![]() So you obviously have options if you’re interested in determining your HRV-it just depends on how intrusive or passive you want the process to be. Check your HRV in the mornings after you wake up, a few times a week, and track for changes as you incorporate healthier interventions.” The chest strap monitor tends to be more accurate than wrist or finger devices. “The easiest and cheapest way to check HRV is to buy a chest strap heart monitor (Polar, Wahoo) and download a free app (Elite HRV is a good one) to analyze the data. While these are more cutting-edge solutions, there are other options. There are newfangled approaches to measuring HRV while you sleep, including the Oura ring and the Emfit QS the former is a wearable ring, while the latter is a “passive under-mattress sensor.” In conjunction with apps, they dig deeper into your sleep to provide data like your HRV, sleep trends, body temperature variations, and more. Of course, this is not practical if you’re trying to measure this on a nightly basis. The old-fashioned way to measure HRV is with an electrocardiogram (EKG)-you might be familiar with this if you’ve had the wires of an EKG machine attached to you during an annual physical. ![]() In other words, you can keep tabs on your nervous system and monitor your emotions and thoughts more clearly. If your HRV is lower, you can commit to exercise, meditate, and sleep more deeply, and then track any (hopefully positive) changes in your HRV. Tracking your HRV is important because now, armed with this knowledge, you can take steps to improve your overall health. ![]() Concurrently, having a higher HRV can indicate you’re in great cardiovascular shape and more adept at managing stress. In more severe cases, low HRV can indicate depression, anxiety, and even an increased risk of heart disease. What’s interesting is that starting to see a dip in your HRV can predict illness. Ultimately, the healthier your ANS is, the more easily you’ll be able to adapt to what life throws at you. Higher variation between heartbeats = rest-and-digest response.Lower variation between heartbeats = fight-or-flight response.So if you followed that quick trip through those parts of your nervous system, then this will make more sense: HRV can help you determine if you’re experiencing the ANS imbalance we referenced. So, as you can imagine, prolonged bouts of stress, a poor diet, a failure to exercise, and even solitude can knock that balance out of whack, causing your fight-or-flight response to run rampant. These responses can be negative or positive your hypothalamus will react to a wildly stressful day at work or an awful night’s sleep, or to the revelation of the promotion you’ve been wanting or other good news. Ultimately our ANS receives signals from the hypothalamus-which is constantly processing data-in your brain to either stimulate or relax various functions within your body. ![]() The ANS is important because it consists of two parts: the sympathetic system (your fight-or-flight response) and the parasympathetic nervous system (rest-and-digest), which work to maintain a delicate balance. This variation or irregularity-which is perfectly normal, even for a healthy heart-is governed by a section of your nervous system known as the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which impacts your breathing, blood pressure, and digestion in addition to your heart rate. HRV stands for Heart Rate Variability, which is a measurement, in milliseconds, of the variations in time between each heartbeat. ![]() In today’s post, we’ll first define HRV, then delve into why it’s important, how to measure it, and how to use the data to your advantage. Many people-from health professionals and competitive athletes to researchers and physiologists-have started looking at HRV as a key indicator for better sleep, stronger recovery, and overall health. However, there’s a popular new data marker in town: HRV. Previously, the major contraption we used at home to monitor health was a simple scale of course, weight is only one measurement of health, and now you can keep tabs on heart rate, blood pressure, number of daily steps, caloric intake, and more using devices in conjunction with health apps. The rise of technical gadgets now allows us to measure and track more personal data than ever before. ![]()
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