#410 Salim Najjar: What Your HRV Score Is Really Telling You

Salim Najjar is a former nuclear engineer turned wellness entrepreneur and HRV educator. After co-founding Sound, a pioneering unsweetened sparkling tea brand, he spent years biohacking his way through performance culture—until his body forced him to listen. Now, Salim is on a mission to teach people how to regulate their nervous systems, master their stress, and reconnect with their bodies through the lens of HRV (Heart Rate Variability). His work bridges engineering, spirituality, and somatic awareness to help high-performers access true resilience from within. In this episode, Salim Najjar returns to go deep on the one metric he believes can change your health and your life: HRV. After burning out while building his beverage company, Salim discovered that high performance without recovery leads to breakdown. This conversation unpacks his six-year deep dive into nervous system regulation—from biohacking and Bikram yoga to trauma processing, spiritual surrender, and living nomadically. If you want to understand stress at its root and build lasting resilience in a chaotic world, this episode is your blueprint. What we cover:-  What HRV actually measures -  The difference between stress and chronic stress -  How your thoughts and emotional stories affect your HRV in real time. -  HRV as a language of the nervous system Timestamps: (1:00) Intro (4:00) Discovering baking soda protocols and mistrusting the mainstream (7:00) The origin story of Sound and biohacking in NYC (10:00) Breaking down from burnout and discovering Bikram yoga (12:00) What HRV actually measures and why it matters (19:00) HRV as a language—why you can’t compare your score to others (26:00) How trauma gets stuck in the body and lowers HRV (35:00) Limbic brain shutdown and losing access to your performance (43:00) Why stress is necessary—chronic stress is the problem (1:00:15) Tripling HRV in 24 hours by surrendering and going nomadic *** LINKS***Check out our supplement company - Noble Origins- 100% grass-fed beef protein with added collagen, colostrum and organs- Use code MEATMAFIA for 15% OFF your orderCheck out our Newsletter - Food for Thought - to dramatically improve your health this year!Join The Meat Mafia community Telegram group for daily conversations to keep up with what’s happening between episodes of the show.Connect with Salim:WebsiteInstagramConnect with Brett:InstagramConnect with Harry:InstagramXConnect with Meat Mafia:Instagram - Meat MafiaX - Meat MafiaYouTube - Meat MafiaConnect with Noble Protein:Website - Noble ProteinX - Noble ProteinInstagram - Noble ProteinAFFILIATESLMNT - Electrolyte salts to supplement minerals on low-carb dietThe Carnivore Bar - Use Code 'MEATMAFIA' for 10% OFF - Delicious & convenient Pemmican BarPerennial Pastures - Use CODE 'MEATMAFIA' 10% OFF - Regeneratively raised, grass-fed & grass-finished beef from California & MontanaFarrow Skincare - Use CODE 'MEATMAFIA' at checkout for 20% OFFHeart & Soil - CODE ‘MEATMAFIA’ for 10% OFF - enhanced nutrition to replace daily vitamins!Carnivore Snax - Use CODE 'MEATMAFIA' Crispy, airy meat chips that melt in your mouth. Regeneratively raised in the USA.Pluck Seasoning - 15% OFF - Nutrient-dense seasoning with INSANE flavor! Use CODE: MEATMAFIAWe Feed Raw 25% OFF your first order - ancestrally consistent food for your dog! Use CODE 'MEATMAFIA'Fond Bone Broth - 15% OFF - REAL bone broth with HIGH-QUALITY ingredients! It’s a daily product for us! Use CODE: MAFIAMaui Nui- 15% OFF. Use CODE: MEATMAFIA