HRV Heart Rate Variability. Any experts?

[ExShield]

Mine, measured in ms, is very low. I am now shitting bricks.

How low?

Unless you say how low, you will not get any useful answers.

What are ms?
What device measured it?
Before it was measured were you feeling unwell?

This is my results from my iwatch

What do YOU think it means OP?
If you dont' feel unwell, I don't see the point in caring.

No idea what your printout means.
What is your heart rate?
For what it’s worth, I felt dizzy, heartbeat was 30 per second and getting slower. DH rang 111, they immediately sent an ambulance and a pacemaker was fitted the next day.
If your heart is beating at a similar slow rate you need advice from someone other than random Mnetters like me.

HRV is different to heart rate - it’s the variability between beats. High is good, low is bad. (I know that’s a ridiculously broad brush but that’s the gist.)

I’m just wading through some clinical papers relating to the Framingham Heart Study and it seems to show that broadly a low HRV is a prognosticator for cardiac events.

Yikes.

I can’t imagine the Apple Watch is all that accurate for heart rate variability.

Are you active?

www.whoop.com/thelocker/heart-rate-variability-hrv/

I had this tested at a medical checkup once and measured 'bad', which wasn't very helpful when not told what it means and if/how to improve it.

I read up on afterwards and I've seen it used by athletes to decide whether they're up for a really intense training session, or should go for a recovery type run instead.

How old are you, as the typical readings change with age.

It's one of those things where you can't really compare with other people, it's more useful to gauge the changes over time of your individual settings.

Are you measuring it with an Apple Watch? I used to measure with a HR chest strap and the app I used declared the Apple Watch not accurate enough to use.

"Mistake 1 – Assuming A Low Reading Is Always Bad"

Thanks for those links, that’s v kind.

Lijkk it’s looking like it IS chronically low.

I used to be a cardiac physiologist, and I really, really wouldn't worry about this. Yes, low HRV has been associated with poorer outcomes in some studies, but it's quite a soft association and bit one that I would be concerned about on an individual basis, particularly if you feel otherwise well. The best thing you can do is look after your cardiac health in the usual recommended ways (aerobic exercise, don't smoke, good diet, reduce stress) but a low HRV - if yours even is low, as I wouldn't really trust your watch's measurement - does not mean you're going to drop dead any second and stressing about it will probably do more harm!

Thankyou Livefats. I appreciate that.

Given it’s a soft marker, and I thought I was looking after my cardiac health as far as possible, what’s it a marker of? What should I do beyond get fitter?

Your heart rate has inputs from the two branches of the autonomic nervous system - the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems - and these inputs affect both the overall rate and the variability. The sympathetic and parasympathetic in turn receive inputs from various other parts of the nervous system, so the overall HRV is the product of a lot of different factors integrated together. The reason for the association between reduced HRV and poorer outcomes isn't actually that well understood and there are different hypotheses, so it's difficult to give clear advice beyond the standard 'looking after your cardiovascular system' I would emphasise though that HRV is best measured with a proper ECG so I really wouldn't give too much weight on what your watch says, and I would certainly give a lot more consideration to your resting heart rate and time to recovery after exercise as indicators of good cardiac health.

Thanks LiveFats. Might have a chat with my GP about it all.

Sorry that sounded like I don’t appreciate what you’re saying - I mean a chat with the GP with a view to a proper ecg. I’m sure as a cardiac physiologist you know this stuff inside out anyway.

My personal opinion is that unless you have symptoms an ECG is unlikely to tell you anything more, but that's just an opinion and I'm a scientist, not a medic all I can say is if I had this finding from a fitness watch I would shrug and get on with my day!