer Baron (30:50.252)
Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. Hey Terry, how about we get into the rapid fire questions, huh?
Well, hopefully Dr. Hopper got some good sleep, quality sleep and his HRV is in prime order, 'cause I got question number one out of five for you. Are you ready? All right. Imagine you lose every wearable you've ever owned tomorrow morning. You can only teach someone three things.
David Hopper (31:14.125)
Yes.
Dr Spencer Baron (31:24.768)
to help them understand what their body is trying to tell them. What are those three things?
David Hopper (31:31.716)
Hmm. All right. well what are those three things? I would say I would say let's go with when you wake up in the morning, how are you feeling? and and I would and I would teach people that if you are feeling ready to go, let's let's take on the world.
Then you did some great things for your body the day before, possibly days before. and you did some great things you know in preparation for sleep. Your sleep environment was really good, right? so so that would be that would be the first thing that I would that I would tell them about about their health s or about a symptom that they can that they could say. the next would be about when they wake up in the morning, if they have
dry throat, if they have if they have irritation in their throat, feel like they're hacking anything up, right? anything like that, even a burning in the back of their throat, then that would be a indication for me that somebody is is sleeping with their mouth open, probably a snorer, probably has some level of obstructive sleep apnea. something along those lines that is a big highlight for me that that would say you
you know, you need to pay attention to what you're doing here. I might recommend something like mouth taping. then then the final thing that I would recommend is or the final thing that I would look at is how much fun are you having in life?
Right. are we feeling really good? are we having a great time? Do we feel like we're on point with everything? you know, are we smiling every day? Are we making our kids happy? Are we making ourselves happy? you know, are we living a fulfilled life? cause 'cause that would be an indication that your heart rate variability along with all of your other metrics would be going in the right direction and you would be thriving in life.
Dr Spencer Baron (33:33.43)
Very good. So much for rapid fire. Okay. So but I will ask I will ask you to please you mentioned just a kind of a quick thing on mouth taping. I wanna be real clear to the audience. Mo he said mouth taping if you're breathing through your mouth instead of your nose. What is mouth taping? I'll give you ten seconds to explain it.
David Hopper (33:36.181)
sorry.
Dr. Terry (33:36.476)
Yeah.
David Hopper (33:58.966)
Yes, so mouth taping is not taping your mouth shut like you're being taken hostage. It is a small piece of tape from that there actually is a brand called hostage tape. I what horrible marketing, right? but but it's a small strip of tape right here over your lips, so from the bottom of your nose to the bottom of your top lip, or I'm sorry, to the bottom of your bottom lip, and that just holds your mouth closed.
closed while you're breathing so you can have proper oral posture. It forces you to breathe through your nose. There's also a wonderful brand out there. It's called Myotape and I have no association with them. And that just goes around your mouth. Doesn't work so well on people with beards like me. But it enforces your orbicularisorus muscle and just pushes your lips together. So it doesn't actually go over your lips. A lot more people, a lot of people are more comfortable with that because it doesn't feel like you're taping your mouth closed.
But yeah, but it forces proper breathing at night. and people love the way they feel in the morning.
Dr. Terry (34:59.868)
So my wife taking duct tape and wrapping my entire face is probably not the right way to do it. Sorry. Yeah, probably. Shut up.
Dr Spencer Baron (35:00.204)
Very cool.
David Hopper (35:05.047)
Well that depends what you're doing it for, Doctor Terry.
Dr Spencer Baron (35:08.514)
That's probably 'cause you talk in your sleep.
Dr Spencer Baron (35:17.74)
All right, question number two. I'm still laughing about hostage tape. How did they come up with that? Question number two, when you were when your career is over, what do you hope people say you changed? Not what you discovered, but what you what you have changed for them.
David Hopper (35:23.0)
Hey.
David Hopper (35:36.502)
Yeah, quality of life. quality of life is is is the biggest thing that I want to I want to be remembered for. a lot of the work that I do I get the most amazing feedback. i can I give an example real quick. I had a patient who just I just saw her again on Tuesday and she is in her later sixties, she had a stroke and she was suffering from a trigeminal neuralgia.
Dr Spencer Baron (35:52.352)
Yeah.
David Hopper (36:05.175)
She hadn't been able to kiss her husband in over 10 years. And after one session, she didn't have the neuralgia pain and she was able to kiss her husband. She said he was leaving for a fishing trip and he was gonna miss his flight because he was so excited that he was able to kiss her again. And it's stuff like that that is just
Dr Spencer Baron (36:27.228)
David Hopper (36:31.179)
Sends you over the moon, right? so yes, quality of life.
Dr Spencer Baron (36:31.862)
That's cool. Yeah.
Terry, don't let Michelle listen to this. She'll have some ideas and show up with trigeminal neuralgia tomorrow. Question number three, Dr. Hopper. What's one belief you've held with absolute conviction that you later realized you were completely wrong about?
David Hopper (36:56.442)
Does this have to be health related?
Dr Spencer Baron (37:01.346)
Unless unless your wife had trigeminal neurology. Yeah. No, no, no, I'm kidding.
Dr. Terry (37:01.936)
No.
David Hopper (37:06.809)
Yeah, hm. well, I don't know. This is this is a this is a a a difficult one. well here, not health related, but you know, I'm from Chicago area and I thought Chicago style pizza was absolutely the best kind of pizza you could eat. and have. And it and don't get me wrong, I'm not backing down on that.
But New York style pizza is really good as well. I really do enjoy New York style pizza, so I can't I can't say that Chicago style is above it. It all depends on your mood.
Dr Spencer Baron (37:47.299)
Thanks for sharing. I think the I think I would have gluten overload if I had either of those two pieces. All right. Question number four. When you're stressed, overwhelmed, or life just gets hard, man, what is your body usually trying to tell you that you tend to ignore?
David Hopper (38:12.257)
Yeah, my body is usually trying to tell me that I should, you know, rest, take a day off. and and I have a really hard time doing that. I have a really hard time well the same problem as you Spencer. I have the same problem where I can't I can't not wake up in the morning and go work out. and I don't know how to do a light day.
Dr Spencer Baron (38:40.386)
Right, yeah. Well, I don't know, for some it's for some that's not a problem, man. It's it's a it's a blessing, but it gets a little challenging sometimes. Try to go on vacation and do nothing. That's even more scary, right?
David Hopper (38:55.435)
It is, yeah. My wife wants me to leave
Dr Spencer Baron (38:58.722)
All right, last question, number five. If your if your twenty-five year old self walked into this room today, what do you think he'd thank you for? And what would he tell you you're still getting wrong?
David Hopper (39:17.273)
Huh. Well first of all I'd slap him across the face.
but what what would I thank him for or what would he thank me for?
Dr Spencer Baron (39:25.395)
Yeah.
Dr Spencer Baron (39:31.148)
Well, what would he thank you what would he thank you for and then what would he tell you you're still getting wrong?
David Hopper (39:37.588)
He would he would thank me for for continuing on with my education, even when I even when I thought that that I was gonna be a professional athlete for the rest of my life. he would say he would say, Man, it's a great thing you listened to your mom and stayed in school. and and and you know, I think
Dr Spencer Baron (39:56.227)
There you go.
David Hopper (40:03.723)
I don't know. I I think you'd be pretty pretty happy that that I made some of the decisions I did. Like like my wife I think I'm really happy with and my whole life in general. I'm I I do have to say I'm I'm really darn happy about and I think my twenty five year old self would go, Way to go, man. So I
Dr Spencer Baron (40:22.05)
That's great. That's good stuff.
Dr. Terry (40:23.664)
Alright, I got I got I got one more before we finish up, Doc. You spent no you spent about ten years writing a book that you just released and it the the link will be in our description. In that ten years of writing this book, what in a quick elevator speech, what's the one thing you learned from writing this book that other people need to know?
Dr Spencer Baron (40:27.19)
Yeah.
David Hopper (40:27.64)
Yeah.
David Hopper (40:48.149)
that is without a doubt, it is how to get in touch with your body and how to listen to your body better and trust those signals that your body's sending you. so it is it is all about is all about that exactly, right? how do I how do I use something like a wearable to build trust in my body rather than rather than use a wearable and
get freaked out and build anxiety and and lose trust in myself.
Dr. Terry (41:22.342)
Yeah, what doc, I just wanna say thank you for your time and if this resonates with anybody that's bought a wearable and just stares at it and doesn't know how to use it or is obsessed with it and doesn't know how to listen to their body and they need a manual of ha of interpretation on either side, yeah, it's nice that they have something they can go whether they wanna, you know, purchase it or talk to you, it's something that that I think people need to to learn more.
And this is you're seeing everybody walk around with them. I just don't think everybody knows how to use So thank you for thank you for the time you spent with us today.
David Hopper (41:58.52)
Yeah, thank you guys. thank you very much. I appreciate you guys having me back. It was great to see you both.
Dr Spencer Baron (42:04.425)
Absolutely, buddy. Thank you.
Your smartwatch tells you that you slept great. Your heart rate is normal, your stress score is low.
But you still feel exhausted. Or or maybe your watch says you're having a terrible recovery day, yet you feel like you could run a marathon. Who's right? Who is right here? Have we reached a point where the trust piece of technology, mo more than the signals of our own body, has, I mean, which has spent millions of years learning to send us? Today we're asking one of the biggest questions in modern healthcare: Are wearables helping us reconnect with our bodies?
Or replacing our ability to listen. Welcome back to the show, Dr. David Hopper. How are you doing, buddy?
David Hopper (00:46.933)
Hey guys, great to see both of you again. Great to be back on here. So thank you so much for having me. I'm I'm excited to have a great conversation with you all today.
Dr Spencer Baron (00:56.855)
Well, let's start with first things first. Dave, if you had to choose, now I don't mean to put you on the spot right in the starting blocks here, but if you had to choose one, would you rather someone become an expert at reading their own body or become an expert at reading the data on their smartwatch? And why?
David Hopper (01:17.557)
Yes. well I I think there's a very clear winner here. so reading the data on your smartwatch you know, will will tell you very little about yourself. it's and and we're not all that great at at reading that data anyway. because that data is relatively meaningless unless we have some kind of subjectivity attached to it. so
If you don't understand your own body, that data is useless, right? and and that's what we wanna do is we wanna get people to fully connect with their own body. We wanna get people back to a place where they understand the signals that their body is sending them. and where they can connect with their own body again. And that's the easiest way to care for yourself. It's the easiest way to create optimal health and well being.
Dr Spencer Baron (02:17.891)
So we understand marketing is magnificent these days, and yet 50 years ago when people knew that they were tired or stressed or overworked or getting sick, they just they just knew it. They felt that way. But nowadays people don't even trust, they they don't trust what they're feeling, and they're basing their their experiences on that data. I mean, now how did how did that change an opinion?
You know, i how did that change their opinion?
David Hopper (02:50.935)
So, Dr. Spencer, it's twofold. one is one is largely that we don't spend much time in our bodies anymore or working with our bodies anymore. You know, where we used to be a lot more laborsome of a society, and and we've gotten out of touch with our bodies where we're mostly just using our minds for work, which arguably is great, right? in some regards, but we've lost touch with our own bodies and and
We don't really understand what our body is saying anymore. as a result of that. So that's one big piece of it. another big piece is that we've also been taught that we don't understand this machine anymore. Right? we've been taught that there is only a certain group of people who wear white jackets and stethoscopes, and those are the only people who really understand what's going on with our body. And we have
no idea what's happening inside of this thing, even though we live with it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, right? so we've been we've been taught that in a lot of ways too and and unfortunately a lot of us have taken that bait
Dr Spencer Baron (04:06.754)
Although I will say a lot of people these days aren't trusting the men in white coats and stethoscopes. I'm just saying
David Hopper (04:15.001)
Fortunately fortunately we are making a move in the right direction. I agree, yes.
Dr Spencer Baron (04:21.374)
A and even nowadays it's it's all about Doctor Google, right? Patients come in, they go, I looked up my symptoms on chat and th I go, God, here we go. Right, Terry?
Dr. Terry (04:30.116)
Right.
Yeah. absolutely. And you know, on that note, yeah, we were I remember when the cell phone and and Spencer remembers this when they first came out, be even before the internet. that this is gonna simplify your life. And then the internet, this is gonna make things so much easier. And it's gotten so much more complicated and now we're just bombarded with information. And you got people glued to their phone because they're become obsessed with information. You have a conversation before the you're
questions even out, people are looking up the answer, you know, they you know, there is no, you know, sit and wait anymore. And and with that, with this bombardment information, in your opinion, what's the symptom that just keeps hitting us that we ignore?
David Hopper (05:19.597)
well I mean there's there's a there's a ton of those of those symptoms that that keep hitting us that we keep ignoring. but but but you're you're right on though. we we we can just look anything up and and I and I'm sure you guys get very frustrated with that as well, right? If you plug in any symptoms that you're having right now
It can match up with just about any disease that you want it to out there, right? You can make it as big of a deal or as little of a deal as you want. And and you can keep diving down that rabbit hole, right? With Chat GPT, like, well, I'm having this symptom. Well, it could be this. Well, what else would I notice if it was this? And it could be this, right? And then you keep going down that rabbit hole and by the time you're you're all the way down there, you're like, I need to go to the emergency room right now, right? And it was just a cough. but but hey, that's you know,
But yes, as far as and Dr. Terry, I believe what you're asking was about biggest symptoms that we're ignoring from our bodies. and and I mean, you know, I think fatigue is a huge one. fatigue, lack of sleep, lack of quality sleep, these are these are huge symptoms that our body is sending us all the time. And and we are just ignoring this nonstop, right? and part of that is that we've been taught to push through a lot of these things.
And kind of ignore these things. and I know especially people of you know, of my generation and and even more so of of older generations have been taught that, you know, any sign of tiredness, fatigue, that's weakness, right? you just push right through that. but it's a different type of fatigue that is that is hitting us nowadays. It's not a physical fatigue, right? It's a mental fatigue. It's a fatigue from sitting like this all day and using the wrong muscles when you're breathing.
It's a fatigue from your brain not working properly because you're sitting with improper posture. You're breathing improperly all throughout the day because you're scrunched up like this on a computer, right? in positions that our body was never meant to be in for extended periods of time, especially. So so those are some things that that without a doubt we are we are completely ignoring nowadays. and we are just pushing through. We're taking ibuprofen when we get a headache.
David Hopper (07:41.482)
we're drinking drinking more coffee when we're tired, right? we're we're just pushing right on through all those warning signs that our body is giving us. And that's what I do like to look at those as. Those are our warning signs, those are our dashboard lights coming on when we do have symptoms like that pop up.
Dr. Terry (08:01.574)
All right. So on that note, I mean sometimes you you know, we'll get these patients coming in, they get a new smartwatch, they get a new ring, a new wearable of some kind, and there's so much data available to them. W what is y and they go, Well, what do I look at? What's this HR V? What's this heart rate? What's this oxygen sleep? You know, am I re am I ready for the day? Am I not ready for the day? Did I sleep good? You know, they get overwhelmed and sometimes they just ignore it all. They just wear it as a watch again. So, you know
Or they wear it as a ring and th they don't even pay attention anymore. What's the symptom do you think is being ignored the most that for a new person with a wearable should start focusing on to help them integrate their brain back to their listening to their body?
David Hopper (08:45.613)
Yeah, I so I I might be a little bit biased, but I don't I don't think I'm completely biased. in that I think heart rate variability is gonna be your most important signal. because that's looking at everything that your autonomic nervous system is doing. So we're looking at fatigue with that, we're looking at you know, possible exposure to pathogens, we're looking at you know, if your body's overworked, we're looking at sleep quality, we're looking at breathing quality, right? we're looking at
all of these things in one when we measure heart rate variability because that is a measure of how your autonomic nervous system is functioning. So if we understand that and it's actually not that difficult of a metric to understand, it's basically are you staying about the same or a little or a little above? You're doing great, right? Are you falling below your norm? And that might be a signal that something is starting to go wrong or just that you're challenging yourself, right? depending on how we are
and what's going on in our life. that would be one of the easiest things. But you're right. These these watch companies, these these and don't get me wrong, all all of these wearable companies are doing amazing things. but it is too much information and it does start to create an anxiety in a lot of people where you look at this and you go, man, my sleep score is in the sixties every single day.
And rather than that being cue to say, let's go look at why, it's it just keeps beating you down and it's defeating you. And you say, you know what, I'm just gonna stop looking at this, right? And then what gets worse is you look at you know your quote unquote readiness score from say Aura, and then you also have Apple Watch, and you look at you know your data on that one, and it tells you two completely different things, and then you're left there going.
Well, which one do I believe? Right. And never do you check back and say, Well, how do I feel? Right? but rather it's which of these smart devices that are supposed to be so much smarter than me is telling me the right information. Right. so so we have all this going on throughout there.
Dr. Terry (11:03.706)
What's some strategies for the person that may have an addictive personality or may be borderline, depressed, or ex anxious and trying to get healthy and trying to be healthy? What's some strategies that you've seen in your years of working with these devices that you would want to pass on to these people to go, okay, going into this, it's a tool, not an obsession and how do you how do you counsel people to use it so they don't go down those pathways?
David Hopper (11:33.718)
Well, one of the absolute easiest ways to use that is to just say, Hey, put me as your physician on your on your data and I will look at your data for you and I'll tell you what you need to know. Right? I will I will alert you when you're overworking, I will talk to you about your sleep when we need to talk to you about those kinds of things, right? And we'll and we'll work through it like that. so that way you don't have to see it at all. You're just
wearing the aura ring or you're wearing the whoop strap and that information just goes to your goes to your physician, goes to your you know health health care provider, health coach, whatever it is. that's a very simple way. obviously there's cost associated with that and we we might not all want to do that. so if you're not gonna do something like that, then I would just say first ask yourself, right? Always do this. First thing when you wake up.
Sit there and ask yourself, how do I feel today? How was my sleep last night? Right. And if you start tuning into your own body and asking yourself these simple questions, then when you look at your data and you go, and you're saying to yourself, man, I slept really great. And then you look at your data and you go, huh, that's weird. It says my sleep score was 60, but I felt like I slept better than I've slept in days, years.
whatever it is, that, you know, that's a lot more powerful. Then we can then we can start to ignore those things and we can start to value our subjective input a lot more. 'cause that that matters a whole bunch more, what we're feeling and we can train ourselves to put that as the primary.
Dr. Terry (13:22.938)
You know, Dr. Spencer brought up some earlier that, you know, people come in and go, Well, Doctor Google said this or Doctor Chat said this. How do you know, do you see the bell curve and where people are stopping they're they're not trusting themselves anymore and they're trusting these devices and how do you see us getting back to where we actually trust how we feel like we did before we even had these devices and these devices become something we can build trust with ourselves versus take it away?
Dr Spencer Baron (13:32.689)
Mm mm.
Dr Spencer Baron (13:51.73)
Mm-hmm.
David Hopper (13:53.454)
So again, it's gonna be right back to that, right back to that same idea of we're looking for we're looking for I I call it a morning subjective check-in, where you check in with yourself before you look at any of the objective data. that way when you start to see that what you're saying and what you're feeling is aligning with what's going on with these things, it reinforces your feelings rather than
rather than tells you what you should be feeling. Right. so and I think that that's where we can actually use wearable technology to reconnect with our bodies and start to trust these dashboard lights that our body's putting up again. you know, these these symptoms. We can start to trust these things again when we see that. When we see that, man, I felt like I slept great. And I can confirm that because my aura ring told me I slept great.
Dr Spencer Baron (14:34.562)
Mm.
Dr. Terry (14:51.698)
Right.
David Hopper (14:51.991)
Right. I felt like aga I I felt like I recovered well from my workout. And you know what? My ring said that my HRV climbed back up. Look at that. man, I I actually did recover from my workout. and that's where we can start to build that reconnection and we can start to prove to ourselves that, man, I do know what I'm talking about. It turns out that as Dr. Spencer said, right, these these thousands, millions of years that that we've been working on this system for,
We you know, it turns out that there was something to that. We did learn something along the way, right?
Dr Spencer Baron (15:29.888)
Dr. Dave, I think about back in the days of Star Trek, where you had that recorder that the doctor had that he would just wave over your body and how it would register whether you were ill or not and what was actually wrong. it seems like those that era is upon us as some of the things that are out there. So is there an
Dr. Terry (15:53.735)
I thought you were gonna say the Jetsons
Dr Spencer Baron (15:56.563)
the Jetsons, no, Star Trek, man. But the Jetsons too, right? But if there was a down would there be a downside to constantly being told something's wrong or you know, or that might be wrong? What do you what do you think about the stresses that would cause if that if you're depending on something every single moment of the day?
David Hopper (16:19.745)
absolutely. absolutely, right? our default is to go into into worry. Our default is to go into that that sympathetic right I wanna protect myself. and you know, whether that's toxins, traumas or thoughts in this case, right? we are gonna worry ourselves into a problem. I always I always like to say
especially this is a big one with you I got I got two young kids. I especially like to say this when my wife is worried about something going on with my kids. It's like to say, if you go looking for a problem, you're gonna find one, right? And and that doesn't really do us a lot of good majority of the time, right? 'Cause 'cause it as it turns out, our body has made it pretty darn far.
Right? humans have made it pretty darn far without all of this stuff. so so yeah, we don't always have to go looking for a problem. And if you are telling somebody that there is something wrong with them on a regular basis, they are going to manifest that, right? that will become their reality. that is that is absolutely part of it. And along the way, you're gonna turn somebody from
you know, somebody who might be a relaxed, healthy person into a essentially a worry war, right? Somebody who is constantly saying, my gosh, I have this going wrong. Look at what my watch is telling me today. I can't believe that, you know, this is a risk for cardiovascular disease. And then I look this up on Google and it's telling me that I need to go I need to go see a cardiologist and you know and and we can we can very easily spin spin down that way. so yeah, that that could be a that could be a huge downside. but
But I I don't see wearables as for the majority of us, I don't see wearables as being a a red alarm telling us that there's something wrong all the time. I see them more as that adjunct that is going to help us understand our body better.
Dr. Terry (18:28.132)
I wanna inject something for some and go back. You mentioned the word HR V, it should be the one that we pay attention to the most. Can you actually explain what that is for the layperson who sees that HRV and what the numbers should be for health you know, you see people in their twenties and their sixties and with numbers. Can you ac actually just dive in a little deeper on what HRV is?
David Hopper (18:49.261)
Yeah, absolutely. so heart rate variability is going to be looking at the moment to moment difference between each heart beat. So like on an on an EKG recording, that's that big spike, right? We're looking at we're looking at the time difference between each of those spikes. And the more variance that we have, so the bigger the difference in time from one to the next to the next, the more
space we have for adaptability essentially. And that's not just you know, that's not just adaptability to any one thing. That is our nervous system's ability to adapt to any change that is placed upon our physiology. Right. So whether that be some kind of internal threat, whether that be some kind of external threat, right? Our ability to adapt to that change is strongly based on how variable our heart rate is or isn't. And that means that
That means that the larger the variability or the higher your HRV, the easier we can adapt to any stressor that is placed on our body. Right? whereas the opposite is also true. The less variance we have, that says our nervous system is that less that it will take that much more time, or it'll be that much more difficult for our body to adapt to those changes. so I like to think about it like like holding a stack of bricks.
Right, where if you're just walking around with one little brick weighing you down, right? And I like to call these things life metrics. one little brick weighing you down, it's very it's very easy to adapt to any change in your environment, right? so like you know, say say somebody asks you a question or tries to joke with you, it's no problem when you're holding one little brick, right? But then say there's more life that is dropped into your lap, right? So if you take things like you
you know, your spouse, you take things like your kids, you take things like your finances, you take things like your your practice, right? All these bricks. Now you're carrying this huge load of bricks. And when something else comes into your environment and tries to disrupt you, right? It's a lot more difficult to be flexible. Right? If somebody tries to joke with you, jokes aren't funny anymore, right? they're just annoying. if if your kids want to play with you, right? It's really difficult to play when you're carrying this huge load of bricks, right?
David Hopper (21:16.905)
So I like to think about it that way because it gives people a a much better mental picture of what's going on. so you can think the higher your HRV is, the lighter your load of bricks, right? The lower your HRV is, the larger that load of bricks is.
Dr. Terry (21:33.308)
So how do we get rid of these bricks for people that have a low number? And and and how do we train our HRV?
David Hopper (21:35.833)
Yes, I
So it's not necessarily about getting rid of the bricks, right? Not necessarily about getting rid of the bricks. it's it's about learning how to balance them and play while you're while you are balancing them, right? so so that's tuning the autonomic nervous system. and a lot of that is vagal stimulation, a lot of that is you know, a lot of that is lifestyle medicine. and do you guys want to know something crazy?
Dr Spencer Baron (22:10.284)
Yes.
David Hopper (22:10.325)
If you measure and I and I may have told you guys this before, but if you measure a patient's heart rate variability before a chiropractic adjustment and immediately after, it almost doubles. Right? Which which means that you can go from carrying bricks like this that are weighing you down, you get your chiropractic adjustment, and you and all know how you feel after that, you go, right? And then that load of bricks turns to a load of styrofoam, right? You're like, huh, all right.
Dr Spencer Baron (22:30.809)
Okay.
David Hopper (22:39.117)
This is no problem anymore. Right? so it's it's kind of crazy, but we see that huge increase in vagal tone immediately after a chiropractic adjustment, which is really cool. and then how long that lasts? Well, as you guys know, it's different for every single patient.
Dr Spencer Baron (22:59.01)
I actually read research a long a while back on cervical manipulation and its effects on blood pressure. So it i there is validation in what you're saying. I really like that. That's cool. Let me ask you, this is this is not a rapid fire question, but it could be. W if if if there was if we took two people
David Hopper (23:06.797)
Yes.
David Hopper (23:13.527)
Y yes, absolutely.
Dr Spencer Baron (23:27.412)
A twenty-five year old a twenty-five year old and a seventy-five year old that had no technology, you know, and that the twenty-five year old did. Who do you think would actually understand their body better?
David Hopper (23:43.179)
I in a twenty five year old. a twenty five year old who's never been exposed to technology in their entire life, like a twenty five year old from the nineteen fifties.
Dr Spencer Baron (23:52.49)
Well, yeah, let's go with that.
David Hopper (23:54.01)
so so a a twenty five year old from the nineteen fifties would probably understand their body a whole lot better. a twenty-five year old a twenty-five year old nowadays, who has a wearable would actually probably have better insight into their own physiology. because again, right, we're we're put into this
this dogma that we don't quite understand our bodies. and and once we have these devices, we begin to understand our bodies. And I think that young people are doing a really good job of using the technology in a positive way. Meaning that they're checking in with their bodies and they're beginning to understand, right, that that when I feel like this, this is what my watch tells me. When I feel like this, this is what my watch tells me. Right.
So they're beginning to make those connections and and I think that's really great. I think it's very powerful and I think it is beginning to to bring back that connection.
Dr Spencer Baron (24:59.724)
Well, that's a surprise. I'm glad to hear you say that. Cause you get these kids checking on their phones all the time. And every s it it seems like, you know, these apps are coming out much more technological. Ones that you can check heart rate by putting, you know, there's an accessory where you put your two fingers on there and you could check your heart rate. I find it hard to believe, but it supposedly it's pretty accurate.
David Hopper (25:24.632)
Yes.
Dr Spencer Baron (25:25.822)
A lot of that technology has become so sophisticated. Imagine what the robots will be able to do, huh? All right, Dr. Dave, let me ask you, if everyone everyone that was listening on the show right now took off every wearable device for one week, what would you tell them to pay attention to that they probably wouldn't have noticed in years?
David Hopper (25:32.693)
It
David Hopper (25:53.452)
Yeah, well I I start with the thing that we all do the most that impacts our health our most the most, which is breathing. so I would tell everybody to pay attention to the way that they are breathing. it during the day is huge. so that is the posture of your mouth, your lips, your jaw, are you breathing through your mouth, your nose, where is your tongue at in your mouth when you're breathing? what's your posture like?
when you're sitting, when you're standing, are you allowing your diaphragm to move properly when you're breathing? And then almost most importantly, how are you breathing when you're sleeping? 'cause that is one of the largest impactors on your health. when we get into things like not not even necessarily obstructive sleep apnea. but but when we talk about things like just simply snoring and what an impact that is on your health,
Dr Spencer Baron (26:32.074)
Yeah.
David Hopper (26:50.869)
as so many people believe that that is a sign of great sleep, right? and in fact that's a that's a huge red flag that you're having a a very big problem breathing actually while you're sleeping. so so that that is what I would focus on. I would tell everybody to turn towards breathing, right? What's what's happening there?
Dr Spencer Baron (27:01.964)
Yeah.
Dr Spencer Baron (27:10.914)
Interesting. Hmm. Anything else? Or is that?
David Hopper (27:16.745)
well next to breathing would be sleep. those are those are my that's my health hierarchy. so how how are you breathing, number one, and then how are you sleeping? And as I tell all my patients, it's a it's a simple if you're not breathing well, right, then anything else that we try to do for the remainder of your health for the remainder of your body, it's just gonna be like spinning your wheels, right? We're gonna we might see a little bit of progress.
Dr Spencer Baron (27:21.09)
Yeah.
David Hopper (27:43.908)
But we're never gonna get you to optimal health unless we solve this breathing problem. And then next would be sleep, right? If you're not if you don't have quality sleep going on, then it's gonna be the same thing, right? That's just the next major thing. If we don't have you sleeping long enough, if we don't have the quality of your sleep high enough, then again, we're never going to get you to a point where you can achieve optimal health. Right. And then from there we can talk about things like, you know.
nutrition, we can talk about things like movement, we can talk about things like habits, we can do all of that, right? But I but sleep and breathing are will always be the two highest things on my list. and that's obviously a lot what I focus on in practice as well. and and I use HR V as a as a large guide for a lot of that.
Dr Spencer Baron (28:31.796)
And probably worth repeating, but
sleep as far as quality, not quantity. Because I I always find it funny how people go, I did I put eight hours in and still tired. Or or the vice versa, somebody slept is able to sleep for three or four hours and be sharp as attack all day long, you know. So quality, but to get quality and good breathing, you know, there's there's do you have any suggestions for, you know, what someone could do as preparation for a
Good night's sleep and a good HRV reading the next morning.
David Hopper (29:11.007)
Yes, I'm in pardon me, I feel like I'm gonna cough. so the first thing is is I like to go through a what I call a sleep hygiene checklist with all my patients. So this is something that is what you these are the things that you're doing all day long that are going to impact your sleep for that night. Okay, so so we're talking about
Everything from the moment you wake up, what are you doing, right? what are you putting in your mouth? what are what are you doing with your body? until all the way before, you know, those couple hours before we get to sleep, and that's where you start to break into what is called your sleep routine, which is those things that be that happen within a couple hours of bed that are going to cue your body into being ready for bed, right? It's gonna start to cue your body to begin to release that melatonin.
get you ready for sleep that is going to come. And then and then if we're nailing all these things throughout the day, then by the time we get to actually sleep, we should be able to have sleep onset come relatively quick. We should be able to see that we that we stay asleep throughout the night. We can see our sleep architecture throughout the night should be in a should be in a a a relatively good pattern. and and
Yes. then hopefully the next day we're waking up more refreshed saying, All right. All right. I I had a great night's sleep. I feel wonderful. and your HRV would also reflect that.
Dr Spencer Baron (30:50.252)
Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. Hey Terry, how about we get into the rapid fire questions, huh?
Well, hopefully Dr. Hopper got some good sleep, quality sleep and his HRV is in prime order, 'cause I got question number one out of five for you. Are you ready? All right. Imagine you lose every wearable you've ever owned tomorrow morning. You can only teach someone three things.
David Hopper (31:14.125)
Yes.
Dr Spencer Baron (31:24.768)
to help them understand what their body is trying to tell them. What are those three things?
David Hopper (31:31.716)
Hmm. All right. well what are those three things? I would say I would say let's go with when you wake up in the morning, how are you feeling? and and I would and I would teach people that if you are feeling ready to go, let's let's take on the world.
Then you did some great things for your body the day before, possibly days before. and you did some great things you know in preparation for sleep. Your sleep environment was really good, right? so so that would be that would be the first thing that I would that I would tell them about about their health s or about a symptom that they can that they could say. the next would be about when they wake up in the morning, if they have
dry throat, if they have if they have irritation in their throat, feel like they're hacking anything up, right? anything like that, even a burning in the back of their throat, then that would be a indication for me that somebody is is sleeping with their mouth open, probably a snorer, probably has some level of obstructive sleep apnea. something along those lines that is a big highlight for me that that would say you
you know, you need to pay attention to what you're doing here. I might recommend something like mouth taping. then then the final thing that I would recommend is or the final thing that I would look at is how much fun are you having in life?
Right. are we feeling really good? are we having a great time? Do we feel like we're on point with everything? you know, are we smiling every day? Are we making our kids happy? Are we making ourselves happy? you know, are we living a fulfilled life? cause 'cause that would be an indication that your heart rate variability along with all of your other metrics would be going in the right direction and you would be thriving in life.
Dr Spencer Baron (33:33.43)
Very good. So much for rapid fire. Okay. So but I will ask I will ask you to please you mentioned just a kind of a quick thing on mouth taping. I wanna be real clear to the audience. Mo he said mouth taping if you're breathing through your mouth instead of your nose. What is mouth taping? I'll give you ten seconds to explain it.
David Hopper (33:36.181)
sorry.
Dr. Terry (33:36.476)
Yeah.
David Hopper (33:58.966)
Yes, so mouth taping is not taping your mouth shut like you're being taken hostage. It is a small piece of tape from that there actually is a brand called hostage tape. I what horrible marketing, right? but but it's a small strip of tape right here over your lips, so from the bottom of your nose to the bottom of your top lip, or I'm sorry, to the bottom of your bottom lip, and that just holds your mouth closed.
closed while you're breathing so you can have proper oral posture. It forces you to breathe through your nose. There's also a wonderful brand out there. It's called Myotape and I have no association with them. And that just goes around your mouth. Doesn't work so well on people with beards like me. But it enforces your orbicularisorus muscle and just pushes your lips together. So it doesn't actually go over your lips. A lot more people, a lot of people are more comfortable with that because it doesn't feel like you're taping your mouth closed.
But yeah, but it forces proper breathing at night. and people love the way they feel in the morning.
Dr. Terry (34:59.868)
So my wife taking duct tape and wrapping my entire face is probably not the right way to do it. Sorry. Yeah, probably. Shut up.
Dr Spencer Baron (35:00.204)
Very cool.
David Hopper (35:05.047)
Well that depends what you're doing it for, Doctor Terry.
Dr Spencer Baron (35:08.514)
That's probably 'cause you talk in your sleep.
Dr Spencer Baron (35:17.74)
All right, question number two. I'm still laughing about hostage tape. How did they come up with that? Question number two, when you were when your career is over, what do you hope people say you changed? Not what you discovered, but what you what you have changed for them.
David Hopper (35:23.0)
Hey.
David Hopper (35:36.502)
Yeah, quality of life. quality of life is is is the biggest thing that I want to I want to be remembered for. a lot of the work that I do I get the most amazing feedback. i can I give an example real quick. I had a patient who just I just saw her again on Tuesday and she is in her later sixties, she had a stroke and she was suffering from a trigeminal neuralgia.
Dr Spencer Baron (35:52.352)
Yeah.
David Hopper (36:05.175)
She hadn't been able to kiss her husband in over 10 years. And after one session, she didn't have the neuralgia pain and she was able to kiss her husband. She said he was leaving for a fishing trip and he was gonna miss his flight because he was so excited that he was able to kiss her again. And it's stuff like that that is just
Dr Spencer Baron (36:27.228)
David Hopper (36:31.179)
Sends you over the moon, right? so yes, quality of life.
Dr Spencer Baron (36:31.862)
That's cool. Yeah.
Terry, don't let Michelle listen to this. She'll have some ideas and show up with trigeminal neuralgia tomorrow. Question number three, Dr. Hopper. What's one belief you've held with absolute conviction that you later realized you were completely wrong about?
David Hopper (36:56.442)
Does this have to be health related?
Dr Spencer Baron (37:01.346)
Unless unless your wife had trigeminal neurology. Yeah. No, no, no, I'm kidding.
Dr. Terry (37:01.936)
No.
David Hopper (37:06.809)
Yeah, hm. well, I don't know. This is this is a this is a a a difficult one. well here, not health related, but you know, I'm from Chicago area and I thought Chicago style pizza was absolutely the best kind of pizza you could eat. and have. And it and don't get me wrong, I'm not backing down on that.
But New York style pizza is really good as well. I really do enjoy New York style pizza, so I can't I can't say that Chicago style is above it. It all depends on your mood.
Dr Spencer Baron (37:47.299)
Thanks for sharing. I think the I think I would have gluten overload if I had either of those two pieces. All right. Question number four. When you're stressed, overwhelmed, or life just gets hard, man, what is your body usually trying to tell you that you tend to ignore?
David Hopper (38:12.257)
Yeah, my body is usually trying to tell me that I should, you know, rest, take a day off. and and I have a really hard time doing that. I have a really hard time well the same problem as you Spencer. I have the same problem where I can't I can't not wake up in the morning and go work out. and I don't know how to do a light day.
Dr Spencer Baron (38:40.386)
Right, yeah. Well, I don't know, for some it's for some that's not a problem, man. It's it's a it's a blessing, but it gets a little challenging sometimes. Try to go on vacation and do nothing. That's even more scary, right?
David Hopper (38:55.435)
It is, yeah. My wife wants me to leave
Dr Spencer Baron (38:58.722)
All right, last question, number five. If your if your twenty-five year old self walked into this room today, what do you think he'd thank you for? And what would he tell you you're still getting wrong?
David Hopper (39:17.273)
Huh. Well first of all I'd slap him across the face.
but what what would I thank him for or what would he thank me for?
Dr Spencer Baron (39:25.395)
Yeah.
Dr Spencer Baron (39:31.148)
Well, what would he thank you what would he thank you for and then what would he tell you you're still getting wrong?
David Hopper (39:37.588)
He would he would thank me for for continuing on with my education, even when I even when I thought that that I was gonna be a professional athlete for the rest of my life. he would say he would say, Man, it's a great thing you listened to your mom and stayed in school. and and and you know, I think
Dr Spencer Baron (39:56.227)
There you go.
David Hopper (40:03.723)
I don't know. I I think you'd be pretty pretty happy that that I made some of the decisions I did. Like like my wife I think I'm really happy with and my whole life in general. I'm I I do have to say I'm I'm really darn happy about and I think my twenty five year old self would go, Way to go, man. So I
Dr Spencer Baron (40:22.05)
That's great. That's good stuff.
Dr. Terry (40:23.664)
Alright, I got I got I got one more before we finish up, Doc. You spent no you spent about ten years writing a book that you just released and it the the link will be in our description. In that ten years of writing this book, what in a quick elevator speech, what's the one thing you learned from writing this book that other people need to know?
Dr Spencer Baron (40:27.19)
Yeah.
David Hopper (40:27.64)
Yeah.
David Hopper (40:48.149)
that is without a doubt, it is how to get in touch with your body and how to listen to your body better and trust those signals that your body's sending you. so it is it is all about is all about that exactly, right? how do I how do I use something like a wearable to build trust in my body rather than rather than use a wearable and
get freaked out and build anxiety and and lose trust in myself.
Dr. Terry (41:22.342)
Yeah, what doc, I just wanna say thank you for your time and if this resonates with anybody that's bought a wearable and just stares at it and doesn't know how to use it or is obsessed with it and doesn't know how to listen to their body and they need a manual of ha of interpretation on either side, yeah, it's nice that they have something they can go whether they wanna, you know, purchase it or talk to you, it's something that that I think people need to to learn more.
And this is you're seeing everybody walk around with them. I just don't think everybody knows how to use So thank you for thank you for the time you spent with us today.
David Hopper (41:58.52)
Yeah, thank you guys. thank you very much. I appreciate you guys having me back. It was great to see you both.
Dr Spencer Baron (42:04.425)
Absolutely, buddy. Thank you.