With the advent of Apple Watches and Fitbits, it’s easy to track your
own health metrics at
home. But knowing what to track is just as important as
having the equipment to do it. And, there is one important health metric many
people aren’t tracking yet that health experts say you should: heart-rate
variability, or HRV, the amount of time between your heartbeats. This
metric can give insight into your overall health, stress, fitness levels and
much more.
As CNET reports, like any other metric that fitness trackers give
you, HRV is kind of useless unless you understand what it means and know how to
use it to improve your health and fitness. First, it’s important to know that
your HRV is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, and the autonomic
nervous system is basically your body’s stress or nervous system regulator and
contains two key parts: parasympathetic and sympathetic.
The nervous system is so important because it’s what regulates
involuntary systems in your body like heart rate, digestion and blood
pressure, among other things. You can think of the sympathetic nervous system
response as your stress response, or what kicks you into “fight or
flight” mode. The parasympathetic nervous system response is also called
the “rest and digest” state and is important for allowing your body
to digest food, as well as lowering your heart rate and blood pressure.
Since recovery is
such an important part of your overall fitness routine, HRV is one of the most
helpful metrics for telling you if your body is recovered (i.e. not in a stress
or sympathetic state) so you can train again.
In order to measure HRV you need some type of heart-rate monitor that can
accurately measure patterns in your heart rate. Some of the most popular
devices that incorporate HRV tracking are the Whoop tracker and
the Apple
Watch.
According to CNET, since HRV is kind of complicated to measure
accurately, it’s helpful if you use a device that also tracks your sleep,
resting heart rate and max heart rate so that you get a bigger picture look at
your health. For example, Whoop tracks your HRV, heart rate, exercise and sleep
and uses an algorithm to offer suggestions for recovery or training. If your
HRV is good (higher numbers are better) then you’re in the optimal state to
exercise or adapt to any type of stress.
Harvard HealthPublishing states that a good HRV is a sign that your nervous system can adapt
well to various situations, which is good when it comes to handling stress and
balanced health overall. Average
HRV varies by age, but it also varies by individual — it’s best to track
your own patterns and note any changes over time, rather than comparing
yourself to others.
Since your HRV pattern is a reflection of how much stress your body is under,
virtually all facets of your lifestyle can affect it. Remember that stress is
more than mental — things like illness, emotional hardship, lack of sleep and
dehydration are all examples of things that place stress on your body.
Everyone encounters some amount of stress (and some types of stress, like
exercise, can be helpful), but it’s important to understand how well your body
is handling it. If not, you could risk overtraining or pushing your body when
it may be best to take a break. And this can quickly lead to feeling burnout,
getting sick or just exhausted overall.
Even though HRV is more popular in the world of professional sports and
endurance training, it can be useful for anyone to track. Even if you don’t
exercise a ton or train professionally, HRV can help you get a better picture
of your body’s stress level, as well as recovery and fitness levels. If you’re
the type who is prone to burnout or overtraining, HRV tracking can be a helpful
tool to make sure you’re keeping rest days and recovery a priority.
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Photo Credit: Denys Prykhodov / Shutterstock.com
