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

Peaceful senior woman in lotus position meditation with closed eyes at home while sitting on yoga mat on floor, full length. Calm elderly lady practicing meditation techniques and yoga indoors

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?

Senior woman practicing yoga at home, making Alternate Nostril Breathing exercise, nadi shodhana pranayama pose, working out

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

Illustration of heart rate variability (HRV) showing variations in time intervals between consecutive heartbeatsMany 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

Group Of Mature Female Friends On Outdoor Yoga Retreat Walking Along Path Through Campsite

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

A person wearing a smartwatch outdoors, checking the screen with a heart rate monitor icon showing 96 BPM

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. 

Reprinted with permission from Twin Rivers PT Wellness.
christine carr

Christine Carr, c-IAYT, eRYT 500 has been a physical therapist for over 20 years.  In her youth, she was constantly hurting herself. This motivated her to learn how to recover from injury and heal herself, naturally.   She loves to learn.  Studying the human body, and mind and how they function together is exciting to her.  She has a diverse academic background with experience that includes orthopedics, yoga, and functional medicine.  She enjoys teaching others how to recover from injury, manage their condition, and improve their function and performance.  

Christine enjoys any and all sports available in this beautiful area or kicking back with a good book in her spare time.  She has recently started gardening, though she said she has much to learn!

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