In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Jeff Rouse from Shiftwave to talk about his mind-bending device that claims to reset your nervous system. I’ll be honest, when I first saw it, I was skeptical. But after trying it at the Parker University conference, I was blown away by what it did. We dig into how the tech works, why it’s so effective for both physical and mental health, and how it’s being used everywhere from mental health therapy to pro sports. Dr. Rouse brings a fascinating mix of psychiatry, quantum biology, and wellness tech expertise to the conversation. He explains the science behind Shift Wave, the principles that make it tick, and some of its wildest protocols, like “synthetic sleep.” If you’re into cutting-edge tools that help you recover faster, feel better, and perform at your best, this one’s worth the listen.
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Jeff Rouse from Shiftwave to talk about his mind-bending device that claims to reset your nervous system.
I’ll be honest, when I first saw it, I was skeptical. But after trying it at the Parker University conference, I was blown away by what it did. We dig into how the tech works, why it’s so effective for both physical and mental health, and how it’s being used everywhere from mental health therapy to pro sports.
Dr. Rouse brings a fascinating mix of psychiatry, quantum biology, and wellness tech expertise to the conversation. He explains the science behind Shift Wave, the principles that make it tick, and some of its wildest protocols, like “synthetic sleep.”
If you’re into cutting-edge tools that help you recover faster, feel better, and perform at your best, this one’s worth the listen.
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to help increase muscle, increase performance, improve body composition, do all of it in a flexible framework without destroying your health. Today on the podcast we've got Dr. Jeff Rouse from Shift Wave, and I am super excited to have him on the podcast.
This was a really super interesting discussion and you're probably first wondering what the heck is a shift wave device. I first saw it at the Parker University conference back in March, and usually you go to a lot of these conferences and the conference was great. I loved it. It was super fun.
But in the vendor area lots of crazy claims a lot of times, and. I saw a claim about [00:01:00] resetting your nervous system. I was like, oh, that's interesting. But in all honesty, I've been pretty disappointed by that tag line many times before, but I thought, I don't know. These guys look cool. I'll check it out.
And I tested out the device for just 10 minutes and I was like, wow, you could actually feel a pretty big difference. And so I got my wife and snuck her into the conference the next day and had her try it and she really liked it and talked to the guy there. So shout out to David for answering all my crazy questions on stuff and I was super impressed.
I talked to some other people who had done some work with 'em and they all enjoyed it Also. So fast forward several months and I've been able to test out the device now for about six weeks of this recording. And it's been really awesome. It's been super, super helpful and we'll talk all about [00:02:00] that in the podcast, everything from what is actually shift wave, how did it start what are some of the principles behind it.
We even have little rabbit trails about sleep downregulation the different protocols that they have, like synthetic sleep protocols, how you would use this for athletes. And then a lot of this is also on just general concepts too, even if you don't have a shift, wave share things like vagal nerve stimulation for cognitive invent enhancement.
How you can produce different states of downregulation both using technology and not using technology. I really enjoyed this podcast with Dr. Jeff. He is a triple board certified psychiatrist with training in quantum biology and longevity medicine, advanced trauma recovery neuropsychiatric.
And wellness technology [00:03:00] in both clinical, military and humanitarian settings. I really enjoyed this conversation and I think you will too. In terms of sponsors, if you're interested in all things to improve performance, body comp, add muscle check out my newsletter. I've got a ton of stuff that goes out on a daily basis.
Go to mike t nelson.com. You'll see a little sign there at the top that says Newsletter. You can hop on there for free. We'll send you a cool gift also, and then if you have any questions, that's probably the best way to contact me also. And then this is also brought to you by Shift Wave. So when I reached out to them to do this podcast, I did not have any.
Affiliation with them at all. Actually for the, up until just yesterday did not have any affiliation with them. I really loved the device and done a bunch of demos in my area too for different [00:04:00] professionals and it was one of the rare things that I, where you can put someone in a more passive delivery device and it actually works really well.
So I was super excited about that and wanted to help them out. But. I did sign up to be an affiliate because I liked it so much. So I am an affiliate, so I do make a few clams if you sign up through my link down below which we'll put here. And yeah, it's been super, super beneficial. It is an expensive device that is not cheap by any.
Stretch of the imagination. But again, I have found it to be super beneficial. So if you are interested you can reach out to me. Go to the link down below. Happy to answer any of your questions. If I'm not able to answer 'em, I can definitely get you the right person to get an answer. So without further ado, enjoy this podcast with Dr.
Jeff Rouse from Shift Wave.
[00:05:00]
Dr Mike T Nelson: welcome to the podcast. How are you today, Dr. Jeff?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: I am well honored and stoked to be here.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate all your time. I know you're, you're super busy and you work for Shift Wave, and one of the big questions is, what the heck is Shift Wave and how do you explain it to people who haven't?
I felt it, like I've had the luxury of, using the device now for about four weeks, and even when I've been doing demos and stuff for people, they're like what is it? Why, why, why should I do a demo on it? I still. I am just like, ah, just, just gimme 10 minutes. I'll bring it over to your house.
You'll just try it.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: No, said. It is it is something to experience right off the bat. But we can go into a little bit how I objectively explain it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yes, please.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Sure. A couple of different ways I, I can do this, but yes, I'm the Dr. Jeff Rouse. I'm honored and lucky to be the Chief Medical Officer at Shift Wave, and I've been with [00:06:00] the company for a little over five years at this point in the development stages, the early prototyping stages, and then as we brought our findings out into the world in the form of a product.
And what shift? Wave is simply is a device that was created in a psychophysiology laboratory that uses specific patterns of physical vibration that we have seen in our lab, create shifts. In the psychophysiological state of the person. Now that's a bit of a geeky way of explaining it. What's another way to explain it?
Basically, we combine the best of whole body vibration and similar things like heart rate variability, biofeedback, breath work, and other modalities all in one package to provide a deep, rapid and profound experience in shifting the [00:07:00] state of the nervous system. One other way to explain it that I have I've come across is this.
We spend a lot of time, especially in the modern world, using our eyes, using our visual system, our ears. But the way we're wired is actually, we're wired for touch. We're wired for physical somatic sensation, and we're a bit deprived in that in modern times. But that's the fail safe method by which we learn in utero and in our early years.
That's the fail safe method by which we learn that we are okay and everything safe. For example, when a grandmother wants to calm a 1-year-old who's freaking out in the grocery store, she could try to sing a lullaby. She could try to show her a little picture. But what she often does is [00:08:00] she'll pick up that child, hold it.
Pat that child rocket while bouncing, providing multiple patterns of physical, really vibratory input to that child. And that shifts the, the child calms the child's nervous system. And that's essentially what we've sought to do with our shift wave device is provide a kind of a, a rapid way of providing a very similar experience for people that's accessible at the press of a button.
So how about that? I know it's a long Yeah. That's explanation.
Dr Mike T Nelson: No, that's great.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: There's lots of detail and lots of levels here.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I think that's great. And that matches my original experience. So when I, I first saw it at the Parker University conference this past March in Vegas. And they've got a, a ton of different vendors there.
And you go by and I'm just like, I'd never heard of it before. And I see the sign that says, ah, reset your nervous system. And my [00:09:00] first thought in all honesty was like. Okay. Like whatever, like everybody claims to do this, but I'm like, ah, I'll, I'll check it out. And the people are like just, just try it for 10 minutes.
And I'm like, okay, like 10 minutes, whatever. And it got done and I was like, oh, holy crap. Like even in 10 minutes, like you could feel a difference. Like you could feel the kind of a little bit of that sympathetic rise. And then when it drops, it almost felt a little bit like that drop on a roller coaster.
You could feel your whole body get calm. And that was the first time I would say, with a very passive therapy device. Like the guy literally just put me in the chair, hit the button, like there was no other intervention. He's not out there tweaking knobs or, or doing anything that I felt something like that in a very short order without any input from anyone else.
And so I thought, wow, that's, that's super impressive. I was, did not expect that to, to, to feel that much of a difference right away.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, [00:10:00] that's a, that's a very common reaction. And certainly the, the reaction I had years and years back when the the, the team in its early investigations found me.
They emailed me saying, Hey, we're investigating the use of physical vibration to reset the brain, and we think we can reproduce some of the meditative experience through vibration. Would you like to try it? That was a cold email that I, and to be blunt, I, I thought it was bs. I, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Because there's so many people that claim that, and I've been so sorely disappointed most of the time, unfortunately.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I ignored the email. But that was a couple of weeks before the COVID shutdown mm-hmm. In 2020. And I got to the point where I was just looking for something to do, so I decided I'm gonna go through all of my old emails and clean up that mess. And I got to this one and.[00:11:00]
My curiosity or the universe or something tapped me on the shoulder and said respond. Go give it a try. And I did. So in the midst of COVID, you remember those early days?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: That was a really stressful time, I think for
Dr Mike T Nelson: very stressful
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: every human on the planet. Like, how bad is this gonna get? What is shipping gonna stop?
Where is our food gonna
Dr Mike T Nelson: come? Yeah. Just so many unknowns.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Lots of unknowns. So I basically went and tried a very, very early version of the the, the shift wave device. And my experience after a 15 minute session was very similar to what you described. And that is it radically shifted my subjective experience of, the tension in my mind, the tension in my muscles, the state of my body, my just my overall focus and concentration.
And it did it in 15 minutes. And the only thing I could. Compare it to was [00:12:00] that, I'd have a, a decent amount of meditation experience. I would not say I'm a master. I have fallen off that path many times, but I know what it's like after you've been, have given the blessing of being able to do a meditation retreat and this device put me in a very similar state as to what it feels like after a whole day in that meditation retreat.
And so subjectively, I knew something was happening within me. It wasn't placebo, it was massive in its effect. And so that's how I got on, got on board with the the company and I tried it and then I ran a small pilot study at my university and I saw that. If you look at the brain imaging as well as the psychophysiology, as well as the self-report data that wasn't u that wasn't a unique experience to me.
I wasn't a one-off. So when I took those 20 people and just did a [00:13:00] very simple pilot study and saw that there were statistically significant changes in the psychophysiology, in the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system and people's report of stress improved relaxation, reduced anxiety, was not just subtle, it was significant.
That's when I knew that they, this team was on to something. And then that's how I came aboard on, on in the very, very beginning. A long explanation. I told you, this is my favorite topic
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah. Yeah, we're all good.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I think that's one of the many benefits to psychedelic therapy too.
That it's one thing to have, like a CVT type therapy, which, has plenty of positive data behind it, but it's another thing under sort of the drug influence to have the sensation and the just a different feeling of somebody probably saying the exact same thing to you again. So I think there's this, this feeling is also believing.
And when you [00:14:00] feel something, and especially when you can feel that same thing repetitively, you're like, oh, okay, yeah, there's, there's, there's something going on.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: No. Right on. And. All power to the many different ways that people have found to shift the nervous system. Truly, it's not just us.
This is a large, in the wellness side of this. The healthcare side of this is, is large. Neuromodulation is a big field, but I think one of the advantages of shift wave is exactly what you're saying. And that is it's not, it's, it's not subtle. And after even a single session, you can feel that shift.
It's not the kind of thing where you get two or 3% better every single time you do it. And then after the course of a, long longstanding neurofeedback session or sessions plural you can see that your brain is starting to rebalance and you can see that your [00:15:00] focus is getting better.
It's not a top down intervention. And I think that the top down interventions that focus. More on kind of the brain itself. They can be a bit subtle to our experience. There's great data behind neurofeedback and mm-hmm. Lots of all of, all of that stuff. But nevertheless, we offer a different approach, and that is when you shift the state of the body, you rapidly shift the state of the nervous system.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. The, the analogy I use, or I also look for therapies that can shift things more rapidly and safely. The analogy I use is that your, your nervous system is always being comparative. So I I, I'm in recording this in Texas, but normally in living in Minnesota, it's pretty cold in the winter. So if you were sitting inside our townhouse, you're like, oh, man, it's 65 degrees.
It's freezing cold in here. But you go outside and it's 10 below Fahrenheit, and you walk in the door, you're like, oh my [00:16:00] God, it's so warm in here. Because you literally went from 10 below Fahrenheit to 65, so your temperature swing was 75 degrees in just a matter of seconds. It's still the same internal temperature, but because you smashed that comparison so close from point A to point B, the relative difference you, you can feel, and that's kinda what I think about here, is that the relative difference I could feel from, oh yeah, okay.
I was stressed because oh, this is what calm feels like now within a short period of time, not six months of therapy. Which again, the other therapies, all those could be very beneficial, but I think the, the buy-in and the commitment level has to be higher because you're putting your faith in this sort of therapy and doing the work and eventually you're like, oh yeah, I guess I am better.
Versus, oh, I did this and within a few minutes I actually feel better. Okay. I'm probably more likely to stay with it because I [00:17:00] can see and feel the benefit in a very, very short order.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, no, you're ab you're absolutely right. And, and that is certainly one of our, our value adds as a, wellness device out there in the world.
And it's been interesting as we've been out there showing off what we've done and working with different partners who've who've bought shift waves and are using them, is that we're seeing that, that that benefit of the rapid and profound shift is being used in some very interesting ways in across industries.
So for example, we've got some partners that use the shift wave chair as part of the psychedelic psychotherapy experience. Mm-hmm.
Dr Mike T Nelson: That was one of my questions.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah. To help people kind of downshift. From walking in off the street to get the, to prepare their psychophysiological set and setting for that psychedelic psychotherapy [00:18:00] experience.
We've also got some, some persons in that space that actually used the shift wave chair during the experience itself to help provide a kind of a holding container, a safe psychophysiological experience during, during the the psychedelic experience. Others in the mental health space literally will use shift wave before a re regular therapy session whereby for the same reason, rapidly shift a person, get them feeling calm, get them feeling centered, get them feeling in centered in their body and centered in the room so that then the the other work can happen.
And then outside of the realm of kind of treatment. We've got, it's been an interesting ride with this company. We've gotten some really high profile persons using shift Wave. And so we have literally, we have NFL quarterbacks that are using shift wave before games to help reset their nervous system so [00:19:00] that they can be out there on the field doing what they're what they love and what they're paid to do.
Dr Mike T Nelson: JJ McCarthy, Minnesota Vikings. Now I'm a big Vikings fan, gotcha,
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: gotcha. Yeah. The it is very interesting to have seen this journey go from kind of a, a gar, like a garage and a lab all the way to, to watching a NFL quarterback with a shift wave in tow. Walking, walking it into his locker room with ESP covering it, saying, what is this thing, this shift wave device.
So yeah, it's, it's, it's been an interesting journey, but I think that speaks to, the power of what happens when you can provide a, like a, a tangible change to people because, like we are cre, we are creatures of reward,
Dr Mike T Nelson: mm-hmm.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Why do people smoke cigarettes? Why do people drink beer?
They do it because there's an in kind of a quasi immediate change to their nervous system when people ingest chemicals. Why [00:20:00] do some people why are they successful in, let's say, politics? Partly because they're able to connect with people and make other people feel seen, heard, and appreciated in a way that le leads them with a positive impression of that person.
So we remember, events, we remember things, but we really remember how we feel. That's a, that's a very deeply evolutionarily wired way that our memory is constructed. And so if you can leverage that for the, for the good of humanity, why not? So that's what we're doing.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
It was the, I can't remember who said it, but you may forget what they said to you, but you'll very rarely forget how they made you feel.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Exactly.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Like we still remember the, the feelings more so than even just the, the words that were said.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Exactly. And those, and, and a I'm a psychiatrist by training.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: And so that, I [00:21:00] can't help but see that in, in almost neurobiological terms, right? Every memory that we have of what has happened to us. Has actually kind of a, a tag associated to it, a color associated to it. And that color is literally how were we feeling at the time of that memory, which is a fancy way of saying what was the state of our body at the time that this happened?
That's why in disorders like PTSD, you can have persons who have the slightest trigger of that memory, right? That then is associated and their body kicks into fight or flight, their heart rate goes up, they get very tense, they get jumpy, they get sweaty. The body state isn't, is, is crucial to our neurobiology and, and the state of our memory.
And one of the [00:22:00] things that we have seen some partners do is actually use shift wave in conjunction with what's called exposure therapy.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Now, again, let me just state clearly, shift Wave is a wellness device. We don't, purport to treat, diagnose, or cure any, disorder.
But we do have partners that are using it for persons who've had traumatic experiences. And there is a type of therapy that people use called exposure therapy, where people literally listen to their own narration of, tr of a traumatic experience that's happened to them, right? And they listen to it over and over.
And this is intended to calm. The affective or the emotional color associated with that memory? There we've got some partners that are doing that type of therapy while persons are in the shift wave chair because we can facilitate [00:23:00] helping the body feel safe and we can facilitate the body being in a, in a calm, physiological state to accelerate that sort of affective remodeling, so to speak.
So there's lots of cool stuff that can happen when you bring the body into the mental health and high performance world. And much of what's happened over kind of time and history, especially in the West, is we've been very narrative focused. We've been very much, tell me your story, tell me your perception of your own mind and things that have gone on.
And we come at it in a very cognitive, in a very verbal way. That's important. There's been lots of people's lives who've been saved and transformed as a, as a result of that approach. One of the things that draws me to shift wave is that it's a bit of a technological [00:24:00] way of instantiating some of the, similar practices that have been pursued by more eastern cultures for millennia.
So it's a way that you can incorporate less verbal, but more of a somatic approach to changing the nervous system, especially when you start adding pattern to breath work on top of the physical vibrations. There's an opportunity there for, to change the physicality and have that also assist in changing the body.
So I think it, I think we offer a very unique. Way to scale a somatic approach to high performance and mental wellness.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's one thing I've advised clients on who are, working with a, a psychiatrist on different things is what is your state As you're working through those things, if you feel like your state is becoming, like your [00:25:00] palms are sweaty, you are very, becoming very, for lack of a better word, simplistically, very sympathetic or very stressed.
The question I always had is similar to what you were saying is at what point do we cognitively think we're potentially solving some things, which we very might well be, versus how much are we then repeating them and just via neuroplastic changes, making it harder to get out of that rut? Like, how much are you, you digging a deeper rut by repeating it versus like you're saying, if we can change the state of the nervous system.
We can have it be in a more relaxed stage because at the end of the day, we're trying to take that emotional side and just turn down the gain on it because the gain got cranked to 11 and any small thing, it goes from one all the way to 11. Which is why like using MDMA for, PTSD seems to help with different modalities that are respecting the, the state of the individual and then doing [00:26:00] that same type of work, which could be CBT, could be exposure therapy and even on the exposure therapy.
There's super interesting data, I'm sure you've seen on the use of beta blockers, right? So chemically just toning down that whole system and now it's you. To me, that makes a lot more sense because you're respecting the state of the system. You're trying to maybe artificially induce it to the end result you want to get, and then maybe titrating your way off of that or, or doing different things.
At least to me as an outsider, it seems to make a lot more sense,
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: no, it makes perfect sense. I'm loving this conversation 'cause that's literally what I had queued up in my brain. Ah, talk about was the beta blocker phenomenon and for those who don't know
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. So talk about that.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah. So there's been a number of different ways that groups and people have approached the question of what do we do as psychological first aid for persons [00:27:00] who've just had a horribly traumatic experience.
Okay. Many, many questions, lots of research, lots of different therapeutic modalities have been tried and one has been actually shown to be negative. Okay. And that is this. Just by way of background, I used to be the the psychiatrist for the New Orleans Police Department during a decade after Hurricane Katrina.
So I've got a fair amount of experience in like psychological first aid in traumatic and. Tough situations. And one of the things that's known in, in that world is that there is actually a negative effect from having debriefings after traumatic experience.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm,
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: okay. So like for example, okay, and I'm just gonna make up a hypothetical example.
Let's say there was a situation in which a several law enforcement [00:28:00] officers were involved in a horrific shooting where there was a hostage and there was innocence who were killed and they were shot at. And let's say they had to to, to defend themselves, they had to kill the the perpetrator, right?
Horrific situation, right? You can actually induce more PTSD if you take those law enforcement officers. Immediately after the experience, put them in a room and make them tell their story of what just happened to them.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: And do it over and over. That can actually, for lack of a better term, burn it into their brain.
Yeah. A bit more. And actually make it more likely that they're gonna have negative outcomes from that traumatic experience. More likely they're gonna have PTSD, et cetera.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Okay.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Humans are, we're learning as we go in, in civilization. Another thing that has actually been learned is that what you mentioned is that if you take a very different approach, if you take persons who've just had a horrific [00:29:00] experience and you provide them safety, you provide them just basic psychological first aid.
And if their blood pressure is massively high, if their heart rate is massively high and their body is still in this, like adrenaline dump sympathetic state, that for some, if you provide them a beta blocker, which is a medical term for a medication that basically are, externally, turns down the sympathetic nervous system, makes their body feel safe, then you have less negative outcomes from p from PTSD.
I, I, I bring those up because those are the two extremes of the way to approach the nervous system and how sensitive it can be after a traumatic experience. And so I think that that is something that's a bit underappreciated. We're [00:30:00] psychiatrists and mental health professionals.
We love to talk it all out. But nevertheless, like there is a place for the body for sure. And that's what that medication is attempting to do, is provide a external relaxation. Not necessarily in the sense of giving like a, a downer, but just a tweak to the autonomic nervous system to balance the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system in order to have persons become, less negative outcomes over time.
And there's a there's a number of different ways that this approach has been instantiated. One of the. Ideas That's, that, that's come across my, my desk or my brain recently is that there's been a number of different aeps yoga gurus, people that have been been doing this in India and other places for millennia.
And one prominent yoga teacher, BKS Iyengar, who founded Iyengar Yoga, who really brought the kind of physical postures of Asana to the west starting in the [00:31:00] fifties and sixties was, that when persons, when Westerners would come to him and start talking about their traumas or their, depression or their more mental health symptoms, he actually would.
Have them stop talking and then immediately put them into kind of back bending postures where they would open up their chest, they would
Dr Mike T Nelson: open their heart anti flexion. Yeah,
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: exactly. And so to use that as a kind of a parasympathetic change to their, to their nervous system, I think is just another example of how there's lots of ways to approach nervous system changing.
And I think we here in the west are starting to learn the benefit of a body centered or breath centered practice.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And I, I think there's some data showing if you have a traumatic experience or high stressor event and you don't get enough REM sleep, I think it's that, that night or the night before or after that, your risk of, of PTS or [00:32:00] PTSD is super high, which kind of coincides with that, staying in that high.
Sympathetic state, it's, it's very difficult to sleep in that state also. So maybe there's any thoughts on just the, the sleep component and the processing that goes on in sleep to try to get back to baseline?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, very much and everybody's not everybody, but many people are wearing their aura rings and they,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah, I got aura and garment, all sorts of stuff.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: They're tracking their sleep and one, and they're taking a look at their percentage of time in REM sleep and deep sleep. Okay. And of course it's, you don't want to have, ob an obsession about this.
Yourself some grace and, understand. But it's important to look at both of those metrics.
Deep sleep is truly where. The body and the, the physicality of the brain does. Most of its repair, it's anti-inflammation. It's flushing out of the, the glymphatic system. That's what's kind of you know, you're repairing [00:33:00] the physicality of the body, right? But rem sleep is interesting because REM sleep is the same process, but you're doing that to make sense and package up what's happened to you in the day.
Neurobiologically into a coherent into the existing coherent network of brain cells and information that is already stored in your in your brain. So essentially what you're doing is you're taking the day and you're making sense of it, packaging it up, and then filing it away into the sum total of your life experience and.
One of the purposes of that is actually to place the appropriate amount of emotional context onto your memories. Okay. And so by placing that context in your memories and being able to integrate it into the larger [00:34:00] sphere and autobiographical memory of your life, you're able to make more sense of what has happened to you.
'cause it's, but in PTSD and other types of traumatic experiences, these memories aren't as integrated. And that means that their affect. Is just, they are waiting to go, just like you were there in the situation. And REM sleep is a crucially important, crucially important for kind of turning that affect down to the memory and placing it in a larger context so you, so a person can say, yes, that was a horrible thing that happened to me, an absolutely horrible thing, but it's not the only thing that's happened to me.
It's part of a, it's part of a larger life. And I am generally safe, even though this horrific thing has happened to me, that all that memory consolidation and affect of repackaging is very much what happens in REM sleep. And so then the obvious [00:35:00] question comes, alright, what do I do to to help with my sleep, right?
How do I make sure that my sleep is actually supporting me, both in the physicality, renewal as well as in the neurobiological emotional renewal. And there's, lots of things that go into, go into sleep. I'm happy to talk about that as well. But one of the drivers of getting into sleep is actually what's the state of your nervous system when you lay down, when you do your bedtime ritual, when you go to sleep at hopefully the right time.
Similar times every night. If you go in there and your heart rate is 20% higher than. You're not gonna go right to sleep. And so one of the, I think the the things that we are exploring with shift wave is to what extent can shift, wave assist in bringing down the state of the nervous system to prepare you for a better night's sleep?
And so we've got some ongoing research with [00:36:00] the some branches of, of the US military that will allow us to answer that question with a bit more data. So stay tuned.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I've used the short, even just the, I think it's a seven minute protocol you can use like immediately before sleep. And that's been super helpful, even just in the short seven minutes of, and I think a lot of it is the, the kind of the ritual too of, okay, I'm gonna do this and then do this.
And on that protocol, it's very, leaves you in that sort of down-regulated state also, which I found has been. Super helpful for sleep and at least on, I have another device that does some tracking stuff, just using the shift wave during the day. I saw my deep sleep actually go up quite a bit.
My rem sleep dropped a little bit and then since I've been down here, I haven't used it for the last three or four days they inverted back again, which was interesting. So even just using it during the day, at least on one device, I saw a pretty big increase [00:37:00] in deep sleep, which I thought was interesting.
So maybe there's some maybe entrainment or maybe my overall state is a little bit more downregulated so when I do get to sleep I can get better sleep. I'm not really sure how that works, but I thought that was pretty interesting of what I've observed so far.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, you're not the you're certainly not the first to tell us that they've seen.
Changes in their their personal tracking on sleep, both duration as well as quality and, the different time dwelt in different stages. And again, we have very early pilot data on all of this, but I think this, these kind of these effects are why our little, startup company has gotten the, gotten a lot of attention from not just professional sports teams and not just high performers, but also organizations that are looking to help fund the research to help us truly understand what are the, what are the depth of the effects that we have here so that that can be more easily replicatable and [00:38:00] extended to high performing, high stress, occupations.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And you even have protocols that are called synthetic sleep. Do you wanna explain a little bit about those? 'cause they seem to be these from experiential and just a little bit I've read about it is. They seem to be different from a, a lot of, some of the other protocols.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: They are synthetic sleep is one of our trademarks.
And we know that it's a pretty bold thing to say, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: But part of the reason we can be so bold is to call these protocols. Part of the synthetic sleep protocols is that, this isn't just woo woo, this isn't just a bunch of people in a wellness company making up stuff that, that never
Dr Mike T Nelson: happens in fitness.
What are you
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: talking about? Of course not. This is actually like what we saw in the Psychophysiology lab when we were like in the early stages development prototype stage. Basically one of the things that we have seen that does need to be more replicated and does need to be [00:39:00] more officially studied, but we've seen a very interesting phenomenon in some of our different patterns.
Okay. So basically, you can, we have certain protocols that we call synthetic sleep that use particular patterns of physical vibration that are, that take a person beyond relaxed. Okay? So of course you sit in these protocols, your, your mind's churning. You just had a day or you just had a thing, or you're, circadian disrupted or you're, you're sleep deprived, or you're jet lagged or whatever.
You come and sit down and then. With these protocols, we can actually start to see, yes, over time your sympathetic nervous system calms down your heart rate variability starts to get big. We see that you're in training and then you start breathing along with the vibrations [00:40:00] and, 15 minutes or so into it, we can start to see some other very interesting physiological things start to happen.
Okay? And so what we've seen in our lab is that we've actually seen that we can start to affect not just your psychophysiological state, like we've got you very parasympathetic, we've got you very relaxed, deep into that we start to see that we can start to entrain delta, but more sub delta EEG activity.
Which are, slow waves in the EEG signal. And for those who you may not know, this is the lowest frequency of brainwaves that, that are usually seen during deep stages of sleep. So we can basically literally calm the state of your brain down to some of its lowest settings. And what happens when [00:41:00] your brain actually calms down to the, to those low settings is, and this is from other research, like literally your brain physically shrinks.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm,
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: okay. Not a lot. Maybe 10% in overall volume because your brain's working a little bit less. Similar to a muscle, you're, if you're working that muscle, there's gonna be a pump and that muscle's gonna get a little bit larger. Your brain cells are similar. If they're f if on, on in aggregate, aggregate.
If they're firing a little bit less like the, they, they, they're not, they don't swell up as much. And so overall in that effect, you can have a brain shrink by, 10% in overall volume. That's a big deal when you're Yeah. Inside of a skull. So what happens? Your brain fills, there's more cerebral spinal fluid that starts going around the brain and then through the brain.
We actually start to see that we can induce these large pressure changes in [00:42:00] relative cerebral spinal fluid. We saw that in our lab, and we start to see some early indications that that fluid might be being pushed through the, through the cranial cavity and then coming out lymphatic system, which suggests that we may, and we need to do some confirmatory research on this.
This is really cutting edge stuff, but we may be opening up the glymphatic system.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: And what that means is that's a way that your brain is actually taking an oil change. We're flushing it out and we're able to let the cerebrospinal fluid bathe out and reduce toxins from the brain.
Okay. That's what we suspect is happening during these synthetic sleeps. There's a lot more confirmatory research to do, et cetera, et cetera. But the point is. We think that that's evidence that we're actually able to induce something [00:43:00] that the yoga tradition calls yoga nidra.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Huberman I believe calls it non
Dr Mike T Nelson: non sleep.
Deep rest,
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: non sleep. Deep breath. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Same thing,
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: same phenomenon that we're able to help people get into a state where they are awake, super duper relaxed, but their brain and their body are starting to have physiological signatures that are more like sleep, especially deep sleep than our like waking ready to go state.
And so that is very interesting. We are, we have some research projects taking a, a bit more look at that. We know that those are some bold claims, but nevertheless we think we're onto something there with the Synthe synthetic sleeps. So in other words, we're able to, help guide a person with no experience in yoga nidra, who has, maybe some difficulty getting into these [00:44:00] nons sleep.
Deep rest states we're able to help guide it to them haptically while they synchronize their breathing with our patterns, and we're able to entrain them down into that state. And what we've heard anecdotally is that getting into that state is both physically and mentally restorative.
And so we've got a number of different like customers that use those, that use those synthetic sleep protocols for, circadian disruption, jet lag times when they know they haven't gotten enough. Regular sleep that perhaps augment and get a little bit of that deep brain restoration in a very compact way the next day.
Lots to come, lot of research, but we think we're onto something there with these synthetic sleep protocols.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And it feels very different. Like it's a, a different state. It's relaxing, but you're not [00:45:00] completely out of it, you're, you're, you're aware, but it's a very different sensation for sure.
And I've also noticed when you get done with it, you put the little visor up and you're, oh, where am, where am I? What's, what's going on again, you're, you're briefly a little bit like, oh. Oh yeah, I'm in a chair in my living room. That's right.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: It's yeah, it's, it's it's like being in a, between state in some respects.
Mm-hmm. Some, you're not asleep, so you're not unconscious. You're not waking up, responding to emails. You're somewhere in that liminal space they call it. That is where wakefulness is bleeding into sleep and you're dancing in that, in that middle ground there.
Dr Mike T Nelson: What about thoughts for, so one of the things I thought about for athletic performance is if you believe that, say, strength for strength is a skill which Pablo Oline has been very famous for saying, which I would tend to agree.
There's a lot of motor learning when you're trying to do a thing, not just muscular [00:46:00] output, about having like post training, like a synthetic sleep type protocol. Do you think there is a. Increased amount of motor learning that would stay because you're maybe having a better consolidation period or, or simulation of REM or just downregulating post high, sort of sympathetic states.
Any thoughts around that?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: That's a ultimately it's a kind of a, a little bit of an empirical question that we have yet to test. Okay, okay.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: There has been research showing that even naps. After, right? Learning different learning, new skills or performing skills. Even these naps have been shown to help with kind of skill, skill acquisition and, and, and consolidation.
So I think that is a quite likely scenario that shift we would be able to provide a similar experience, [00:47:00] especially in these very calming synthetic sleep protocols. We'd love to test that theory but I've got every reason to hypothesize that we would be doing a very similar thing. And, and partially we can leverage the fact that the again, Huberman also talks about this, that, you can use bilateral stimulation or cross body stimulation to also help induce neuroplasticity.
And we've got
Dr Mike T Nelson: mm-hmm.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Protocols that specifically work, work on that in that direction. So there's a lot to research here. But yeah, I think that there is a a quite, I would, I would love to to test that theory, but I've got every reason to hypothesize and, and feel optimistic about that, that outcome.
Especially I think the research shows that, 30 minutes or so within 30 minutes after learning a new skill can be, or finish, finish practicing a new skill is the optimal window.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And I've used the, I think the neuro boosto does that. I [00:48:00] think it's trying to, so my thought was, and correct me if I'm on the right track, is doing like the neuro boost protocol beforehand to try to increase the neuroplasticity, doing whatever the skill thing you're doing and then doing some type of synthetic sleep or a small nap.
Like one of my favorite ones is the, the disco nap and there's 10 minutes of the synthetic sleep at the end of that. So trying to book in training with one, doing a little bit more upregulation, more trying to increase neuroplasticity, doing the thing that you wanna learn, and then trying to, down regulate, maybe try to consolidate some of those new pathways via, LTP or whatever the mechanism actually is there might be beneficial.
And my backup thought was it's not really gonna be a negative. Like I definitely haven't seen a negative to it. I don't know of anything where that would be a net downside. There's just only potential upside.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, I, I agree. I think that that only has a likelihood of success [00:49:00] as opposed to, I don't think it would hurt your skill acquisition.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So it's not gonna make it worse.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Make it worse. And then of course, it, it would be very interesting to see how that would pair with, combined mental rehearsal.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yes. That was my other thought was do you run the tasks that you were doing while you're doing the synthetic sleep?
So one of the things I played with is visualization with this first person or third person while I'm in that state. And I, I think it was that Stephen Kotler referred to this study where I, and I can't find this study, but it was that the Navy Seals were trying to learn a different language and they put 'em in a float tank and they had a way of teaching them in this parasympathetic state, and their learning was like 60 or 40% greater.
I can't find this study, but it sounds really cool and it would make sense maybe.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Right then you, that that all makes a lot of sense. And actually DARPA has taken, taken a look at something similar to this question. Hmm. [00:50:00] And, one of the things that DARPA has basically found in the past, five, maybe 10 years, more like five years, is that activities that induce a higher vagal tone, higher tone in the vagus nerve as a kind of chief output of the parasympathetic nerve system, that these these devices and practices actually improve cognition, improve memory, and, and improve overall.
Brain learning, memory retention, be it, facts or be it procedures. And so they've, they've actually invested a lot and they've taken a lot of look at a vagal nerve stimulation.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Dr. Kevin Tracy has done, has done some of this work and there's lots of Dr. Renick reer, I believe outta UT Dallas.
So there's a, there's a lot of people that have taken a look at how stimulation or enhancement of the parasympathetic nervous system activity can actually be not just a body calm, [00:51:00] calmer, but also a brain enhancer. And one of the things that I think, and again, it's an empirical question, but one of the things that we certainly see with shift wave is that, we can be a massive.
Change to the parasympathetic nervous system. We can see large scale changes in heart rate variability even though we're not, directly stimulating the vagus nerve. But nevertheless, by activating the sympathetic nervous system at particular times, we induce the vagus nerve to become more active.
Not unlike a a parent pushing a child on a swing at the right times with the right force, the child can swing up and swing a little higher and swing a little higher. And so we see that in our psychophysiological data. And so there's every reason to think that we could also be, as a [00:52:00] pleasurable, non-invasive, non electrostimulation way that we could also be inducing some of those effects as well.
Really this from a science standpoint, this is the ship that could launch a thousand PhDs and we're just stoked to have started this journey of, how can, bringing the body stimulation, how can, bringing the somatic stimulation in a definable profound and repeated way, how this can enhance not just the, reducing muscle tension in your body, but also assist in overall cognitive performance and wellbeing.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and that's one of the things I like too, is that, and I played with some of the vagal nurse sims and mixed results on 'em, and, and in previous life many years ago, I worked for a medical device company that did implantable pacemakers and defibrillators. And so one of the things that I would go over and pester the guys in research about is that they.
They were looking at vagal nerve sims back then, like in the early two thousands, and they had filed some patents [00:53:00] from like 1976 on, trying to do leads. And the big issue was how do you get a wire to get around the nerve reliably via procedure, to, to do it. But they showed all sorts of early benefits to obesity, depression, like all sorts of stuff.
But I've always wondered with that, do you, it seems every time we do, not every time, but a lot of times we do direct stimulation, the body tends to tone down the response over time, where I've wondered with like shift wave where you're doing more of a, I dunno if primitive is the right word, but more of reliable signal with the.
The mechanical receptive stimulation. 'cause I also think about, I have some friends who work in a lot of functional neurology. So I'm a social professor at the Care Institute. They do a lot of clinical neuroscience stuff and we know after a concussion or TBI, a lot of your eye responses, your vestibular system gets [00:54:00] rewired.
But it doesn't seem to me that proprioception, meno stem gets rewired nearly as much. Any thoughts on that? That maybe it's at just this lower, more hardwired level where if you give a signal to it, it's more reliable across a wider variety of people. So therefore doing that as a intervention, you can more reliably get to these, these, these states in a wide variety of people from all sorts of normal conditions, from athletes to, potentially even pathologies.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: I know that's a very long worded weird question.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: I, I like long worded weird questions. Yeah. So I think that it's a very natural pathway. Okay. And so that is, that is the mechano receptor way of putting in information into the body. And that is, like something that we activate I [00:55:00] think not enough in, in regular normal Western information, heavy life.
So for example, the. Walking, that's a very, that's a rhythmic assist and powerful change. And, and there's a shock wave that happens through our, through our body. Running obviously puts a, puts a repetitive shock wave through our body, and these are some of the most natural acts that a human can do.
You take a look at some of the research around more indigenous cultures that have the cultures of running, the born to run book and, and all of that. Mm-hmm. There's something profound about that repetitive physical stimulation of running that I don't think is there in some other exercises.
Okay. So you take that also, you take a look at how we're actually created, right? So think about it like when we are basically forming in utero, right? [00:56:00] What are we in? We are in a. Fluid-filled sack that is being subjected to a constant symphony of physical vibrations. We've got mom's voice, we've got mom's breathing, we've got mom's heartbeat, we've got mom walking.
And so we're naturally, like that's our, probably our first sensations that help us understand, who we are and what's the state of our body like. And this is how, mom can know that mom will wake up and then she can feel the baby inside of her start to wake up. There's a communication of safety and, and things that are happening there.
And. So I guess what I'm saying is that these are very natural pathways that are providing that information into, into the body that's very different than electrical, stimulation. That has to [00:57:00] be, and then the vagus nerve is complex, right? If you wanna learn more about this, I suggest a book called The Great Nerve, which talks about, how different literally frequencies and kind of voltage changes on the vagus nerve stimulator can have different effects, right?
So you gotta be very precise when you're using that degree of direct electrical stem. But there's a whole way that you can stimulate the body through n through pa, different patterns of natural vibration, abo above and beyond in a shift wave chair. And then finally, like one of the things that I think is very.
Not coincidental is that, the patterns of, physical vibration that we saw in the lab that had the most kind of effect on sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. All this, it's, not, it's probably not a [00:58:00] coincidence that we saw interesting effects at breath rates that were lower, slower, and perhaps in tune with both, resonance frequency, breath, and subharmonics of that.
Hmm. What do I mean by that? Let me take a little brief foray into some science stuff. The, everybody's got a particular rate of breathing that is lower than normal breathing, but if you can do it and do it comfortably, you're actually synchronizing a number of the different control mechanisms over, over your heart rate.
So
Dr Mike T Nelson: this would be like a coherence effect, like some stuff the HeartMath Institute has done and related things? Yeah.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah. Very similar. Okay. Yes. For most people it's around 4.5 to 7.5 breaths per minute. So let's just call it six of breath per minute. [00:59:00] So if you're breathing at six breaths per minute, which is difficult to do, but you're basically then providing the opportunity for a much larger, parasympathetic nervous system output to your heart and by, and, and to the rest of your organs, most likely.
So I don't think it's coincidence that we can actually see very interesting shift wave effects when we gently get persons to breathe at six breaths a minute, or even half that down to breathing three breaths a minute, deeply, slowly, and comfortably. So I think we're leveraging existing psychophysiological, kind of resonances in the body.
But finally I bring that up because that's a little bit of, that's a transferable skill different from d electrostimulation. So if you learn repeatedly that you can actually affect the state of your nervous system by breathing at [01:00:00] this kind of very comfortable, but deep and slow rate that you used in the shift wave device.
That's a, that's something you can take with you when you're in traffic or when your boss is yelling at you or you know you're out there in the world. And one other thing that shift wave does is we actually offer an opportunity to change our device into a haptic biofeedback mode. Okay. Called, called bio drive.
We include with the device a research grades pulse sensor that you place on your finger. And then we actually allow, through a certain algorithm, the state and the fluctuations in your heart rate to then control the vibrations in the chair. And so it takes a little bit of practice, but once you get it, then basically your own.
Kind of cha you can feel the change in your nervous system. [01:01:00] And that feeling, I, and that change is much greater when you are down at these residents frequency breaths, or even subharmonics of it. Like you can change it a little bit when you're breathing, 11, 12, 13 breaths a minute. But the real profound changes come when you breathe deeply longly, and slowly.
And so in that sense, we become this reinforcement experience where you can physically feel the effects of, of your nervous system in this, in this haptic, biofeedback way. That's my favorite stuff, by the way. And so there's, there's a lot of development we're doing on that. Certainly more to come to expand that.
But yeah, we offer a very haptic way of feeling that change in your nervous system and letting you interact with it. Cool stuff.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So if that is on and does it. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, you can put that on any protocol. So you would not, would you recommend starting it [01:02:00] with like maybe one of the synthetic sleeps that doesn't have an auditory protocol?
Because then you would be using your breathing rate to try to drive the vibration so that it's not outta thing from what the, the normal program would be?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, no. So we have a couple of different protocols that are there specifically to teach people how to do this.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm. Okay.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: One is called HRV Bio Drive Intro.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Gets you breathing in a certain pattern that's probably pretty close to your residence frequency, although it, it all changes individually and even has a little bit of state change. And then we basically in the middle of that protocol hand the control to you. Mm. You switch from a passive protocol to a biofeedback protocol and then back again.
Mm. So we have a couple of different protocols that help teach you that to kind of learn how to learn how to have that skill.
GMT20251103-162904_Recording_640x360: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And what are some of the other protocols that people were to use [01:03:00] that, are there any names like the bio drive, if they want to use it on a different protocol? Like good starting points?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah. There's another one that we have called Longevity. Hmm. Which does a very similar thing where it basically is gonna entrain is going, is going to get your attention and start to relax you. And then at a certain point you'll hear a bell and it will be, that's a signal that we've handed over the the control, so to speak to.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, that's why that's in there. I emailed Danny and I said, yeah, I love that longevity protocol, but there's this loud bell that comes on five times. What the hell is that thing in there for? It scared the crap outta me the first time. I'm like, it, there has to be a reason. 'cause my perception is everything I felt feels like everything is very methodical and very much done for a reason.
So I'm like, I'm sure there's a reason that thing is there. So
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: that's the reason my friend. So yeah, next time do it with the the PPG sensor on and then it will it will know that it's [01:04:00] then time to let you let the turn on the haptic biofeedback mode.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Ah, so when I hear that noise, that means that it's basically allowing you, the user to drive it with your breathing until the next one then, is that right?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Correct. It's a queue that we've now en engaged the bio drive mode.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Ah, okay. Awesome. Very cool.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: And and so in that sense, I think that a lot of the, the direction of wellness, the direction of even healthcare and certainly cutting edge, longevity, healthcare, but even some of the more regular stuff is really moving in many ways towards personalization, right?
I know that there is a lot we are going to explore and then release to the public around how shift wave can be a a personalized adaptive biofeedback mode so that the protocols are actually being [01:05:00] informed by and, and adjusting to the state of your nervous system in the moment.
So stay tuned. There's a lot of cool stuff we have in beta that will be coming out soon.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, because I would imagine you could very easily nothing's easy, but you could, because you have HRV, you've got pulse ox, you've got the ability to make changes real fast. You could do some, you could even keep it very simple.
Just do a three minute HRV analysis. Oh, you're very sympathetic. Okay, so we're gonna do more of a parasympathetic protocol. So you type in how do you feel, length of time you can do, maybe it runs a, there's some data shown. Even a 62nd HRV analysis can be. Accurate, and then it just goes off and does its thing for your goal, like maybe downregulation upregulation sleep or whatever.
And then you just hit the button and away it goes. And it, finds the best protocol for you in the background.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Your your intuition is fairly accurate. I'll just say that. [01:06:00] But definitely stay tuned. We've got some really cool personalized adaptive stuff that we're working on in the background and we'll be releasing soon.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Very last question as we wrap up. I really appreciate all your time here. This is a very selfish question. If somebody has a shift wave chair, what would be your recommendations to get the most out of it? I'm primarily asking for myself right now while I'm using it. If their goal is more, longevity, general health, more of a performance type angle, is there things you're like, oh, you should definitely try this or that protocol?
Or what would be just your recommendations?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, so my recommendations would be to, to find a way to integrate it into your daily life and your daily habits. We have seen some internal data that's pretty off the charts and around what daily, what daily use can do in terms not just of nervous system, but of physical, [01:07:00] positive effects.
Okay. More to come on that.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: But, so number one. Do it every day. Doesn't need to be an hour. But we can see some really interesting benefits accumulate from even shorter sessions that are frequent. And that aligns with a lot of research. That's number one. Number two, as I mentioned, I think that there is an interesting value add from doing some of these bio drive protocols so that you get a sense of.
Kind of how you are controlling and affecting the state of your nervous system so that you're not just a passive observer being regulated by shift wave, but that you're a co co participant in that. And I think that there is some, some added extra benefit to that for sure. And then, and then finally the most important part of it is, have fun.
Like this is meant, this is meant to let you experience the joy of shifting your psychophysiological [01:08:00] state. And I think that that is one of our value adds is that, it's just not another darn thing to do for my wellness. It feels good. If you want to not bio drive one day and you want to explore a new protocol, just do it.
Keep that, keep that variety. We've got 60 protocols. Right now, and we are continuously developing more and pushing them out. Just keep it fun. So keep it fun, experience bio drive, but find a way to work it into your experience daily or my, or my three big recommendations.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Is there a, a time point you've found that, because a lot of stuff in physiology is not linear, right?
So I would imagine Yeah. Five minutes a day. Better than none, 20 minutes better, 60 minutes. If everyone, if, if somebody just has unlimited time, is there like an inflection point where you're like, oh, if you can get to 20 or 30 minutes a day, it's much better. Or any guidance on sort of total time?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, I think that there is if you can, I think 30 minutes a day is the sweet spot. Okay.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Okay, cool.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: [01:09:00] Because one, you know when, when we met, when we mentioned earlier, the synthetic sleep protocols. That, and we talked about, potential for glymphatic opening and the, the, the delta and sub delta slow wave EEG changes and potential for that, we're moving brain fluid around and all that.
That's not something that happens immediately,
Dr Mike T Nelson: right?
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: You've got to be not just physically relaxed, but then also very mentally relaxed, literally so that your brain can, calm down a bit to, to achieve that, that change in that state. And we don't see that in the first 10 minutes, even during synthetic sleep protocols, right?
So I would say that, doing shift wave long enough to, let your body calm down, shift your symp, shift your autonomic nervous system, and then experience that ineffable third phase. I think that 30 minutes is kind of the, the sweet spot for [01:10:00] doing that. But again, something's better than nothing, sure. You've got 15 minutes. It's certainly better to do that than it is to scroll again on your phone. Yeah. And I think that that is a yeah. So that would be my recommendation there.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that's the thing that I found for getting myself to, to do it, is just I just have to sit in the chair and once I'm in the chair, I'll go through and I'll, I'll do the breathing things.
You can do a guided protocol where I think sometimes the inertia to do meditation and to do other things, it's the same thing I tell clients at training. Just go to the gym. If you're gonna do something on the rower, like for week one, just do two minutes. Like your job is just to show up and put your butt on the rower.
If you did 30 seconds, it's still a win over nothing. Like you could argue you're not gonna get a ton of benefit from that, but over time you're building the habit, you're doing it, and you, your time spent will, will increase. So I've noticed just. Being able to just get in the chair and then do something is gonna be a, a net [01:11:00] benefit overall.
For sure.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Exactly. And life happens.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, for sure.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: That's just the nature. That's just the nature of the beast. But, making a commitment to do a practice, even if it's small, even if it's not, your full in depth practice, just to do that every day, I think is a it's a very powerful way to let benefits compound and keep keep the state of your own nervous system as one of your kind of higher priorities in, in, in your days.
Even on the rough ones. Even on the busy ones. Even on the ones with back to backs.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people learn more about you if you wanna be found and we'll put a link to the, the shift by website and any other resources or anything else people should do if they're interested.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Yeah, I would say that the best way to learn about it is to go to our website, which is shift wave.co, not.com, dot co co, but also check us out on YouTube. I believe our handle is at Shift Wave Pro, all one word. [01:12:00] And when you go to that website, you'll of course see testimonials and people using shift wave in a very, in a number of different locations.
But you'll also see some of my kind of. Favorite stuff around shift wave where you'll see actually reactions from some of our humanitarian work. We've, where we've been able to get shift waves donated into mental health centers Ukrainian army and children's trauma camps in Ukraine. So you can see some, we're not just a wellness company that's like there to sell a bunch of products, right?
Like we're, we're actually on a mission to help provide nervous system resets and help people. So you can really see some of that work and see their, it's not, you're not hearing it from company people.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Seeing the reaction for people using the shift waves in the, in rough situations.
So check us out on YouTube is my, is my recommendation.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Thank you so much for all your time. I really appreciate it and this has been great. Thank you so much.
Jeff Rouse, M.D.: Awesome. This has been awesome. I love these high bandwidth [01:13:00] deeply nerdy conversations.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, this is great. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Huge thanks to Dr. Jeff Rouse for being on the podcast. I really, really appreciate his chat here today. Over a wide range of topics involving the nervous system, how you can upregulate, downregulate, the benefits of that and how the shift wave device is working to maximize those.
If you are interested in more stuff for myself, check out my newsletter. Go to the link down below. You can hop onto the newsletter link for free. If you are interested in all things shift, wave, I do have an affiliate link down below. So I do make a few clams if you decide to purchase through that.
And if you have any questions, you can reach out to me directly, more than happy to help you. If I'm not able to [01:14:00] answer it, I can definitely pass you on to. The correct person to give you an answer. Again, huge thanks to Dr. Jeff for all of his time and to everyone at shift, wave there for doing really, really great stuff.
I've been overly impressed with everybody there that I've interacted with. As I said in the intro, I have been able to use the device for about six weeks now, and it's been super, super useful. There's still new stuff I'm figuring out with it. We liked it so much we stuck it in the SUV and took it all the way down here to South Padre, Texas.
Where we're at right now recording this and it's been super helpful down here doing some demos for some other people also. If you're interested in it check it out and if you have questions for me, please hit me up. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. We really appreciate it.
If you could give us a thumbs up, a like, subscribe the subscription, especially on YouTube is super helpful. [01:15:00] Any reviews, all that kind of, all the great stuff that helps the algorithms really helps us out so we can continue to get great guests like this. So thank you so much. Really appreciate it, and we'll talk to all of you next week.
Speaker 2: There's something wrong with his hearing aid.
Speaker 3: Yeah. What's wrong?
Speaker 2: I can't hear with it.
Speaker 3: Oh, no wonder. It's too far away.
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