Why Heart Rate Variability matters

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) has been being tracked in nervous system based chiropractic offices for years. Recently, this technology has become available to most of us wearing a smart watch or tracking system such as Whoop.

What is HRV?

In the most simplest of terms, HRV is the the time between beats. This give insight into a part of the nervous system that deals with the Autonomic Nervous System. This is the same part that controls blood pressure, digestion, and our fight or flight response. It is broken down into the parasympathetics (rest and digest) and sympathetics (fight or flight.) The ANS is the communicator of the body. We always say life is lived through the nervous system because all the stimuli of the environment are experienced through the nervous system. HRV shows balances and imbalance in the nervous system.

Why use HRV as an indicator?

HRV is an indicator of how your lifestyle is effecting your health. Chiropractic care, regular exercise, proper diet, and better sleep are all proven to effect HRV positively. COVID-19, being sick, eating poorly, and not getting enough sleep negatively effect HRV. Overall, through tracking HRV is can predict and help reveal how healthy you are at that moment. Studies are showing the HRV drops lower right before the symptoms of a virus become present.

HRV is a great tool to track health and wellbeing. It is also a great tool to track recovery and what activities and environments increase HRV.