Would you like to control how your body reacts to stress or check how much you should workout today? It’s easy! Read on for Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Training – An Introduction
What is Heart Rate Variability Training (HRV)?
Heart rate variability (HRV), is the measure of time interval between heart beats. For example, your heart rate is 60 beats per minute your heart doesn’t usually beat exactly every 1 second it could be 1.05, 1.04, .99, 1.03. This is HRV. The healthier your nervous system is the greater the variation in the beat spaces. This is because your body is always moving and your heart needs to adjust from when you are moving swiftly to sitting or standing. You want variation in your heart so it adjusts to your movement. HRV is measured out of 100 HRV is inversely related to heart rate. You want this number to be higher.
How your heart beats depends on how much fatigue or stress you are under.
High HRV is linked to good stress level and strong nervous system while a low HRV can be a sign of poor health, extreme stress, or fatigue. That means HRV is not only a good to measure your health it is also a good tool to use to prevent over-training. Measure your HRV daily to build data to be able to analyze your health. Taking daily readings you will be able to analyze your nervous system before you enter a period of over training.
Your Nervous system – A quick overview
The two main divisions of the Autonomic Nervous System are the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Systems. These two groups control the same body function yet they have opposite effects.
Sympathetic Nervous System – the “fight or flight” response – this division prepares your for emergency situations. It prepares the body for intense physical activity. Back in the stone age your Sympathetic System would kick in when we would have to run from a tiger. Your heart rate increases, the liver releases glucose, your lungs dilate, your pupils dilate, the adrenal glands are stimulated and secrete epinephrine and noepinepherine, and digestion is stopped. The problem is in today’s modern world our brain reacts like everything is a “tiger” e.g. email, your boss, a presentation, conflict. The sympathetic system should not be frequently used however our brains have not adapted to modern day. For more on this see our post on Adrenal Fatigue.
Parasympathetic Nervous System – the “rest and digest” – this is the division that should control for most of the time. It is responsible for relaxing and calming the body so your systems can function controlled and healthily. It keeps your body healthy and creative. This is also why it is hard to be creative or come up with great ideas if you are in a chronic stressed state.
How does it relate to Athletic Training?
Are there are some days you go out and feel like you can run forever or lift a car and other days things just aren’t quite moving like they should be? This is largely related to the state of your nervous system.
Measure your HRV it will let you know whether you are being lazy when you don’t feel like exercising after a long day or if your nervous system is actually fatigued! Your HRV will tell you whether it is time to push through or rest… take away the head game.
How do I do this? Well it is actually very simple. If you have a smart phone you will just need a Bluetooth heart rate monitor I use the Polar H7and download an HRV app (I recommend SweetBeatLife) you can download the app here Download SweetBeatLife .
How does it relate to Stress Management?
Stress can have the same effect on your body as an intense workout. Use the SweetBeatLife App and Polar H7 monitor during your work day. It will show you when your nervous system is under stress and will let you know when it is time to step away to decompress. It may actually give you some insight into stress triggers that you didn’t know existed. Managing your stress upfront is much easier than getting out of a chronic stress pattern.
Note: If you download the sweet beat app it will also measure your High Frequency (HF = parasympathetic) and Low Frequency (LF = sympathetic) outputs.
Conclusion/Summary:
HRV measures the time interval between your heart beats. The more relaxed and recovered (not fatigued) the greater the variable of time between heart beats is. Use this measure to gauge your stress level and prevent over-training.
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