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Learn more about an under-the-radar metric that can signal heart health and the body's ability to adapt to its environment. Heart rate variability measures the gap between heartbeats and can be used by data-driven individuals to track how lifestyle changes affect their health.
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Introduction
Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a newly discovered metric that helps to measure heart and nervous system health. People with a healthy HRV have been shown to be happier and more resistant to stress. By learning to track and improve your HRV, you can measure how lifestyle changes affect your overall health and quality of life.
What You'll Learn:
What is Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
Heart rate variability is a measurement of the time between heartbeats. By taking the average of this range, you can calculate the heart rate variability (HRV). HRV can be used as a general indicator of heart health, function, and strain.
Your body naturally reacts to "stressful" stimuli with sympathetic nerve activation; this elevates our heart rate. This elevation can be positive or negative given the stimulus: exercise, social activity, or stress. When your body reacts to parasympathetic nerve activation, it lowers the heart rate. This can include things like: meditation, sleep, or just relaxation. Both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves are a part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and functions independently at all times.
These states of being happen automatically as your body reacts to stimuli in our environment. Generally, we want to have a high HRV, as it is a signal that your ANS is highly adaptable and can better react to changes in your environment. High variability is a sign that you are getting a healthy mix of strain and recovery. A low heart rate variability could mean you are overworked, chronically stressed, anxious, and hyper-tense.
Target Ranges
According to WebMd, the average adult has an HRV around 42 milliseconds. The range is anywhere from 20ms to 75ms. However, other studies have shown that the "healthy" range begins at a minimum HRV of 50 milliseconds, with the range stretching over 100ms.
However, it is incredibly hard to pin down what a "good" range is for HRV. Firstly, it is often hard for devices that are not medical-grade to accurately measure the gap between heartbeats, especially over time. Additionally, different devices may have slight variations in their calculation of HRV because they have a different time span of measurement. Finally, HRV will naturally decline with age, but increasing it can have some health and longevity benefits.
Benefits of High HRV
People with a higher HRV have been shown to be less stressed and happier. By training your ANS to be highly adaptable, you can become more resistant to the mental and physiological effects of stress.
One of the biggest issues with chronic stress is that our bodies never get the chance to recover from the strain of adrenaline. In other words, the sympathetic nervous system becomes stronger than the parasympathetic and it is hard to relax even when there is no stimuli. Training your ANS, which can be measured using HRV, gives your parasympathetic system the opportunity to consistently bring your heart rate back to a healthier baseline state. This makes your body more resistant to chronic stress.
Measuring Heart Rate Variability
As we learn more about the body and how we can measure its health and performance, there is a rising trend in using real-time data to optimize health. This can include heart rate, breaths per minute, VO2 Max, and steps. This data allows us to set future goals, track progress, and understand our relative fitness. While these metrics are all subjective and the result of dozens of factors, they can be a good way to track the effects of habits over time.
Heart rate variability is tricky because it is an average from a wide span of time. Your heart beats anywhere from 40-200 times per minute given your body's needs. If you are calculating HRV using only data from a deep meditation or the peak of a workout, it will heavily skew the results. However, using 30+ days to calculate the HRV will lead to a smoothing problem where it does not accurately reflect your health. Understanding how HRV is calculated by the device you are using is an important part in interpreting the result.
That being said, newer technologies are giving us a chance to measure and observe the effects of metrics like HRV over time. As long as you are comparing measurements from the same device, you can track trends and progress over time. Consult a medical professional for more details about what your metrics mean and whether there is anything to be concerned about.
Devices
Wearable fitness trackers have become extremely popular. Many companies have designed devices that can be worn at all times on your wrist like: Apple, Garmin and Fitbit. Others include arm straps, chest straps, even headbands. These devices allow us to collect more data about long-term metrics of health and fitness. While their accuracy is not comparable to devices like an EKG, it is a signal that the future will include data driven health choices. Additionally, while inaccurate they provide the average user the opportunity to track and analyze their health data.
AI in Calculations
Even more recently, AI and machine learning has opened the door to mass data analytics and predictions over time. Companies have already begun using AI to create reports that explain the large sets of data and compare that data to others using the same platform. AI will hopefully increase the accuracy of these data sets and help people to improve their health and quality of life.
How to Improve Heart Rate Variability
Heart rate variability naturally declines over time or in people with consistent high stress and anxiety. HRV is the result of countless variables both internal and external. While it is an automatic function of our nervous system, our brains are powerful drivers of change. There are ways we can indirectly affect this system to improve health and happiness.
Different tools will work at varying degrees for different people, but with time and patience we can find a practice that works for our body and our lifestyle.
Exercise & Nutrition
The absolute foundation of HRV is our basic health factors including exercise and nutrition. Exercise allows us to intentionally raise our heart rate whether it is with cardio or resistance training. Having a consistent exercise routine is the most important step in improving HRV.
If regular exercise is already a part of your weekly regimen, consider training in a way that mirrors HIIT workouts. This high intensity interval training focuses on raising heart rate to a threshold (80-90% of your max) before taking a set time to recover. This training style may be particularly effective at improving HRV as it focuses on quickly changing between high output and recovery.
For nutrition, most of the HRV benefits can be captured by eating a balanced diet. Eat a balanced mix of carbs, fats, vegetables, and proteins. For individuals who already have a clean diet, consider some supplementary items that are particularly good for heart health. This includes healthy fats, chia seeds, flax seeds, legumes, spinach, and antioxidant-rich fruits. The most important thing to avoid is saturated fats, which can build up in blood vessels.
Breathwork
One of the most significant factors that affect HRV is stress. Given our current understanding of the ANS, the easiest way to consistently lower stress and increase HRV is breathwork. The act of slow, intentional inhales and exhales trigger parasympathetic nerve activity. This activation signals for the heart to slow down and can counteract the effects of chronic or acute stress. It is most effective when used daily or several times per day. It can take less than a minute to do and can be done while working on other tasks.
Practice Breathwork
A simple breathwork exercise would be "box breathing": inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds. Another breathing technique popularized by neurologist Andrew Huberman is called the "physiological sigh". For the physiological sigh, take a deep inhale that fills the lungs into your belly. Take a second, short inhale to fully expand the chest. Then slowly exhale for several seconds. Repeating this technique for about a minute can increase parasympathetic activation and slow your heart rate.
Biofeedback Training
Biofeedback training is a type of physical and mental training that has become popular with the advent of more advanced fitness trackers. The goal is to use the live tracking of physiological metrics to train, track progress, and monitor the effectiveness of certain techniques. An example of this is the muse headset, which uses an EEG device to measure brain waves and give feedback on how to improve meditation, sleep, stress, and so much more. Read our full article on brain waves and EEG devices here.
For heart rate variability, biofeedback devices would measure HRV and track the effectiveness of breathwork and meditative practices. They help you find what breathwork is most effective for your body, and allow you to develop a consistent habit of doing breathwork.
We recommend checking out either breth or Moonbird. breth has a haptic feedback mode that is meant to mimic a heartbeat and deepen the relaxing effects of meditation while you are lying down. Moonbird is a handheld breathwork guide that mimics the timing of inhales and exhales. This makes it easier to do breathwork without keeping track of a count for deeper relaxation or use during work. Keep an eye out for articles that fully review the products, our experience, and the science behind them, coming soon!
Conclusion
Heart rate variability (HRV) is a powerful metric that can signal how healthy our daily routine is. A high HRV signal that our autonomic nervous system is working efficiently and allowing us to quickly adapt to our environment. It has been shown in several studies that people with higher HRV are more resistant to stress and happier. By developing a good fitness routine, a nutritionally balanced diet, and incorporating some forms of mindfulness/breathwork, we can improve our HRV.
Feel free to reach out if you have any personal insights or testimonials about heart rate variability or other practices that elevate your resistance to stress.
To learn more about health and wellness, check out our other posts here.
Sources
Angela Ryan Lee, MD. “Do You Know If Your Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Is High or Low?” Health, 26 May 2024, www.health.com/condition/heart-disease/heart-rate-variability.
Cleveland Clinic medical. “Heart Rate Variability (HRV): What It Is and How You Can Track It.” Cleveland Clinic, 1 May 2024, my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/21773-heart-rate-variability-hrv.
King, Lori. “Heart Rate Variability: Influencing Factors & How to Monitor.” WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/heart/what-is-heart-rate-variability. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.
Li K, Cardoso C, Moctezuma-Ramirez A, Elgalad A, Perin E. Heart Rate Variability Measurement through a Smart Wearable Device: Another Breakthrough for Personal Health Monitoring? Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Dec 6;20(24):7146. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20247146. PMID: 38131698; PMCID: PMC10742885.
Shaffer F, Ginsberg JP. An Overview of Heart Rate Variability Metrics and Norms. Front Public Health. 2017 Sep 28;5:258. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2017.00258. PMID: 29034226; PMCID: PMC5624990.
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