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HRV Heart rate variability in health app what's everyone seeing?

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betabeta

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 28, 2013
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So what are people seeing? mine have been all over the place, from 18 to 66, and only getting 3 readings a day at random.

I hope we can manually take these or at least set times, also looks like it's from a short reading of less than a minute of data.
 
Mine has averaged about 51ms over the past few weeks. Ranged from 21 to 120ms. Would be nice if Apple let us know exactly what the measure was .. I assume it is the RMSSD metric, but would be nice to know for sure.

I usually get about three readings a day also.

You can manually take a reading by using the breathing app.
 
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Taken from the health app.
 

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This website explains HRV. <---- link.



Generally, a low HRV (or less variability in the heart beats) indicates that the body is under stress from exercise, psychological events, or other internal or external stressors. Higher HRV (or greater variability between heart beats) usually means that the body has a strong ability to tolerate stress or is strongly recovering from prior accumulated stress.



The Pros and Cons of Heart Rate
Pros

  • Easy to measure
  • Can measure during exercise
  • Can target aerobic exercise or specific “zones”
  • No need for extreme accuracy to use it
  • Great gauge of cardiovascular exertion during exercise
  • Vast numbers of devices and wearables of varying quality/accuracy exist
Cons

  • Limited to mainly measuring cardiovascular activity
  • At rest, heart rate is a vague indicator of internal activity at best and inconsistent at worst
  • Vast numbers of devices and wearables of varying quality/accuracy exist
The Pros and Cons of Heart Rate Variability
Pros

  • The most precise non-invasive measurement of Autonomic Nervous System activity (responsible for recovery and the body’s response to stress among other things)
  • Integrates the nervous system, cardiovascular system, and respiratory systems
  • Able to detect physical, digestive, environmental, psychological and other stressors
  • Can be measured by affordable consumer-grade heart rate monitors
  • Only takes 2 minutes per day for 95% of the benefit
  • Can be used to “train” the brain and nervous system to operate at peak performance with live biofeedback
Cons

  • Difficult to measure during exercise or while moving (though unnecessary usually)
  • Accuracy requirements limit the use of some trendy wearable HR monitors
  • Sometimes presented as a “magic bullet”
  • Various measurements of HRV can be confusing if presented improperly
 
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Bob190 said:
Mine has averaged about 51ms over the past few weeks. Ranged from 21 to 120ms. Would be nice if Apple let us know exactly what the measure was .. I assume it is the RMSSD metric, but would be nice to know for sure.

I usually get about three readings a day also.

You can manually take a reading by using the breathing app.
Click to expand...

Hey thanks, I just used the breathing app and sure enough got a reading, 37, then 61, did it again and just ignored it breathing normally a got 24 so that was interesting, but I just got done a run/workout which lowers HRV.

Using the breathing app will be great, I'll just ignore deep breathing and breath normal to see what it thinks my HRV is naturally at certain times.

Says it goes lower under physical and emotional stress, well between working out and actual work and family, I'm under stress pretty much all the time I guess:D. Interestingly enough I get some of my lowest scores sleeping?:confused:
 
We got some time now, what's everyone averaging a day? I just had a week and these were each day's average 44 44 38 30 33 50 35, that's without using the breathing app. The previous week I used the breathing app a few times a day and those scores pushed the daily average higher. I'm just not convinced in the accuracy, or maybe I'm just really stressed outo_O but the individual lows are sometimes during sleep.

I do love the monthly and weekly line charts.
 
I have seen anything from 21ms to 42ms. I think the higher the number the better but not too sure about this as any indicator of health.

I love the charts on all of the heart data. Great improvement from Apple!
 
My HRV ranges between 34 and 77 ms.
I don't do breathing app.

Today = 40ms

ruttgo.jpg
 
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I'm averaging 54ms per the Health App. There are various HRV products and apps out there and most of them seem to rely on fairly sophisticated sensors, which I don't believe are natively available to the Health app. I use athlete and my HRV numbers are much higher (greater variability) than the Health app records. OTOH, this number can vary A LOT during the day, so if it's not being taken at a consistent time and in a consistent condition I would guess that numbers would vary a lot.
 
betabeta said:
So what are people seeing? mine have been all over the place, from 18 to 66, and only getting 3 readings a day at random.

I hope we can manually take these or at least set times, also looks like it's from a short reading of less than a minute of data.
Click to expand...

I don’t know what it all means
What use is it to anyone?

A8CE1056-80D3-42B5-8E6E-947C8BC20638.jpeg
 
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MyAppleWorld said:
I don’t know what it all means
What use is it to anyone?

View attachment 724942
Click to expand...

It tells you how healthy you are. The higher the number the better you are. Like a race horse, or a high power expensive car. If you train and it drops you are less likely to perform at your best. So you wait till the number goes up again and then you can go all out.
 
How can you use this information to increase your fitness? Mine was highest when I was asleep, then dipped following a workout, and has been slowly increasing again during the day.
 

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Chacocliff said:
How can you use this information to increase your fitness? Mine was highest when I was asleep, then dipped following a workout, and has been slowly increasing again during the day.
Click to expand...
At rest, a high HRV is generally favorable and a low HRV is unfavorable. When in an active state, lower relative HRV is generally favorable while a high HRV can be unfavorable.
 
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Lowest I've seen is 17 ms - taken automatically, without the Breathe app, on a day I trained very hard while simultaneously feeling rather ill from the latest office plague.

Highest I've seen is 156 ms - taken using the Breathe app, on a rest day, during a week off from training.
 
Chacocliff said:
How can you use this information to increase your fitness? Mine was highest when I was asleep, then dipped following a workout, and has been slowly increasing again during the day.
Click to expand...

Well, I must be having some anxiety when sleeping:eek: my lowest are almost always sleeping. But overall, mine are increasing with more practicing with deep breathing. Glad to know it drops after workout, I just ran and for some reason it did a reading and it was 23.

I think shallow breathers have lower scores, I notice sometimes my chest or diaphragm are barely moving. I'm a very shallow breather, so this is great if it helps me learn to breath deeper.

I'm jealous to see these scores over 100, my best is 80 and that is with the breathing app!
 
I also have questions with the HRv values.

in rest i have a HRV of 50MS. when using the breathing app twice, i got an HRV of 184 MS

i don't know how to interpretate this numbers. is this good or bad?
 
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