Podcast Transcript
Josh Nichols
All right, Dr. Justin Ternes. Resilience isn’t about avoiding discomfort. It’s about feeling through it. What do you mean feel through it?
Justin Ternes
Yeah, so grateful to be on the show. Thanks for having me. Excited to talk about stress, resilience, mental performance, breathing. So resilience comes from finding that edge of discomfort. And to create growth, you must go into the edge. It’s called hormesis. It’s called the sweet spot of stress. So when you have too little stress, you’re not getting enough stimulation for growth. Too much stress is excess, it can be damaging to the physiology of the body. But the sweet spot, it’s called hormesis. So in hormesis, that means that you’re stimulating adaptation, recovery, resilience. And so to get into it, you gotta feel a little uncomfortable. But that’s again where you create that growth capacity.
Josh Nichols
So hormesis, I’ve never heard that term before. Is that something that kind of we get into like cold exposure, cold plunge sort of you’re pushing yourself not too far but not too little. Is that what you think about like a primary source of hormesis would be like a cold plunge?
Justin Ternes
Yeah, absolutely. So stress can be broken down in, well, I think about stress as psychophysiological stress. We have mental stress, we have physical stress, we have environmental stress. So there’s a lot of ways in which we can be stressed. So an example could be difficult conversation with a friend or a partner or coworker or a coach or an athlete. That difficult conversation needs to happen, but it doesn’t feel good, not just mentally, but in the physical body, you get tense.
And so you can create adaptation. The more of those difficult conversations you have, the more easy it gets. You become more adaptable to that. So you’re creating growth. So there can be hormesis in the mental and emotional space. But then if you look at the physiological components, exercise, pushing weight, building muscle, hypertrophy. You do way too many reps, you’re not gonna build as much muscle. You don’t do enough reps, you’re not gonna build as much muscle. Same thing with cold exposure. I love ice baths. It’s one of my passions. And everyone’s asking, like, how long do I go? What temperature is right? And what I break it down to, one that’s individualized. How do you adapt? How do you feel in the cold? Usually there’s quite a wide variety of time and temperature, but we look at time and temperature ratio. Thirty-two degrees, ice cubes everywhere, you’re not going to be in there as long. You can be in that very cold extreme ice bath for 45 seconds and get a really good dose of benefit. But then 45 seconds in 60 degree water, you’re not even going to touch that. So time to temperature ratio is the more extreme, the less time you need. And then the more temperature a little bit warmer you get or a little bit less freezing you get, the longer you get to stay in. So for me, I’ve done the extreme ice bath. I love the extreme ice bath. Like two minutes, three minutes, turn on warrior mode, go for seven minutes in the 32 degree environment. It’s pretty gnarly. But that was like five years ago. Now my current cold exposure practice has shifted because I’ve understood, I don’t need that. I actually find a perfect dose of stimulation in 55 degree, 50 degree water. It’s not as cold, not as intense, but I’m in there for eight minutes. I’m in there for 10 minutes. A little bit longer. That gives me more space to work with my breath, to calm my nervous system, shiver, I get to shivers, then I just re-engage, refocus, calm down the mind. So I found my personal sweet spot, 50 degrees, eight minutes. Love that.
Josh Nichols
What is that? I guess first off, I don’t know if you know this off the top of your head. You know, in like a typical household shower, obviously we have it, I don’t know what, a hundred degrees or something. Like really warm and normal in a normal shower. So when you crank it all the way to cold, it feels ice cold. It’s not, would you, I don’t know, would this be different, I guess, depending on where you live? It would, like what do you think I could be expecting that temperature to be? Is that like fifty, sixty degrees, somewhere in there? Probably.
Justin Ternes
Yeah, you can it, it varies so much by where you’re at. I’m from northwest Arkansas and it’s June right now, I’m pretty hot, so the cold shower doesn’t get cold enough. I’m like, come on, like I wish it got a little bit colder. That’s probably pumping out at sixty-five degrees. So it’s still cold enough to like shock you and not be comfortable and I still do it. But when I first got into cold exposure, Wim Hof method, breathing. I was in physical therapy school in New Hampshire, right outside of Boston, and it was February. And February tap water in New England. I temperature checked it because I was filling my bathtub and I was doing the morning cold plunge every day. That was 42 degrees tap. So I didn’t need to buy ice and I was set. And that is where I really turned on all kinds of layers of nervous system, mental capacity, every like wires in my brain turned on that hadn’t been turned on. My ADHD chilled out and I became more clear, present. So that’s when I was hooked. But it was because of that temperature being so extreme in the winter in New England. Contrast to here in Arkansas summer. The cold shower is something I use just to feel good, kinda get me going, but I wouldn’t consider it a form of hormesis or enough stimulation to get in there.
Josh Nichols
Yes, right. Right, not really pushing yourself. So what is it about the, you know, you’re shivering and you use your breath to work that back down into not shivering. What value does that have for, obviously it’s a very physiological thing, but what value does that have for mental, psychological, you know, you’re doing that as a way to train yourself for something difficult. What translation does that have for the psychological difficulty of the thing you’re training for?
Justin Ternes
Yeah, so I love the mind-body communication component. And this is something I developed through working with patients in physical therapy space, pain. Pain comes from the body, it hurts, it turns on your alarm system, your brain, your thinking brain gets activated, and you can either panic or communicate back down to the body. I’m good, I’m safe. Yes, things hurt, but it’s not forever.
So there’s this fear response that comes with pain, and you can communicate your way through it. Now you’re not gonna talk yourself, I’m not a believer of self-affirmations that are BS and not true or not valid. I’m confident and you actually have zero confidence, but you’re saying I’m confident, that’s fake, and your body’s gonna detect that and you won’t speak yourself into confidence. But if you actually feel confident and you re-regurgitate that information back into your body and feed it to yourself. I am confident, I feel confident, I got this. Those are self-affirmations grounded in truth. So there is a very strong correlation between the mental communication into the body. So it’s called top-down. So how you talk from your brain to your body, top-down communication, and then there’s bottom-up communication, which is pain, hurt, and then you’re registering. So it’s stimulation from your environment, and then you’re registering it up into the brain. And so that’s there’s a constant communication that’s happening. And so when you’re shivering and you’re in an ice bath and you’re uncontrollably shivering, and you say, I’m warm, everything’s fine, you’re probably gonna continue to shiver because you’re not actually warm and everything’s not really fine. You’re in a really cold environment and your body thinks that it’s unsafe. But if you shift the verbiage to be a little bit more, I say, rooted in reality, a little more grounded. Yes, it’s cold, but I got this. Yes, it’s cold, but I create heat. My body’s doing what it needs to do. It’s cold, but I’m not in here forever. One more minute. So you’re self-affirming and also you’re connecting to the reality of the environment. Like reality, I will get hypothermia if I’m in here for 30 minutes, but I’m only going 30 more seconds. Okay, cool. And then all of a sudden that mental awareness makes its way into your nervous system, into your body, and it creates a calmness. And whenever your body’s calm, then all of a sudden the shivering can dissipate because you’re more safe. But the shivering is unconscious, involuntary response to keep you alive. But then as soon as, it’s fascinating and it’s a trick and it’s a practice. Some people have it and I’m like with friends doing a cold plunge and they’re shivering uncontrollably. I’m like, hey, just tell yourself to calm down, they’re like, that doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. So it takes some mental fortitude, it takes some practice, takes belief as well, power of the placebo, and then guess what? Environment will come back in and you start to shiver again. So I can be in the most cold environment and shiver and then mentally talk my way into calm relaxation. But that’s only going to last for so long before I start to shiver again if the environment requires that.
Josh Nichols
Right. So when you’re in an environment psychologically that makes you quote unquote psychologically shiver, what, you know, when I say that quote unquote psychologically shiver, what would be the psychological version of shivering in a, like can you, you know, this is mental golf show, so golf scenario, you’re coming down the stretch, you’re playing well, you’re in contention to win, you know, you’re tied with the guy you’re playing against. What about those situations? Like what would be psychological shivering that you need to communicate with?
Justin Ternes
Well, you might be able to feel it right now. I can feel it. You’re putting a visualization of clutch, high necessity to perform. As you were describing that scenario, my heart rate elevated just slightly. I felt a little tension in my stomach. Right? That’s the example of the mental accessing the physical and touching the physical. And so, the mental game is everything when it comes to that connection. And the positive, you can like work with it, or the reality is like, dang, okay. High-level connection. And there’s your breath work right there. Just breathe in the moment, reset. The breath is the bridge between the mind and the body. It’s the regulator, it’s the nervous system toggle switch. You know, you can activate the inhale. It stimulates the body ever so slightly, activate the exhale, elongate. It can calm and turn down the sympathetic system accessing parasympathetic. So I find it fascinating how visualization is embodied. And there is no separation of mind and body, right? The brain is just an extension and the body is an extension of the brain. So I’m a true believer. And for the listeners who are thinking about that putt or yips, you have the yips, and you’re hyper aware of your swinging and you’re thinking about 20 different things. When you’re in your thinking space, and then you enter addressing the shot, and you’re still in the thinking brain, then you’re already behind. So how do you, a huge practice in golf is how do you clear? How do you set yourself up for mental, like, okay, I know what I’m gonna do. So that as soon as I step over the ball, I’m not still thinking. I’m in my body. But that’s hard. It’s very hard and there’s a reason why golf is a mental game.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Is it a fair expectation or should it be an expectation to be clear all the way through the golf ball? Kind of be mentally clear. If I’m not mentally clear then something’s up. I need to back off and get clear and stay clear all the way through impact. Like is that a fair expectation?
Justin Ternes
I wouldn’t say it’s a fair expectation. The brain is a thinking organ. It’s made to think, it’s made to assess, it’s made to analyze and it’s analyzing an infinite amount of information, wind, temperature, color, texture. You’re taking in the environment and in a game like golf, you’re in the environment and all those little details matter. So you’re clear minded, everything’s great, you stand over the ball and the wind shifts. Right, so thinking’s gonna pop back in. Or you look out and instead of seeing like clear fairway, there’s like a goose on the, like, you know, something’s in there. And so okay, so what do you do? You can reset in that moment and just go for it and disregard those little details that aren’t important enough for you to attach to, or you can step off the ball, reset, clear. But you have to work with that. And I think so. Here’s a problem with meditation and the concept of meditation. I teach a lot of golfers, these practices, athletes, and when I do group or team settings, team environments, how many of you meditate? No hands go up. How many of you have tried meditation and it didn’t work? Every hand goes up. We try it. We try it, but it doesn’t work. Why does it not work? ‘Cause our brain’s going and we have an idea of what meditation is versus the reality of what meditation is. So I like to help people understand meditation doesn’t mean quiet the brain, turn off the thoughts, and enter this space of peace and bliss. Because that’s really hard to obtain. And it usually is not obtainable. And you try it and you’re like, I don’t get it, and then you throw meditation out the window. Meditation mindfulness, you can, sometimes the word meditation turns people off instantly. So mindfulness. I love mindfulness. I don’t meditate. Right. But for me, meditation can be that clearing of the mind and entering deep presence in the moment. Absolutely. But my practice of meditation is active, breathing, thinking about my posture, my ribs. I am a physical therapist and a breathwork instructor. So I am thinking about my body all the time. I’m thinking about the connection between mind and body all the time. But it comes with a really great benefit. I can shift from busy mind to clear mind really quickly. But it’s the process and the time that you get there. So the meditation isn’t that space of clarity. It’s the process and the journey by which you, okay, re-come back into the breath. Brain starts to wander, come back into the moment. And so the more you practice meditation, not sit still, be quiet. Like my meditation is twisting, moving, shaking things off. I’m like, okay, back. And then I try to find stillness again. That’s a little better. And thoughts arise. Okay, let me move my body, let me do a little bit more breathing, moving, and then find stillness again. See if I can lengthen that moment of calm a little longer. And then again, body turns on and you’re like, what are you doing? Why are you sitting there? What’s going on? Monkey brain, shake it out, and then back in. So for me, my meditation practice is that activation, movement, purposeful stillness. And same thing with breath. Yeah.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Yeah, maybe to summarize, it’s less about control over thoughts and it’s more about response to thoughts. Is that fair?
Justin Ternes
Yes. Yes. And focusing not on thoughts but on sensations. So shifting because the brain only has enough capacity to pay attention to a few things, right? So if you’re thinking and you’re thinking and you’re aware of your thinking, you’re disconnected from the physical body. But if you’re, you know, stretching your hands, twisting your spine and you’re thinking about the physical body and you’re rubbing your feet, and right now I feel my hips in the chair. So my mind’s awareness is really into the physical. And I think meditation gets mistaken as only a mental thing. But my most powerful meditations are I feel the chair. And if I’m not feeling the chair, I shift my weight. And I’m like, okay, there is the chair. Right? I feel my feet. Well I haven’t felt my feet in like an hour or days. Like I’m not connected to my toes. Well wiggle your toes. Now you feel your toes, right? Shift your weight. Plant your legs, your feet into the ground. Create like strength, not just in your toes, activating a little bit, but your calf muscles turned on. And then now, so my feet are actually planted. They say root down into the ground, into the earth. And you’re like, what the heck does that mean? Well, guess what? Bring your energy low. Try to make yourself heavier. When you try to make yourself heavier, notice that the glutes kind of activate, hamstrings turn on. You can turn on purposefully the calf muscles. You’re doing it right now, all right? And so now you’re more activated. And then maybe there’s a little bit of effort, and you’re like, I can’t do this forever. Well, then now we’ll relax out of that purposeful physical strength. Now you’re relaxed, but add a tiny bit of tone. So you can activate all the way in the legs, physical body, relax all the way, and then add like a rootedness.
Josh Nichols
This is so cool because it’s like it’s almost like you’re kind of gaining mastery over your body. Or maybe not, maybe mastery kind of brings in a connotation of total control of everything, but just like a really healthy awareness of, I know what I’m feeling and I know when I’m feeling it, I know specifically where I’m feeling it. So at any point I can notice when something changes, right? When something feels, you know, parasympathetic or sympathetic, when something feels more, you know, aroused in like an intensity sort of way, I feel more nervous or is it anxious, right? On that scale of, you know, nervous is good, and then it tips over into anxiety and then it’s not so helpful. And I can notice these things, I can notice these changes. And that seems like the power of this is, it’s not can I get to a place where I never feel anything or I always feel blank or I always feel neutral. Because, you know, there’s a common thing with, you know, you watch a golf telecast and they’re always talking about players being even keeled and we seem to all think that that’s a valuable trait to be even keeled. You know, you don’t want to know how a player is playing externally, right? You want to see them be able to, you can’t tell if they’re five over or five under because of how even keeled they are. Is there something wrong with that kind of line of thinking, the idea of being even keeled, like suppressing emotion, that sort of thing? What do you think?
Justin Ternes
So I think even keeled and suppressing emotions quite different. And I like even keeled because that’s like neutral, neutral mind. And that’s what I go for is neutral mental and also like the nervous system is naturally made to adapt to stimulation and then calm down, fluctuate. So neutral gives space for a little bit of fluctuation and you should expect fluctuation. And whenever you push things down, emotions. I think the best athletes, and I study top performers, elite performers, top athletes in their mental game, as I’m sure you do, and what I see is that they don’t push emotions away. They feel it, they process it, they understand it, they connect to it. Where do emotions live? In the body. Emotion, energy, and motion. So they’re connecting to what they’re feeling, letting it go, coming back to heightened emotion, coming back to neutral. Neutral mind, which allows you to be present. In presence comes performance. And so I’m thinking, and I’m still connected to my feet that I was activating earlier, right? And just around that thought and that practice, because it’s quite useful. And it’s so simple, but meditation usually is like a mental practice. And again, I’m bringing into physical. I like the term mindfulness because you think about mindfulness. It’s not mind listness or mind emptiness. It is mind full. You’re full. Your mind should be filled, not with thoughts, but with feeling, with sensation, with emotion. Emotion comes with the physical. Emotion’s kinda funky with males, particularly. Like, I don’t feel emotion. I don’t know how to feel emotion. There’s this weird like, what is that? And I’ve done a lot of, yeah, we bring, I like the emotional intelligence component and I think more we understand actually what that is. It’s similar to meditation. We have a concept or an idea of what it is and we actually kind of don’t know. Emotions are the same. Like we pushed them around or suppressed them enough that we kind of don’t have that connection. So that’s the side mindfulness is bringing your mind full and the best way is get into the physical, especially for men get into the physical body, move, shake, and that connection opens up that neutral mind. Because your body’s always neutral. Your mind will fluctuate way more than the body. And this is your steady grounded space. So I do a lot of studying on breath and heart rate variability. So HRV. And there’s really cool correlations between, HRV is a funky one too, because we all hear about it. We kind of don’t, we don’t even know what it means. You’re like, I heard about it, and what’s a high, high HRV is good. Low HRV is bad, but variability, so you want a lot of variability, wouldn’t you want like low variability for your steadiness. So steadiness should come from your breath. Steadiness from the breath. Creates nervous system calm, parasympathetic control, which gives the heart freedom to beat at a slightly different depth and time between each beat. So steadiness of the heart would be low heart rate variability, low HRV would mean your heart is like a metronome. It’s, but that means the heart is rigid and it’s kind of protective. And if anything in the environment throws off the heart, it’s gonna like shake. And then you’re gonna like shake and be like, what the heck? And you’re gonna be thrown off and then your heart’s gonna like, what was that? What’s that? Steady. So then if you shift into slow breathing. Every inhale increases your heart rate ever so slightly because every inhale is activating. And then every exhale is relaxing. So that variability of breath, every inhale, that creates a little bit more of a faster heartbeat on the inhale, a little slower heartbeat on the exhale. And that’s where the good variability comes from. Now, I think there’s a sweet spot. We talk about low HRV and high HRV, and everyone wants a high HRV, but there’s this high, high HRV that we actually don’t want where it’s like random and chaos, right? We want this heart rate variability that is in synchronicity with the breath, and that is called respiratory HRV. RHRV, which means that your heart and your lungs are in sync, and your heart is responding to your lungs and trusting your lungs, and that’s how you find neutrality. Back to even keel. You’re connected to your breath, you’re giving your body a little bit more pliability of the nervous system.
Josh Nichols
Yes. So we’ve got a theme going here. Neutrality or calm or steadiness is not zero blips on the radar. It’s, fluctuation is neutral, almost as if to say we want fluctuation or at the very least we should expect fluctuation with heart rate variability. Respiratory heart rate variability, we expect and want fluctuation. Not fluctuating is unhealthy, so or too little. And same goes for a round of golf. Same goes for psychological. We expect fluctuation. So, should we seek psychological fluctuation? Or is it like whether you seek it or not, it’s gonna happen. Of course, you’re going to experience highs, you’re gonna experience the lows. It’s less about making fluctuation happen, and it’s more about how you respond to the fluctuation. Is that fair to say?
Justin Ternes
I say we seek it and we train it. We learn it. We put ourselves in difficult football practice, basketball practice. I think basketball practice popular, football practice popular. Crank up the music for free throws, end of practice, turn on the stimulation. So the athlete has to learn how to shoot with crazy like crowd noise, football, kicker, turn on the crowd noise. Teammates like all around him like yelling at him, getting in his head. So that’s training in it, in military, military. It works. But sometimes it doesn’t work, right? You can train it and then you’re like, yeah, we’ve been doing this every day for two weeks and then game time comes, you have the final field goal and last and then you botch it. It’s like you train it, but guess what? Life will still life. Reality will still, it’s still hard. It’s still sports. It’s still life. And absolutely with the golf game. And so I think with even keel comes this expectation of, I want to be here. And then something in your round, one of your shots is off, and you’re supposed to be here, but you’re here, and then you get frustrated that you’re here and you should be here. And then the best golfers are here, but they’re not there. They’re fluctuating. And they’re knowing that, okay, so again, expectation of being this thing and then being in reality like pissed off and I’ve been working with Justin and we’ve been working on our breath work and calming and connecting and I’m still angry and pissed off. I’m a fiery guy. I love golf, tennis, basketball, I play pickup basketball and I’m kinda like aggressive on the basketball court and one dude was like, don’t you teach like meditation and anger management? And I was like, yeah, and he’s like, do you ever practice on yourself? And I’m like, no, this is where I clear it out. Like I’m out here being competitive, but I want to fluctuate and I love, I seek team sport. Basketball is a great place for me to like get testosterone out and flowing. And I’m like talking crap, getting in people’s faces. But it’s part of my own personal training because then I go up purposefully. I’m not out of control. There’s dudes that are out of control and they hang on to it and it creates suffering around it. For me, it’s like I can go at it with someone, end a game, high five, we’re good. And then it’s all, and then we’re clear. And I don’t carry it with me. Some days I carry it with me, and then I’m like, dang, why am I still holding that dispute from earlier? Here comes the breath. Here comes the shaking off. Here comes the practice. And it works most of the time, but it’s still human.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. I love that. Is there such thing as too much self awareness and too much mindfulness?
Justin Ternes
Yeah, it’s hyper awareness. I had a guy who was doing breath work training for me, with me. He’s golfer. When I work with athletes, I start super foundational. I start physical, I start with the foundations of breath, the movement of breath, breath tests, breath holding tests, lung capacity, nervous system, stress capacity. So I keep it really foundational for the first three weeks just to not overwhelm. I don’t want to do a lot of these fancy techniques or get someone into a new thing. Because as soon as we start to learn a little bit more about the impact of breathing and see some promise, then we can take it a little too far. And for a lot of golfers, I’m sure many listeners are guilty. You find something and then you get really fixated on it and then you’re fully in it and then you’re thinking and then it’s, and so exactly, not your listeners but other listeners, and so I had a golfer whose score went, just he tanked. And you can give people heads up, like, hey, start to play with your breath, it’s gonna be beneficial, but don’t get too much. They don’t and they’re like, and then he went, so he’s like, I’m like, how frequently are you thinking your breath? He’s like, every moment I’m thinking about my breath. He went all in way too far. And I was like, then the practice became okay, unlearn, release, let go. It’s not a fix. I saw one golfer interview where he had a great round, one of his best rounds. I can’t remember who it was. And he was in this post golf conference, and someone was like, what was it? And he said, I’ve been practicing my breathing. I’ve been working on it with a breath coach, and we’ve been calming my breath work down. And he’s like, my whole round today was dialed in. I was focused on my breath, focused on the moment. And he’s like, that’s the key. And then the next day, he was like, seven over. Doing the same breath, probably doing the same thing. But it, whenever things start to fall apart, you might, he might have, I don’t know, I wasn’t in his mind. But he might have been like, okay, it’s supposed to work. It worked yesterday. Breath was the key yesterday. Where’s the key? And then you get lost. And then that’s where you just have to go back to your foundation, back to your fundamentals, back to the biomechanics of golf, back to your sweet spot. That one cue that can help ground you. And it’s different for everybody.
Josh Nichols
Yes. Yeah, the hyper awareness usually comes with what is supposed to work, this should be, the supposed to’s and the shoulds, and the have to’s and the need to’s. That’s when you’re trying to control the fluctuation or trying to get there to be no fluctuation. Instead, I really like the book by Susan David, Emotional Agility. She talks about kind of, and there’s another book that I haven’t read yet, anti, anti-fragile, where you work with the difficulty to that it makes you stronger. And instead of my breath is supposed to be making all this difficulty go away. It’s supposed to make all this fluctuation go away. It’s supposed to make me at a zero arousal level and anything off of that is not good. I must be doing this wrong. So you go into fixed mode with, like you said, it’s not a fix. You go into fixed mode with your breath as a way to like, come on, I need to get down. I need to get down. Of course you’re not down. You’re, you know, you’re on the 70th hole of a 72 hole event in contention to win. You’re not going to be down. No amount of breathing is going to bring you down. You need to be okay being up, but then regulate down from there, not down to some other baseline. Is that fair to say?
Justin Ternes
Yeah, yeah. So you wanna find true baseline. Wait, maybe resting heart rate’s a great indicator of your baseline. So sixty beats per minute, sixty-five, fifty-five, fifty for a little bit more cardiovascularly fit individuals, but there’s your baseline. But then you’re walking and you’re upright and you’re moving and you’re playing golf and you’re sweating. Your baseline isn’t sixty, so your target isn’t sixty. You’re eighty-eight. So you have your 88 and then high pressure situation, you’re 110. Something happens, you have a great shot. And then you get excited. Excitability. Good. Go up to 150. Heart rate’s going, you’re good. You are breathing, calming the mind to come back to 110. Not down to 88, not down to 60, 110. That’s your present norm. That’s your performance norm. You can still perform great at that level, right? So there are tiers and there are layers and the more breath awareness, the more heart rate awareness you can find. Data collecting whoop band is super popular for good reason. Even Apple Watch, you can see and fluctuate how and notice your heart rate levels shifting. So finding familiarity in there, again you’re connecting to your body. It’s more focus on body. And in the body, I would say too, hyper-awareness can come from that. Hey, okay, out of my head into my body. What am I feeling in my body? That kind of hurts. This is going on. There’s a little hitch over here. Then you get hyper-fixated on those sensations, and that’s not quite neutral either. Right? So you’re not fluctuating, you’re getting stuck in the thinking of the body. And so then the third place you can bring your mind. One place to bring your mind, into the mind. How am I thinking? How am I feeling? What’s going on up here? The second place you can bring your mind into the body. How am I breathing? What’s my heart rate? Am I, my feet connected to the ground? Am I shifting my weight? And then the third space you can bring your mind, environment. Environment around you, color, texture, temperature. You’re likely getting more information from the environment than from your inner environment. Quite a bit of stuff is out there. And the things out there are likely more of a threat than the things in here. Except sometimes you believe that your thoughts are more of a threat. And that’s where you say, no, you know what? I’m safe. I’m good. And how can you communicate your brain you’re safe and you’re good? Just look around, right? We want to stay safe. We don’t wanna have a bear jump at us or scare us.
Josh Nichols
Okay. Yeah, so I can pick it back up. Yeah, the idea of it’s cold, but I got this, I think is a really cool one because we’re, anytime you’ve got that kind of hyper awareness going of, I can’t, I don’t like what I’m feeling. I don’t like what I’m experiencing. I don’t like what’s going on in the environment. I don’t like the thoughts that are in my head. You can always return, you can always kind of bring yourself back down to baseline by saying to, in some form of the phrase, it’s cold, but I got this. All right, I think that’s the psychological training of a cold plunge, of any kind of like difficult, physically difficult thing, like a long run is, yeah, I’m uncomfortable, but I’m okay. Like I’m uncomfortable, but I’m not gonna die. I know what it feels like to get closer and closer to hypothermia, but I’m okay. Right. It’s cold, but I got this. I’m uncomfortable, but I got this.
Justin Ternes
Yeah. You’re nailing it. And I think, and this is kind of how I’ve framed my own self-affirmation, mantra practice. And I think something’s clicking right now. It’s two parts. One, the situation. Align with the reality of the situation. I just hit a bad shot. And then the other reality of I’m good. I got this. Confidence. Like we can make the, we got this. One terrible shot. Maybe there’s a little space in the middle, breath. Let’s move forward. We’re cool. Or terrible shot. I’m still pissed off. I’m still pissed off. I’m good. All right, maybe three parts. You just gotta take those stair steps back. And so there is a concept I love. It’s called allostasis. And this is what I’ve named my mental performance breathwork coaching, allostasis performance, which is allostasis means stability through change. It’s your body’s natural mechanism to find that stable point through stimulation stress in your environment. And it was coined in 1987, looking at the nervous system and how the brain will predict, and then the reality will present, and then there’s a gap, and then how does your body adjust to that gap of prediction mechanism and reality? I predict I’m gonna hit a good shot, hit the perfect shot, allostasis. You’re in calm, you’re in good. Your body didn’t have to be like, what the heck happened? Predict a good shot, visualize a good shot, sweet, did all your perfect sleep, perfect prep, perfect warm-up. Nine holes in, you’re rough. Prediction, I’m gonna play great today. Reality, that was not good. Big gap, and that’s stress, that’s stimulation. Your body’s trying to adapt and figure that out mentally, but also physiologically. The mental feeds in the physiological. So whenever there’s a gap and your brain’s trying to piece those things together, the piecing of the things together requires energy. The more gap, the more piecing, the more energy calories you expend, which means the less calories you have to perform and be smooth. So there is that energetic emotional toll that actually adds up. Physiologically adds up. So it makes sense that if you’re having a rough day, at the end of the day, you sit back and you’re like, damn, I’m worn out. It was a grind. It was a mental grind, but the mental grind impacts the physiology because the mental is made of the physiology. It’s made of cells. It’s made of the metabolic system. It’s made of the mitochondria. And the mitochondria process energy, process breath, process emotion, and then can either do it efficiently. The better metabolic health, lifestyle medicine golfers are getting more fit physically to improve their metabolic capacity, metabolism, which helps the brain so you can process and move energy more quickly, efficiently. So allostasis is stability through change, but I see it as connection between nature and self. Homeostasis is balance in the body. We know homeostasis. We’ve learned that in school. When your body’s at homeostasis, you’re at calm in the body nervous system. Allostasis is connection between self and world around you. So when you’re sitting on the beach and everything’s peaceful and beautiful, your body naturally just feels calm and safe. That’s allostasis. That’s a great goal baseline to gain and get to. But that’s not the reality of the world, not reality of golf, stimulation. So you’re going from allostasis, which is peace and happiness, to what’s called allostatic load. You’re having a load from the environment that you have to breathe, communicate. Hey, prediction mechanism, I know you’re predicting good, and that didn’t happen. Communicating, breathing, tapping in the nervous system. And then also there’s something called allostatic load, allostatic overload. That’s usually when it comes to chronic stress. Chronic stress, chronic issues, you’ve been having trouble with your golf game for eight months. That’s beyond your mental game. That’s your physical. So try not get rid of, I don’t know. Keep working with your sports psychologist, but shift, maybe shift a little bit of your attention. You’re already in overload. You’re not gonna think your way through that issue. Get into the gym, get into the ice bath, get into the sauna, go for that long run, get out of your head as much as possible, and then come back up. Let’s see, okay, maybe you’re a little bit less physiologically loaded.
Josh Nichols
Hmm, that’s interesting. Allostasis sounds a lot like one of the, there’s kind of eight optimal conditions for flow state, and one of them is challenge skill balance. And so when you and your environment are super far off, you’re gonna be recognizing how stressful the environment is, but how much you wish it wasn’t, or it’s, you know, the environment is, this is way too difficult. This is way outside my skill level. And I am not able to find stability. I’m not able to match the environment with my arousal level or my skill. But in allostasis and it sounds like in flow, you correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like, when you’re able to match the environment with your skill level, when you’re able to meet the demands of reality, that’s allostasis and that’s flow. Do you see a connection between allostasis and flow?
Justin Ternes
Yeah, I think the more you’re in that, again, allostasis is a physiological term that means your body’s in that flow naturally. And the flow comes from the mental flow, but also the physiological sense of safety. I wanna be in a safe space. Hey, come to my yoga class. We’re in a safe space. Everything’s great. And you’re like sitting there, like, what the heck is this place? Like, I don’t know. Like, just because someone says, hey, this is safe, doesn’t mean that you actually feel it. Like, not at all. So the physiological felt sense of that calm and safety doesn’t come from like, ooh, safe. It’s like look around, take in your environment, and like notice. Allostasis with flow. Flow state, I think can either, I don’t know, proceed. So you can get into flow state, and then through flow state, then you start to lower down, and then you almost, flow state creates more flow state. So you’re in the flow. Like to get into flow state, you gotta get there and get into there. So you’re not just starting at allostasis. Everyone’s probably a little bit above, a little heightened, and then something good happens and you’re like, god, nice, dialed in. Something else could happen. You’re like, ooh, I’m in synchronicity, right? I’m in sync with the ball, in sync with, like your golf club feels like an extension of you, and you’re not thinking about anything. Guess what? Now we’re hitting clear mind. You gained and you earned that clear mind. And then you say, okay, I’m in clear mind. Now the goal is maintain. How long can I stay in clear mind? As long as possible. Let’s stretch it out. Let’s keep it going. But then you mentioned like reality. You’re like, I’m in flow state. I’m hitting birdie, I’m getting birdies. Let’s go. But I’m tenth. I want to win. I’m seven shots back with two holes left. Flow state. Okay, let’s go. Then all of a sudden, reality is, okay, acceptance. There’s a form of therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy. It’s really powerful because it helps people learn to accept that situation that is. I’m seven shots back, two holes left. But man, I’m feeling good. I’m in flow. You know what? This is fun. This is great. Like let’s just stay. Let’s just focus on the flow, not get hyper and pulled out of flow with the thinking, with expectations, with or unrealistic expectation. Back to flow. And guess what? You’re focused on flow and you just play as good as you can play. Birdie birdie. Dude shoots four under or four over. And then you’re like, you know, things happen.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Right. Focus on what you can control as a way to stay in allostasis, to stay in flow. So I’m curious. How should a golfer be thinking about breath like throughout an entire day of golf? Like pre round, first tee, between shots, pre shot routine, during the actual golf shot, post shot routine, post-round, in the car on the way home, does it change? Like should we be employing different kind of breathing tactics throughout this whole day of different environments and different situations? Is there like a, okay in pre round you probably need to be in this state, so you should be doing this kind of breath tactic. Is that how you think of it?
Justin Ternes
Yeah, absolutely and I love, we’re touching breath like forty minutes, forty five minutes in. It’s like we might need a round two because breath is, it can go so deep. I’m doing the breath science certification training currently and so like the rabbit hole, I already felt like I eclipsed the breath research world and then all of a sudden there’s a little bit more and there’s always studies and research coming out, so we can go even deeper into the breathing, but as far as application of breath, well, you can’t apply anything that you don’t practice and you don’t understand and you don’t use and train. So breath training is an important element. Not because the breathing technique feels good, it’s because you’re getting better at the breathing technique. So that you can be really dialed in and using your breath in the moment versus doing the thing kind of every now and then and then you do it in the moment and it doesn’t work. Well guess what? You didn’t refine it. So I’m talking about calm, slow, deep breath, right? Those are good principles to lower your respiratory rate, your heart rate, calm, slow, deep, deep breath in. Think about the physical expansion, calm, slow, let it go. Deeper, exhale than normal. So there’s layers of breath. A normal breath inhale, inhale deep, hold it. There’s your full breath, and then exhale gentle, let it go and hold it. So that’s your full breath. Go full all the way in. Now take a sip through the lips and fill up more and inflate more. Now inflate to your fullest and let it go. So your full breath isn’t your full, full, full breath. Let’s do that again. So inhale full, another sip, another sip, change your posture and let it go. Full breath isn’t your full full. So whenever you’re doing the technique and you’re slowing down your breathing, but you’re only breathing halfway in, halfway out, you’re not getting as much as you can. So breath training comes not with just techniques, but mechanics, breath capacity, breath holding, different layers. So I don’t give techniques to golfers until we do training, assessments, foundations, understanding. ‘Cause if you don’t know, I give you a technique and you don’t know why you’re doing it or what you’re doing, it’s not gonna work. And you’re like, I don’t know. Breath work didn’t work for me. And I’m sure a lot of people were like, yeah, I tried that breath technique and that didn’t work for me. Well guess what? I don’t think there’s an enough of an intimate connection with the understanding of the breath. And guess what? If you didn’t know that your lungs did that, then you’re not fully connected with your breath. And most people don’t know those little sips. Like, why are you breathing through your mouth? I read that mouth breathing is bad, nasal breathing is good. Well, guess what? Nasal breathing won’t get you that extra packing inhalation that likely activated nervous system slightly, got you buzzing, and increased your lung capacity. You’re not breathing like that all the time, but if you’re gonna breathe, one of my principles, calmer, slower, deeper. How do you breathe deeper? You just inhale deeper than normal. Now take a full breath. Don’t take the sips, but see if you can get all the way up there with one breath. It’s different.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, it is. There’s a ceiling that you hit, a different kind of ceiling. That’s interesting.
Justin Ternes
It’s another, yeah. So I say ceiling, attic. You go into the ceiling, but then there’s attic space. And then the same thing with the exhale, exhale gentle. And then hold on the bottom, floor, now basement, blow out the basement.
Josh Nichols
There’s always more.
Justin Ternes
There’s always more. So there’s two layers on the inhale, ceiling attic, two layers on the exhale. That deep layer. And so if someone says, hey, take a full breath, and you only go to that ceiling that you’re aware of, it’s not even there. Right. And then, hey, calm, exhale, let it go. But you didn’t even touch a little bit of the basement. You’re missing out on capacity. And then all of a sudden you’re gonna be disconnected from the body. So one more breath, this time that full breath without the sip, but try to get up to that sip level attic on the full and then do all the way to the basement. So all the way into the attic in. And then all the way to the basement to the bottom blow it out. One more attic in deep. And then exhale, relax, normal breath.
Josh Nichols
Yeah, you kind of get to the, you introduce fluctuation as a way to get to stasis. I love that.
Justin Ternes
Absolutely. Heart rate’s elevated. You breathe bigger than normal. Your ribs expanded more. Inside the rib cage is the vagus nerve that kind of controls the nervous system. So all of a sudden you breathe way bigger. Your nervous system, your vagus nerve is like, what the heck is this? And then you blew out more. And your body’s like, what are we doing here? And then you took another deeper than normal breath and your body’s like, hey, shock. And now you’re calm. So that’s training. That’s allostatic. I call that allostatic dynamics, allostatic breath training, so you’re using the breath. And we just did one breath and you felt it. Right. And then, so for me, your normal breath is, I don’t know, X liters. Your full, full, full, deeper than normal breath is 30% more or so, guesstimating. So you don’t want to breathe that full, full, full all the time. It’s effortful. You breathe twenty-five thousand times a day, you don’t wanna breathe with excess effort twenty thousand times. That’s exhausting. But if you take your normal breath, your normal full breath, and I always say just slightly deeper than normal in. Slightly deeper than normal out. So go slightly above that normal ceiling, slightly below that normal basement, and then whenever you come back to your norm, that might expand your breath.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Yeah, I’m thinking of it as like normal is like three to seven and then full is like ten and then attic is like eleven and you know getting below is zero and then negative one is basement and most people would think, okay, full breath and they probably get to like an eight. They don’t even get to ten, let alone eleven. Yeah.
Justin Ternes
Yes. Nope. Exactly. Yeah, I had a golfer I was working with then talking this and he’s like, I feel like I’m doing a hundred and fifty percent breath. And I’m like, great, that’s his number now. And like I give it to him, like, hey, hit a hundred and fifty. When are you gonna hit a hundred and fifty? That’s at home when you’re sitting and you’re doing your warm up or you’re at the gym and you’re working on some movement and you’re about to do your workout. Just like two or three of those is enough to get everything moving. And then just release it. Don’t think about it. Don’t hyperfixate on that. Eleven, I like the scale. Yeah. I think you’re nailing it three to seven is the norm. For some people, it’s four to six. Shallow breathing is an issue, stress. But that extra eleven takes a little more effort. Taking that to the question about pre-shot, mid-shot, in game, in round, post, there’s a lot of fluctuation. But I think general rule is using your breath to calm yourself down. You’re gonna calm yourself and I would love feedback. Hit me up. Always open to hearing results and how these techniques have helped or principles. It’s more a principle based than technique based. Just simply realizing that you already breathe to shake off a bad shot or get into the zone. Well, guess what? What happens if you breathe better, deeper to shake off a shot? That’ll move the needle. So that’s the little free tidbit right now before doing, okay, this technique and that, because that’s where you get hyperfixated and then you lose sight of things. So I’ll just drop a principle, but for those who are interested about a little bit more depth, happy to support that. Or that can be podcast around two.
Josh Nichols
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I love just bringing in some awareness of fluctuation is good. You don’t wanna live in the four, five, six, four to six range, whether it’s breath or heart rate or psychological. And it might feel nice, but, and maybe ultimately you do want to. You wanna be at a five all the time, I guess, but to expect a five all the time and to try to rigidly get yourself to a five all the time, that’s when you use the word earlier, you bring in some suffering, right? You bring into, you know, living at 10 all the time or one all the time, or even five all the time in a rigid way, can bring in some suffering and bring in the hyper awareness and any variability, any fluctuation is not okay. So something must be wrong and I need to be in fixed mode. Same goes for the actual like golf shot, right? You’re not always gonna hit a great one. You’re not always gonna hit an average one. You’re not always gonna hit a bad one. There’s fluctuation. So that’s kind of our theme here is fluctuation’s okay. It’s cold, but I got this. Affirmations grounded in truth, not fake empty affirmations. We’re not controlling thoughts, we’re more responding to thoughts mindfully. This is awesome. Justin. This is super cool. This is super dense and helpful stuff, both principle wise and detail wise, but also kind of overarching mental reframe wise. So I appreciate you, Justin. This is so good, man.
Justin Ternes
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, you can find me Allostasis Performance, A-L-L-O-stasis, S-T-A-S-I-S, Performance Instagram website. Also my other brand is True Self Health, which is a little bit more breathwork focused, less athlete focused, mental, more physical therapy component. So yeah, look me up, hit me up, always happy to answer questions and really, really appreciate you having me, man. Appreciate it.
Josh Nichols
Yeah. Yeah, and to those listening, Justin is like a world expert on this stuff. So maybe we should have led with that. Who is this guy that I’ve never heard of? You should have heard of him by now, ’cause he’s extremely, he’s an expert. So far more than I’ve ever been. I dabble at a very surface level, but Justin’s a real deal. So yeah, Justin, thank you.
Justin Ternes
Thank you.
