Are You Aging Faster Than You Should? - Dr. Kristen Holmes

**Dr. Kristen Holmes** (0:00)
The world is kind of divided into two, individuals who have control over their autonomic nervous system and those who don't. The people who do just have a, not just a competitive advantage, but a survival advantage.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:10)
Again, you talk about rhythm and rest and resilience. The idea of trust in fear, can you just walk me through that?

**Dr. Kristen Holmes** (0:18)
When we are operating from a place of fear, we are operating from the sympathetic branch of our nervous system. That's when we're essentially accelerating the pace of our aging, you know? It sounds crazy, but that's the cost of living in fear.
Having a more balanced, autonomic nervous system, it doesn't require completely transforming your life. A lot of the most basic things are free and democratically available to all folks. And I think it's just figuring out how much control do I want to have with how I show up.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:49)
But no one is talking about what you're talking about. There's a whole other sector of data that it's essentially the autonomic nervous system that is not necessarily being incorporated. I think that we're missing some of this.

**Dr. Kristen Holmes** (1:01)
And there is no question that late night eating bubbles up almost on par with alcohol in terms of having a deleterious effect on resting physiology. Content quality very much matters. What's really interesting is a paper just came out looking at duration and all-cause mortality. And indeed, the long sleepers have far worse outcomes than the short sleepers.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (1:21)
Why do you think that is?

**Dr. Kristen Holmes** (1:21)
Well, I think.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (1:31)
Dr. Kristen Holmes, I would consider you a secret weapon to many. Beyond global head of human performance and principal scientist at WUPE, you are an extraordinary human. Not only, so I want to get you very embarrassed before we start, not only have I watched you work so hard for the things that you believed in supporting other humans, but your humility in doing this and the hard work and the sacrifice, I don't think people will ever see.
But what they will see is what you actually produce, and your new book, Aligned, is beautifully done, and it is not just data driven, which everybody who listens to this podcast and everyone that knows you, they know you for the data. But there is an absolute other dimension to you, and that's very soulful, which I think we just all need more of.

**Dr. Kristen Holmes** (2:41)
Yeah, I definitely wanted to write a book that wasn't about performance optimization, but was actually about wholeness. And that's what I hope the book in the end achieves, but it made me emotional, so thanks.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (2:56)
You know I've actually been friends for a long time.

**Dr. Kristen Holmes** (2:59)
I know. Folds of Honor, I think, was where we met, right? When we were helping the guys with their 777, which was super fun. And I remember, I got home and I was talking to my daughter. I'm like, I just met my soul sister.
I just, I could not believe how gracious and generous and, you know, I mean, you reached out to me. I probably had like, you know, 2500 followers on Instagram and you reached out and you said, I believe in what you're doing. How can I help you? Like, who does that? You know, I, you know, and I, and I, and I, every woman I've come across, you have impacted them. Like, who's in this field as a scientist trying to kind of break through and get their work out there and, you know, you support all of us in ways that I, it's mind-blowing how you have the time, frankly, but I'm so grateful.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (3:51)
Well, you are just, like I said, extraordinary. You and I were just chatting a second ago about trauma, and you also mentioned something I'd never heard before, but I suppose I've thought about, and that's this idea that there are two kind of entities or two groups of people. And again, this is kind of simplifying it, but you were saying those that manage their autonomic nervous system and those that don't.

**Dr. Kristen Holmes** (4:16)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the world is kind of divided into two, you know, individuals who have control over their autonomic nervous system and those who don't, and the people who do just have a, not just a competitive advantage, but a survival advantage. And, you know, I think what is really interesting in just some of the literature that's emerging, especially around aging and longevity, is that a lot of the hallmarks of aging are actually symptoms of a deregulated autonomic nervous system. So when we think about cellular senescence and mitochondrial dysfunction, genomic instability, inflammation, you know, you can just kind of go down the line, proteostasis, those are symptoms of a deregulated autonomic nervous system. And there's this beautiful paper that was literally just published in December of 2025 by Orico and colleagues, and I hope I pronounced that right.