What a little-known health marker called Heart Rate Variability can tell you about your mind-body wellbeing
Discovering the significance of Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and the simplicity of measuring it, has proved to be a really useful tool for me personally, as well as something pretty powerful to share with clients with a wide range of health and wellbeing goals, and in particular those looking to improve their resilience to stress.
In this two-part blog, I share with you the why and the how of HRV tracking. Let’s look first at why HRV matters.
What is Heart Rate Variability?
It is a common misconception that a healthy heart beats in perfect time. Perhaps surprisingly, a healthy heart is relatively variable from beat-to-beat, whilst a heart that beats like a metronome is an unhealthy heart.
Enter Heart Rate Variability, or HRV for short - a measure of the variation in time between the beats of your heart.
It is essentially a way of characterising how responsive your heart is to multiple factors, including your emotions. The greater the variability, the more ‘ready’ your body is to ‘perform’ or meet life’s demands.
There are a number of different calculations and analysis methods that collectively sit under the umbrella of HRV, but the term HRV neatly encapsulates the whole phenomenon.
And whilst it’s still not widely known, in the wellness industry it has gained a lot of ground as one of the best objective metrics for overall health and resilience. HRV is now widely tracked by athletes and sports professionals, but you can also think of it as a preventative health tool for everyone interested in optimising their health, wellbeing and resilience.
HRV as a mirror of the health of your Autonomic Nervous System
Whilst HRV is a function of the heart, it actually originates from a primitive part of your nervous system called the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) which controls the involuntary aspects of your physiology such as breathing, digestion, body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure as well as the regulation of your heart.
The ANS basically ties in with the functioning of many other biological systems and processes linked to stress response, recovery and relaxation. You might think your stress is all in your mind, but it manifests in the body too. And because HRV reflects the state of the ANS, it provides a neat window into the extent to which stress is manifesting in your body and your ability to adapt and respond to stress effectively.
In essence, HRV gives us information about so many aspects of health at once, including our mental and emotional wellbeing, cardiovascular health and physical fitness.
Why is it useful to know your HRV?
Not only is it one of the most direct non-invasive barometers we have of total health, current technology means we can track HRV to our advantage when working on health goals or measuring health progress. Plus, we can use HRV tracking to help motivate us to minimise our stress load or work on how we respond to the stressors we face.
If you have ever wondered what the health impact of a stressful day was, or will you perform well during your long run, or is there is anything you can do right now to improve your ability to have a better rest of your day, then HRV may be the piece of data that could help you answer these questions.
If you’re wondering if HRV can tell you anything about the impact of your nutrition, research studies suggest there is good reason to believe HRV could be indicative of the influence of food on health. And, in general, as you might expect, certain styles of eating and particular foods found to be associated with a healthy lifestyle are associated with greater HRV.
If we consider there is a bi-directional information highway between the gut and the brain via the vagus nerve (a key component of the ANS), then it makes sense that a well-nourished and thriving gut will send positive signals to the brain and promote positive HRV. And vice-versa, a calm mind will help promote a happy, settled gut that is more effective at playing its part in the digestion and metabolism of food.
What’s more, if we can improve our HRV and stress resilience, we will likely feel more in charge of our overall health, wellbeing and capacity to make intuitive food choices that serve our body best, rather than resorting to the quick-fix foods that many turn to when they’re feeling stressed and flighty.
How do you improve your HRV?
Whether or not you have the tech available to measure your HRV (which is the focus of Part 2 of this blog) what’s really important to know is that you can positively influence your ANS and improve your HRV through your lifestyle choices:
Getting quality sleep
Experiencing enough rest and relaxation through whatever de-stressors work for you
Enjoying regular activity or exercise - ensuring you’re pushing yourself enough but not overdoing it
Eating in nourishing and intuitive ways that make you feel well and good in your body and mind, and achieve a healthy balance over-time
Keeping hydrated as this helps your blood circulate and deliver oxygen and nutrients to your body
Mindfully consuming stimulants such as caffeine and alcohol – bearing in mind even one night of drinking may negatively affect your HRV for up to five days
Responding effectively to the more inevitable stressors of daily life as well as any more challenging psychological or emotional stress that you’re facing
Enjoying functional healthy relationships that bring you joy
Keeping a relatively consistent schedule when it comes to eating and sleeping, thereby creating reliable rhythms for your body which promote a sense of stability.
How do you FIND OUT HOW your own HRV fares?
I answer this and more in Part 2 of this blog. Click here to read on >
References:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heart-rate-variability-new-way-track-well-2017112212789
https://elitehrv.com/heart-rate-variability-vs-heart-rate
https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/heart-rate-variability-hrv/
https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/the-four-day-hangover-hrv-alcohol/
http://autosleep.tantsissa.com/readiness#TOC-About-Heart-Rate-Variability-HRV-
https://www.firstbeat.com/en/blog/what-is-heart-rate-variability-hrv/
