deep breath in and out Okay, so I'm not a yoga instructor, but I hear a lot about the value of yoga for the body and mind What I didn't know was just how much yoga can literally transform your health in ways that we're still discovering What if I told you that yoga might be more than just a workout. It might be a lifesaver Grab your mat get comfortable and join us as we learn about amazing health transformations and the science of sweat salt and self-care Welcome to research outside of the box a podcast for unconventional unique and out-of-the-box research happening at Texas State and The innovative research approaches faculty use along the way. I'm your host Kamri Carter training specialist for faculty development And today in the studio, I am super excited to welcome. Dr. Stacey Hunter associate professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance Hey, Stacey How are you today?

How are you today? Good? How are you? I'm good I'm excited to have you after I think we've had to reschedule this couple times due to just life Yeah, so yeah, it happens, but I'm I'm excited to have you in the studio So will you tell the audience a little bit about yourself? So I'm an associate professor in health and human performance my research focuses on individuals with Elevated blood pressure in the early stages of hypertension and I study the effects of yoga Postures as well as breathing exercises or pranayama Looking at the influence of yoga on blood pressure, but also vascular health And those individuals and then we have another line of research in which I also look at the effects of yoga on sodiums Adverse effects on the cardiovascular system as well.

Adverse effects on the cardiovascular system as well. Okay. What what got you into this research?

What what got you into this research? So I It was really just introduced to the topic of you guys a doctoral student and I think this probably like back in 2008 and there was a study that was just done just completed in the lab that I was starting my PhD and and They had for their control condition Stretching and so they were interested in looking at the effects of resistance training combined with aerobic exercise versus resistance training alone Looking at the effects of those things on arterial stiffness And so they had their control group do something that they didn't think was going to impact arterial stiffness, which was stretching and the people in the control group actually fared better than the individuals who were doing the Strength training combined with aerobic training.

So interesting that that was sort of like this accidental thing I mean, they just published that study and my PhD mentor Talked to me about it. I said, okay Well, you know, obviously I made a dissertation topic and he said well, you know Obviously people don't typically stretch for 45 minutes But one thing they will do is yoga and that incorporates stretching.

Yeah, and so that's really how I Was led to the topic of yoga. I had never practiced yoga before Never had any exposure to it in Charleston, which is where I'm from Charleston, South Carolina I did undergrad there. I never Remember you have a coming up even Being a grad student at the other UT Tennessee and Knoxville never practiced it But yeah, so I came here to Texas and was introduced to the topic and I figured, you know Let me give it a try myself Since I'll be studying it might as well.

Exactly. Yeah. Do you like it? I love it. Oh, that's awesome That's great It's also like a personal it's become like my saving grace from on a personal level as well And what's great to have that kind of tie in to your research of it? It's something you enjoy and that you're getting something out of just as a person. Yes And then you get to study it to help other people. Yes. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah Did I like to ask this sometimes? What did you want to be when you were a kid? Surgeon.

All right. How did how did you go from? Surgeon to just studying yoga.

Yeah I wanted to be a surgeon when I was a kid and that was my dad had this knee surgery I remember when I was little and he came home talking about the whole procedure He was I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool, you know, so very early on I knew that I was interested in the human body and thought that medical school was going to be my path and so I started undergrad as a pre-med biology major and And probably like a couple years into undergrad realized that that was probably not the path for me And so I changed my major.

I was at UNC Charlotte That's when that's where I started undergrad and then I transferred to the College of Charleston and finished there But I changed my major developing this interest in health and fitness and then sort of like Found my way back over to physiology.

Yeah It's not a huge difference and I mean, like you said, it's about the Physiology of the body and anatomy and yeah health Yeah And so it's not a huge deviation But I'm always curious to know what people wanted to be as a kid and then how that kind of influenced where they are At now.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, and so for folks who aren't in this field What makes this research out of the box or different? I think so the measures that we use in the lab are very standard Measurements we look at what's called endothelial function We measure that with an ultrasound machine and do a blood flow Manipulation to look to see how the blood vessel responds to increases in blood flow because that's indicative of the risk of heart disease Then we also do a few measures of arterial stiffness Like I said a few different techniques for that The thing the vascular measures that we look at again are all related to the future risk of cardiovascular disease However, I think the application of yoga You know to those measures and looking at yoga as an intervention To modify those things.

I think is definitely outside of the box when I when I started this research In 2008 there was one published study.

I was gonna ask about published studies prior to yours Yeah, there was one published study back then and it was done in patients with coronary artery disease I believe and they had the patients do yoga and they looked at endothelial function Before and after the yoga program, and I think they found a significant change in endothelial function, however, they used like a p-value for significance of point one O as opposed to point O five and You know a lot of people use point zero five as the level of significance I think that's probably what you'll see for most physiology studies so That was the only study at the time And so yes now obviously they're a lot more and many of them have been studies that I've published This really isn't a heavy heavily investigated area.

Yeah, so you're kind of trailblazing and pioneering in that way In what ways did you have to approach your research or this project kind of creatively or in a way that you didn't expect? Let's see um Golly so many things come up Like what what hasn't that I haven't expected.

I swear. I mean I didn't when I started the research I didn't even have anyone to ask Really who had done it previously. So I felt like we were really just sort of like learning as we went along So I guess To answer your question.

There were a lot of things That that I didn't expect to have to do like I think some of the first studies that we did.

I remember having to meet or develop a Relationship with a yoga instructor because we needed a yoga sequence for the study I mean there are just so many ins and outs of the research that Things that you didn't really have to think about if you were studying more so traditional exercise like treadmill Walking for instance, you just put them bring them in put them on a machine But with yoga like you have to decide which style and then like even certain styles have variations in the sequences And so I had to like formulate all of those things Yeah, I didn't even think about the fact that different styles of yoga probably have a difference on the study itself Absolutely.

So yeah, and then like how are you gonna handle? Modifications to the poses for people who can't get into the full expressions like all of those things. Yeah Have to be considered.

So yeah, and I also didn't one thing that I did not necessarily think about when I started One of the many things was the learning curve too Is oftentimes, you know when you're looking to introduce an intervention to individuals Like you want people who have not already been practicing that intervention. I mean that's ideal So we typically get sedentary individuals people who don't exercise much at all But also we want them to be pretty yoga naive like not much experience with it And so there's a learning curve where people have to first learn the ins and outs of yoga, right? Because for a lot of them, they're just being introduced to it for the first time So if you're studying say a 12-week yoga intervention You have to account for probably a longer learning curve in the beginning For those individuals as compared to if you were to just put them on a treadmill and have them walk You know several times a day per week And you brought up an interesting point that you had to get What you described as sedentary individuals with no experience in yoga, which I I'd imagine That means they're probably weren't very interested in yoga prior to this study. How did you get them? Or convince them to be a part of it.

Yeah, so I Developed relationships with some yoga studio owners in Austin who were very gracious In terms of helping me to recruit participants when I would be looking for individuals who were not currently practicing yoga And so they would actually just do these email blasts sometimes of thousands of people on their listservs and and the people who were Practicing who wanted friends and family members to start would just forward the information and so that's how I got probably most That makes sense of the participants connections of connection. Yes connections. Yeah. Okay, that's awesome. I was curious about that. Yeah That's dr.

Hunter showing me how she induces physical responses from participants to monitor their blood vessels during dilation So that she can record vascular endothelial functions before and after yoga Try saying that three times fast While we were chatting about the process. She reflected on lessons learned regarding planning for the future for labs and research Did you have any lessons learned when building this lab Yeah, so many lessons I'm sure yeah, I mean definitely I So there are things that I didn't realize I would need for instance wet lab equipment Then I didn't know that I would need for myself because we already had some of the equipment in the building But it turns out that I needed that and then some Yeah, and so yeah, I think Maybe just like having greater foresight in the beginning And thinking not only of what I wanted to work on immediately But also what I wanted to work on down the line and what I wanted to incorporate say two to three years later Yeah So in addition to yoga itself, like specifically i've done lots of studies on hot yoga in particular where people are practicing in the heat and so There's much to be there's I think there's much more to be considered with that particular style as compared to even like room temperature of yoga practices because you have to consider people with certain health conditions that may impact their ability to regulate their body temperature and There's a lot of electrical components There definitely is I mean I I don't know that I have like a specific list of trials and errors, but I definitely have things that I've learned along the way and I know we were talking about the other week Writing grants and not realizing the equipment that you need ahead of the time. Yeah, you want to talk about that? Yeah um, so in terms of preparation for the study and procuring funding for the studies that you're wanting to engage in I think probably one of the errors that I made early on was Not just not properly anticipating the need um, which I think is very hard to do especially when you're Doing certain things for the first time like you try your best to anticipate what you might need but things come up and I don't think that I allowed enough Funding for equipment And you said pieces of equipment that I needed Yeah, because you said the lab that you're currently have that was not a thing when you started. No the lab actually I founded the the lab in our department as like a few other of the pis in our department have as well But yes, I established the cardiovascular physiology lab in our departments And it's moved. I think we're in our third second third location now initially I didn't have a lab space and then I was um given a smaller lab space and now i'm in a A bigger lab space that seems more permanent now.

So yeah, there is definitely um things that Go along with starting anything Right. I mean we had to order equipment get the lab set up properly all of those different things um in addition to hiring staff and And yes, there were things that in the beginning um I think when I initially started I think that I was thinking okay order just enough That was my mentality is get just what you need So if you like what is the least that you can function with and for something like that is How I was operating initially and I I definitely learned That that is not the way to go and because things happen equipment issues arise in particular, um One example is with ambulatory blood pressure monitors.

So we um, and those are like arm cuffs, right? Yeah, so they're just they're they're regular looking Things done, um But they're called ambulatory because they can be programmed to take blood pressure measurements throughout the course of 24 hours Without you having to hit a button or do it manually And it also stores the blood pressure data within the device so that we can take it from the participant later and download the results awesome, so it gives you um A much more comprehensive picture of what is going on with the person's blood pressure compared to someone going Into a doctor's office or a lab and sitting for a couple minutes and doing one measurement. Yeah, that makes sense Yeah, because some people get anxious right before that first measurement like oftentimes it tends to be yeah so, um So we use these cups and so initially I only ordered two of them. I don't know what I was thinking Um because I would eventually Now be doing a study where i'm trying to recruit 90 participants.

Yeah, we have to do blood pressure monitoring At baseline and at monthly intervals for every single participant. There's no way Yeah, I could be functioning with just two ambulatory blood pressure monitors. So that was definitely um That was a pretty big error on my part in the beginning So if you could go back, how do you think you could have approached it differently to think more? Long-term about the project.

Yeah, I think that's exactly what I should have been doing is thinking more long-term more. So Not thinking about what I wanted to do In that moment or immediately But also thinking even like four or five years down the road Like what do I anticipate working on and meeting that sort of a thing? And I wish that I thought a little bit more like that even when I got the position here And I was setting up my lab Yeah, I do wish that I had thought a little bit more about that and I wish that I had More of the mentality that I was thinking of okay Get extra just in case as opposed to get just what you need Yeah, I mean it sounds I mean I do the same thing I think about wait, what do I need right now to survive because it's kind of a survival mode. Yeah, I imagine And so how do you yeah break out of that to? Think long term and so yeah, I think that's great advice.

Think long term and so yeah, I think that's great advice. Yeah. Yeah Do you use students to help conduct a research?

Do you use students to help conduct a research? I um, I have taught students how to engage in research Yes, so I do have um Several i've had several trainees over the years Um both graduate level and undergrad.

We don't have a doctoral program and health and human performance yet um But we do have undergraduate and master's students and and i've had uh students both from our programs But also i've had a few students from outside Of health and human performance who are just interested in yoga interested in, you know Doing some clinical trials research where they get some experience working with human subjects like maybe students like a student from biology For instance, yeah, um, which i've had a couple Yeah of trainees from that department.

What was that experience like because I mean They're kind of also getting a firsthand look at this research that is you know emerging relatively newly um What was that experience like kind of bringing them along and saying okay This is what it looks like to kind of be one of the only people studying this thing Yeah, I mean I think that it's Afforded them a unique opportunity for sure.

Um to be involved in researching a topic that is still sort of like emerging still um you know still growing in terms of interest and among researchers, so um I think my first year here uh We published a study in which we compared heated versus non-heated yoga and looking at the effects of both interventions on endothelial function on vascular health And we found that the two interventions were equally effective.

Um And so the journal Experimental physiology was a journal. It was published and they did a press release about it And that study got all this media attention I was getting all these emails and calls like suddenly my interviews and like and so and I brought my students in Oh, that's great. So I yeah So it actually you know sit there and do the interview like I had my graduate assistant sitting there next to me listening to the whole thing Um, so I do I mean, I think they've gotten some pretty good exposure to Absolutely.

Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah um Can you talk a little bit about what the larger implications or impact of your research is? so like my ultimate goal is to you know establish yoga as a means of reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, but also establish it as a means of Perhaps maybe even reversing certain forms of cardiovascular disease and those who already have it Um, so yes, that is like the broad implication that I mean hopefully that will be the broader implication of the work the collective work that we do it's just overall health in a Yeah, yeah Are there is there any from what you've experienced so far? Is there any hope about reversing? Some effects of cardiovascular disease.

Yeah. I mean I think this hypertension work That we've been doing Excuse me is definitely Starting to show that Um and starting to add to the evidence that already exists in the literature about that as well Um hypertension is a form of cardiovascular disease and and we're seeing some pretty good blood pressure lowering effects of yoga um I'm looking at postures and comparing postures to yogic breathing a lot of people can't necessarily do All of the yoga postures that may come up in a given class So I think the investigation of yogic breathing or pranayama um in particular I think that's very important to establish if people in the absence of you know, twisting bending Like maybe having accessible.

Yeah, exactly in the absence of doing that. Can they breathe? Yeah, the ulcer they're breathing which does requires very very minimal physical Exertion or you know physical capabilities.

So and I personally find it really interesting just because I have a history my family has a history of cardiovascular diseases and It wasn't until recently that it dawned on me. I was like, oh that means you might be Yeah Me too next in line. And so i'm i'm always like what? What can I do to better my health especially because I grew up in a not super healthy environment We'd my family. Sorry if my family's listening to this. We just didn't cook a lot I'm calling you out We didn't cook a lot and so a lot of it was like frozen meals fast food meals. Um, and so i'm very Yeah, and so i'm like, oh there's hope. Yeah, there's hope in a very like Tangible way is what it sounds like because you I think you had mentioned once to me before that even in five weeks. There's a big difference Yeah, so we we actually looked at four weeks.

Yeah, so we we actually looked at four weeks. Oh, really?

really? Yeah, we we saw some pretty we saw some significant improvements in the variables we were looking at in just four weeks that was um We did this four week hot yoga intervention. It's probably the most recent intervention study that we've published it is.

Yeah Um, you know, it's really a four-week intervention in african-american women um and so Sodium is consumed in excess by most americans that regardless of race that does not disproportionately impact african-americans I focused on that population however, because african-americans tend to be more prone to salt sensitivity of blood pressure meaning their blood pressure responds to their Variations and sodium intake they're more likely to have that than individuals of certain other races And so that was the reason why they were the focus of that study um So we did this four-week intervention We had them do a six-day diet three days of low sodium intake followed by three days of high sodium intake to see if the high sodium increased their blood pressure at baseline And also to see if it compromised their vascular function at baseline, which we did see some of that But then after they did four weeks of yoga, those responses were no longer evident and that was 35 minute sessions Um how many times a week and that we told them to go five times a week and on average they did it four four Yes, that big of a difference with four sessions a week.

Yeah half an hour about For four weeks.

Yeah. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah. I mean four weeks. That's the shortest Intervention study that I have ever done.

Intervention study that I have ever done. I usually would do eight to twelve um And that's why we made it so You know intense in terms of the frequency of practice I don't usually ask people to do yoga five times a week, but I figured okay, this is gonna only be four weeks. Let's maximize the Chances of seeing some significant findings and we did that's that's really exciting And I'm sure it brings a lot of people hope in that you really can Just be healthier fast in in in in and in a Easy way a semi-easy way like you said just breathing techniques and like being in the moment stretching Yeah, good for you. Yeah quickly and you're in an easy way For some people doing yoga four times a week might be easier than trying to cut back on their sodium intake It's true for me. I mean a lot of people just like salt. Yeah, I mean myself included Yeah, we grew up with it and our body like desires it I'm not a huge sweet person, but if you put something like salty and savory in front of me I'm like absolutely 100 percent And so many of the foods that we consume regularly are packed with sodium processed foods So no like can you mitigate some of the risks associated with that common dietary practice by just like maybe Modifying your physical activity like yeah, maybe find a way around changing the diet. Yeah I think that that's good. I think that's promising. So it's promising. Yeah Open a build upon that. Yeah, and you just published that research, right? Yeah. Yeah Did your were your students like co-pis or were they included in that?

Did your were your students like co-pis or were they included in that? I had Yes, I did have a few students. I had One student who actually co-authored the paper So I had one student who co-authored the paper her name's Mitra Rahimi and she She was a graduate student from the biology department now.

She's transitioned to our department Did you steal a student? Yes She's um public health now, but she's actually been working in the lab now for over a year and a half And so she contributed to data collection and she also contribute to writing The writing of the manuscript enough to get co-authorship on that paper So now I was really like proud of her for that, but I also had other student trainees who Assisted with data collection as well and you know Who are named and who are acknowledged as in addition to her? So do you have any advice for other researchers who are publishing with students? okay, so I think they're On the paper and they're really taking the lead on the project And then you have the other scenario where you have a student who has assisted with your project Maybe not enough like not enough of a lead necessarily to be first author I have done both Um, I have had a few of my students publish as first author and i've helped to guide them through the process um I think From my experience all of them All of them have different needs and different required different levels of oversight um And so I think they definitely require different levels of oversight um, so maybe just take that into consideration and Try I think one thing that I would do going forward Um Is to ask for a writing sample from a student Who is interested in taking the lead on the writing of a paper of a manuscript that's good Yeah, I think or under my mentorship I would ask for a writing sample first just to gauge Where the student was in terms of their their level? So you were nowhere to go as a mentor exactly so that I would know exactly Like so that I would have a better idea of what that student might need.

Yeah prior to Getting in the prior getting involved.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, that's great advice. Thank you. Um What advice have you heard Or witnessed in action that moved you in one direction or another as a researcher or scholar just general may not be related to this specific project but generalized um The one piece i've gotten a lot of advice on grants in particular from mentors people that I consider career mentors of mine um And I think one of the pieces of advice this might be random.

Um Was that You should always Put your best foot forward In terms of your grant proposals and what the person meant by that because he elaborated was that You should write the grant as if The circumstances were ideal Okay, like don't write it to your limitations or what you think may not be possible or that sort of a thing Because I used to do that. Okay And I would limit myself in terms of my methodologies because I would be thinking About logistics and I would be like, okay, that's gonna be difficult.

And so I would compromise a bit on the scientific rigor Because I would get into my into my head and think okay That's gonna be a little too hard. I'm not gonna put that in there But one of my mentors said he corrected me because I we were talking about the grant one of my proposals This is someone who is very instrumental in helping me to get the grant that I now have um And he said that to me. He said no always put your best foot forward. Do not think Like don't think about those limitations.

Don't allow those things to prevent you um from writing the best possible grant methodologies or grant that you can and so If that helps anyone, I I mean like take that I certain it definitely helped me. Yeah, I mean it sounds like just Having confidence in yourself and believing that you can do even the really hard things. Yes better to come exactly Yeah, no, I think that's great advice Um What other projects do you have in store that we could get a sneak peek at? Uh, we are working on this grant funded trial like I I mentioned before so we're Looking at the effects of yoga postures versus breathing on vascular function, but also Immune cell oxidative stress.

So the immune system Plays a role in certain diseases conditions and hypertension is one of them Um, and so we're looking to see if we can make some beneficial modifications within people's immune cells with some posture and breathing practices um, and then also right now interested in the effects of *** on sodium induced responses There's some literature to suggest that women tend to be more responsive or their bp is more responsive to sodium than men um However, that hasn't really been established in african-americans most of the studies have not been done in that population So that's what we're working on at the moment. Okay. Awesome. I always like asking that because it's always fun I like like knowing what you were all up to. Yeah going forward. Awesome Well, do you have any other advice that you feel like you'd like to leave people with? That we didn't get to Well, I think my advice would probably be it's For people who are in the early stages um of academia I think I would probably leave some words of advice for those individuals Like maybe people who are in their first couple years or so on the tenure track, you know um And I'd probably say a few things I definitely learned as I went along as everyone else Does nobody comes in just knowing exactly what to do and what not to do um But I would definitely say um don't your personal Wellness, yeah I mean, that's what you're studying. It's personal. I would say Try your best not to sacrifice that um for the sake of productivity at work and um Checking the boxes that need to be checked.

I know Getting tenure is difficult It's a long process um It is very hard and being in academia tends to be very consuming um Particularly research I think doing research can be very mentally consuming um and I think for me one of The mistakes I consider That I made in my first few years here Is that I allowed it to consume too much of my life um Like I was working six to seven days a week Um, because I just didn't have time.

I didn't have enough time during the day So work on my grant, um, because they had teaching responsibilities and you know, the teaching load Here is a little higher than some other institutions where people are getting these large grants more often Um, but those are the people you're competing with when you're submitting Say these nih grants you're competing with people who don't teach at all Like they literally work on their grants like all day or most of the day. Um and so It's toxic it is very taxing but I would still say despite that Um, I still think I allowed it to take up too much of my life um and so Thankfully, I didn't have like any major like consequences in terms of lost relationships, but I do believe that Some of my some aspects of my personal life.

I do believe suffered Um because I put so much into What I was doing at work. Yeah, I think it's hard not to um So I would say that yeah No, I think that's great advice and a subject we haven't really touched on yet in the podcast and so I think it's very applicable to remember that you're a person.

Yeah And you have limitations.

Absolutely. You need rest you sure do You need rest you need The people in your life your relationships the things outside of work really are most important Do you think like mentorship or support or any specific strategy helps with that? Mentorship I am a huge proponent of mentorship.

I would not still be here If it weren't for my mentors um And this is from my phd mentor on up because I still even would regularly meet with my phd mentor While I was tenure track faculty, I mean He would even he would help me But then I had career mentors as well and and people who would try to give me advice like what I just attempted to to give up Like okay stacy, you know, you need rest um like Get away from it step away from the grant for a moment like maybe do a yoga class or something like, you know Spend some time with your family. That's sort of a thing um And so having somebody intentionally there. Yes, I think so.

It's very important mentorship is very very important and also just like Just being aware being aware of how consuming our job can be Being aware of that and being intentional about not allowing it to consume Too much of your life.

Yeah, I think that's great advice Thank you so much for for saying that because I think it's an important subject. Like I said that we haven't Super gotten into yet in this podcast and I think it's It's needed.

We want our researchers our faculty to be good and healthy whole humans, yeah Um, yeah, and that starts with being aware of it and getting support for that. Yeah Anything else that you want to talk about that we didn't get to before we go? Uh, no All right Well, thank you so much stacy. I had a great time. I learned a lot. I feel hopeful about my health. I feel Ready to advocate for myself for my own wellness And so I I hope that all of our audience feels the same. I I have confidence that they do So thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you But yeah, we hope that you'll join us next time Thanks for joining us today This podcast project is sponsored by faculty development using u-star studios at alkeck one on the hill in the bright and beautiful san marcos texas Thank you to all the faculty who are making amazing strides in your research We hope you join us next time and until then stay curious and dare to research outside of the box