Understanding Heart Rate Variability: What It Is, Why It’s Important, And How To Improve It

Maybe you’ve heard the term heart rate variability (HRV), but do you know what it means regarding your health? It’s not something most people paid attention to until smartwatches made it easier to track. It turns out heart rate variability is a critical metric not just for heart health but for overall wellbeing. Whether you’re an athlete, an aspiring athlete, or a regular person interested in maintaining good health, understanding heart rate variability can be very helpful in assessing the big picture.

What is Heart Rate Variability and Why is it Important?

Unlike heart rate, which counts the number of heartbeats per minute, heart rate variability measures the variability in timing between each heartbeat. Your heart doesn’t beat at the same pace continuously like a metronome. It’s alive and intimately connected to your autonomic nervous system (ANS). 

With every breath you take, your heart will speed up as you inhale and slow down as you exhale. If you’re exercising or excited, the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) branch of your nervous system will dominate. When you are relaxed, the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) branch should dominate. Ideally, your parasympathetic branch dominates most of the time.

What Does Higher/Lower Heart Rate Variability Mean?

A higher heart rate variability means your heart is responsive and adaptable to various stressors, suggesting a robust autonomic nervous system. It indicates your heart is sensitive to changes, adjusting its beat slightly faster or slower based on internal and external signals. A lower heart rate variability has less variability between beats, typically signifying reduced parasympathetic nervous system activity, which occurs if your body is stressed, fatigued, or experiencing underlying health issues. A low heart rate variability means your heart is less responsive or resilient.

For athletes, heart rate variability is a valuable tool for optimizing training. Monitoring heart rate variability helps you see how well your body recovers from workouts and whether you need more recovery time or need to train smarter. It can also be a predictor of overall health. A consistently low heart rate variability could suggest more serious issues or cardiovascular problems. At the very least, it indicates that your body feels stressed. Keep in mind an irregular or erratic heart rate is different from a high heart rate variability, which reflects variability in the timing between beats, not irregularity.

Factors Affecting Heart Rate Variability

Many factors impact heart rate variability, including age, fitness levels, stress levels, sleep, diet, and lifestyle. Just as many health issues can be improved with lifestyle changes, heart rate variability, and cardiovascular health are no different.

How to Improve Variability

Improving heart rate variability involves doing everything you’ve learned to optimize cardiovascular health and overall general health. This includes exercise, sleep, and a healthy diet. Stress management is also hugely important to help limit sympathetic dominance. Consider how stress affects your breathing, muscles, and state of mind. It’s not good for your health long term. 

Skills like time management, work-life balance, and maintaining healthy relationships (and dropping toxic ones) all matter in regulating your nervous system and limiting stress. Activities like yoga, meditation, gardening, or anything that calms you or brings you peace should be embraced as part of your wellness regimen.

Monitoring Heart Rate Variability

I’ve recently started using a smartwatch, and I love it. It makes it easier to monitor heart rate variability and other health metrics like sleep quality. To get a reading of your heart rate variability, you’ll have to sleep with your watch on a few nights a week. For those without a smartwatch, you can still track heart rate variations over a few minutes and get a rough estimate of heart rate variability. To do this, measure your resting heart rate multiple times over several minutes and note the fluctuations. Consistent minor variations in heart rate typically indicate a healthy heart rate variability. 

For those interested, here are ideal heart rate variability ranges by age (you’ll need the actual number from a device):

• Children and adolescents: 70–140 ms
• Young adults (20–30 years): 60–120 ms
• Middle-aged adults: 50–100 ms
• Older adults (60+ years): 40–90 ms

In Summary

Heart rate variability is a valuable metric for understanding your body’s response to stress, recovery status, and overall health. By keeping track of your heart rate variability, you may identify patterns. For example, when I don’t sleep well, I don’t feel well, and this is reflected in a low heart rate variability. Then you can make the necessary adjustments to your lifestyle to ensure your heart remains healthy and resilient so you feel healthy and resilient as well.