HEART RATE VARIABILITY
Heart Rate Variability (also referred to as HRV) is the ability of the organism to optimally adapt the sequence of heart beats, thereby allowing the best possible supply to the organism of blood as well as the necessary requirements of oxygen and other nutrients.
• Variable heartbeat: sign of good status / good functions
• Rigid impact sequence: sign of high stress / bad functions
Details about HRV
INVARIANT HRV
If your heart rate is invariable, then this is due to the following factors:
- You are exhausted from work or from training
- You are over training
- You are suffering from an illness or acute pain
- You find yourself in extreme temperatures or are at high altitude
- You are suffering from stress, depression, etc.
- Your diet is unhealthy
- You consume too much alcohol
- You are not sleeping well
VERY VARIANT HRV
If your heart rate variability is high, then the following factors are most important:
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You are regenerated
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You are sleeping well
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You are euphoric
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Your diet is optimal
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You are healthy
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You are relaxed and comfortable
The HRV is the sympathetic (responsible for alignment and engagement) and parasympathetic (responsible for rest) which influence the nervous system ("Guideline for the use of the heart beat rate and heart rate variability in occupational medicine and ergonomics", page 6). Are you healthy, then these two play perfectly together (David Dapra: The heart rate variability, page 6). All vital functions of our organism are controlled by the autonomic nervous system. A measurement of the autonomic nervous system provides information on the current functional state of the organism. This is formulated from the organs. The autonomic nervous system controls the heart in order to allow optimum blood supply to the whole body. Various sensors report the state of the vascular system and the heart (blood pressure, oxygen saturation, pH, tensile and shear forces on the heart, etc.). Thus, the heartbeat is regulated so that it fulfills optimal care. The command pulses are controlled via two defenders in the autonomic nervous system.
• sympathetic (activating – alignment / engagement)
• parasympathetic (regenerating - construction / repair)
Influence your HRV:
Change |
Factor |
| Non - Rarely | Chronic congestion, chronic disease |
| long-term | Change in life circumstances (moving, changing jobs) |
| Moderately | Change in sleep patterns, diet, exercise, time management, permanent stress |
| short-term | Training stimuli, nocturnal sleep, selective stress, physical exertion, food intake, change of location, altitude exposure, jet lag, ... |
HOW IS THE HRV MEASURED?
Medically considered the HRV is derived from an ECG. The ECG measures your heart rate; you then see the trend of your heartbeats visualized in a graph. At the beginning of a contraction your ventricle triggers a distinct deflection in your ECG, known as R-waves. The distance between two of the R-waves is called the RR interval and is the value that we use for our HRV measurement.
In the table "Heart Rate Variability (msec)" we show the average heart rate variability in milliseconds.
FOR WHAT PURPOSES IS THE HRV USED?
We use the HRV for three requirements: First, for the regeneration measurement in sport, secondly, for the stress measurement in the health sector and, thirdly, for various applications in Workplace Health Promotion (WHP).
Sport
Regular HRV measurements can quickly show states of overtraining (David Dapra: The heart rate variability, page 8). If you regularly measure and train according to our training recommendations, it is practically impossible to fall into the over trained category. You train more efficiently than before, your risk of injury is reduced and many of our customers tell us that they provide better performance with less training (which of course is related to your training intensity). We use the HRV measurements not only for the identification of overtraining, but also to determine your individual level of regeneration. For this, we determine an individual training recommendation for each individual measurement.
Health Management
A greater variability of heart rate speaks for a healthier and more vital instantaneous state (David Dapra: The heart rate variability, page 5). With our daily measurements you can determine your individual stress level and your Bioage. Thus, you know what is good for you and what influenced your values negatively. You can also try our relaxation exercise to see what helps best to reduce your stress level (Try our BioFeedback exercise or read the blog post about "Autogenic training"). You will see how movement affects your stress level and your Bioage.
Occupational Medicine
In the "Guideline for the use of the heart rate and heart frequency variability in occupational medicine and industrial science" (page 29-31) the following applications which we cover are also cited.
- Identification of operational polluted areas
- Mental and physical strain analysis of individual employees
- HRV as an indicator of the health status
- Formulation of recommended actions for individual employees
- Detection of fatigue and recovery behavior
- Identification of benefits by occupational health and health-related interventions
WHY WE MEASURE THE HRV SITTING DOWN?
To obtain valid HRV data, it is important that the heart rate variability is measured at rest, that it is regularly measured, and that it is measured under the same conditions ("Guideline use of heart rate and heart rate variability in the Occupational Medicine and Industrial Engineering", page 28). This is precisely the reason why we should be in a sitting position with the back supported. The ECG & HRV measurement is a very complex matter that can be influenced by movements such as (sneezing, yawning ...) leading to incorrect results. Having your back supported is very important so that your muscles have to do as little work as possible and the vitalmonitor can produce valid measurements results.
