This story is part of Health by NumbersCNET’s deep dive into how we quantify health.
Thanks to smart watches like the apple watch and fitness trackers like the fitbitit’s easier than ever to stay in the know on your own health metrics at home. With just a quick glance at your wrist, you can track your heart rate, pulse, and the number of steps you’ve taken in a day. But there’s one important health metric that many people aren’t tracking yet: heart rate variability. This metric, also called HRV, can provide insight into your overall health, stress, fitness levels, and much more.
Your HRV is the amount of time between your heart beats. And while that may not sound profound, it’s actually an important metric if you know how to find it. Unlike heart rate or pulse, is a bit more complicated to measure because not all wearable devices offer it.
One of the few portable devices that measures HRV, the Howl tracker, you wear it, and various other metrics to help you know if you’ve recovered well enough from your last workout to train again. These detailed metrics are one of the reasons professional athletes and endurance trainers are huge fans of the product. In fact, I never even heard of HRV until I checked out the Whoop band on the company’s site.
Like any other metric fitness trackers give it, HRV is kind of useless unless you understand what it means and know how to use it to improve your health and fitness. Read on to learn more about what HRV is, how to measure it, and how it can help you optimize your health.
What is heart rate variability?
“HRV is the amount of time between each heartbeat, which is controlled by the autonomic nervous system,” holly roser, a certified personal trainer, told CNET. The autonomic nervous system is basically your body’s nervous system or stress regulator and contains two key parts: parasympathetic and sympathetic.
HRV is controlled by your nervous system, which regulates many important systems in your body.
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The nervous system is so important because it is what regulates involuntary systems in your body such as heart rate, digestion, and blood pressure, among other things. You can think of the sympathetic nervous system response as your response to stress, or what puts you in “fight or flight” mode. The parasympathetic nervous system response is also called a “rest and digest” state and is important in allowing your body to digest food as well as lowering your heart rate and blood pressure.
You probably know that reducing stress is important for your health, but what does this have to do with fitness? Much.
As Recovery is such an important part of your overall fitness routine, HRV is one of the most useful metrics to tell you if your body is recovered (ie not in a stressed or sympathetic state) so you can train again.
For example, maybe you’ve been working out a lot and not getting much sleep, but you always stick to your 6am workout no matter what. You can technically feel fine, but you risk overtraining if you push yourself too hard (especially if you don’t get enough sleep). While wearing a sleep tracker is definitely useful for measuring how well you slept, HRV is another way to see how well you recovered from a previous workout or even a stressful situation or night out.
How to measure and use HRV
The Whoop fitness tracker takes your HRV into account to show how well you’ve recovered from exercise.
Screenshot by Mercey Livingston/CNET
To measure HRV, you need some type of heart rate monitor that can accurately measure your heart rate patterns. Some of the more popular devices that incorporate HRV tracking are the Whoop and the apple watch.
Since HRV is a bit tricky to measure accurately, it helps if you use a device that also tracks your sleep, resting heart rate, and maximum heart rate so you can get a bigger picture of 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 are in the optimal state to exercise or adapt to any type of stress.
A good HRV it is a sign that your nervous system can adapt well to various situations, which is good when it comes to managing stress and balanced health in general. Average HRV varies by agebut it also varies by individual: it is better to follow your own patterns and observe any changes over time, rather than compare yourself to others.
Why HRV is Important for Fitness and Overall Health
“If your HRV is high, this could be an indicator that you are living a healthier lifestyle and have been following healthy habits like getting a good night’s sleep, exercising regularly, staying hydrated, eating healthy and reducing stress,” Roser said.
Since your HRV pattern is a reflection of how much stress is under your body, virtually every facet of your lifestyle can affect it. Remember that stress is more than mental: things like illness, emotional difficulties, lack of sleep, and dehydration are examples of things that put stress on your body.
Everyone faces a certain 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. Otherwise, you could risk overtraining or straining your body when it’s best to take a break. And this can quickly lead to feeling drained, sick, or just general exhaustion.
“When things are ideal, your beat-to-beat time has a lot of variability. If your interval time between heartbeats is the same, you’re still not recovered. That suggests you may be overtraining, or you just aren’t.” “still recovered and need a day of lighter recovery exercise or a day of rest to achieve more optimal fitness,” Debra AtkinsonMS, CSCS said.
Who can benefit from HRV tracking
Although HRV is most popular in the world of professional sports and resistance training, it can be useful for anyone to keep track of. Even if you don’t exercise much or train professionally, HRV can help you get a better picture of your body’s stress level, recovery and fitness levels. If you’re the type that’s prone to burnout or overtraining, tracking your HRV can be a helpful tool to make sure rest days and recovery are a priority.
“For people who tend to push themselves and work hard for better results, HRV monitoring can provide concrete evidence of much-needed rest. If you’re not likely to rest, but encounter frequent injuries or illnesses, HRV can provide the test you need to go back and recover enough so that your fitness, immune system and overall stress level are more optimal,” Atkinson said.
More key health information for you
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health care provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health goals.
