🏥 Health HRV (Heart Rate Variability)

[FirstWorldProblems]

OK smartwatch and fitness band tracker people, who wears theirs at night and can therefore see HRV? No joke, I did not even know this was a thing until I bought my "whoop" band and saw that it's one of the main metrics it tracks. At that point I learned that my HRV is absolute shit and I made a goal to improve it. In my defense anxiety/stress apparently plays a significant part and I got my whoop like a week before moving and it's been a roller coaster ride since, so that's probably part of the reason for the low #'s.

Some other action items to improve it:
1. Moar cardio
2. LESS ALCOHOL. This was an eye opener that showed me how severely even a little alcohol can affect the body. I could eat 170g protein, lift and do cardio, but if I have just two drinks that don't even give me a buzz my HRV will drop down to the 18-21 range for that night. It's nuts. So I basically limit myself to two drinks a week now, and only if I'm out at a restaurant that has good drinks.

Heart rate variability is where the amount of time between your heartbeats fluctuates slightly. Even though these fluctuations are undetectable except with specialized devices, they can still indicate current or future health problems, including heart conditions and mental health issues like anxiety and depression.

Estimation of Prognosis Using HRV

The association of heart rate variability (HRV) and prognosis, both for all-cause and cardiovascular (CV) mortality, has been studied using ECG at rest, with exercise and in the ambulatory setting. A meta-analysis by Hillebrand and colleagues found that, using both resting and ambulatory ECG monitoring, lower HRV is associated with a 32–45 % increased risk of first CV event in patients without known CV disease.1 Additionally, elevated HRV demonstrates a protective effect, with an increase in standard deviation of the normalised NN interval (SDNN) of 1 % resulting in an approximate 1 % reduction of fatal or non-fatal CV disease event.

Note: the higher this number is, the better.

Post yours up if you have it!

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[Lord Tin Foilhat]

do you use a chest monitor to supplement the data? or is it all watch?

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

do you use a chest monitor to supplement the data? or is it all watch?

I don't, it's all with the wrist band. They have a bicep band that I could supplement with but so far it's seemed pretty accurate. If I eat like shit or drink it tanks, if I get good sleep after a day of exercise and healthy food it goes way up, unlike my old garmin the HR has always been super accurate when I tested it while exercising etc. All anecdotal obv but I'm pretty confident in it.

 

[SpeedSpeak2me]

Mine (Garmin Venu 2) doesn’t seem to track HRV overnight, only when you manually initiate it. I could be completely missing it though.

 

[Jimy Bilmo]

I don't wear mine overnight, and my HRV has been shit since I've been basically sedentary for the last 1.5 months while they figure out my issues.

 

[SpeedSpeak2me]

As for heart rate monitoring, the Venu 2 is pretty much dead-on when compared to my chest strap.

I’ve recorded bicycle rides with the watch and cycling computer. The latter had the chest strap paired to it. Comparing the data they pretty much matched. I was quite surprised since my old Fitbit 2 wasn’t very accurate, and didn’t think watches would be sensitive enough.

 

[Jimy Bilmo]

Pic

 

[SpeedSpeak2me]

Doesn’t look like Apple Health will pull HRV from the Garmin, so no data there for me. It does pull regular HR, but it doesn’t calculate the external data.

 

[FirstWorldProblems]

As for heart rate monitoring, the Venu 2 is pretty much dead-on when compared to my chest strap.

I’ve recorded bicycle rides with the watch and cycling computer. The latter had the chest strap paired to it. Comparing the data they pretty much matched. I was quite surprised since my old Fitbit 2 wasn’t very accurate, and didn’t think watches would be sensitive enough.

I had a garmin instinct a couple years ago and it was absolutely terrible at tracking my HR. I'd be 20 mins in to 15% incline walking and jogging, soaked, treadmill would say ~170 bpm (and quick 10-15 second hand pulse checks were close to this) and the instinct would stay below 140 the whole time. This further reinforced my disdain for "smart" watches.

Decided to give the whoop a shot and I definitely have not regretted it

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

I don't, it's all with the wrist band. They have a bicep band that I could supplement with but so far it's seemed pretty accurate. If I eat like shit or drink it tanks, if I get good sleep after a day of exercise and healthy food it goes way up, unlike my old garmin the HR has always been super accurate when I tested it while exercising etc. All anecdotal obv but I'm pretty confident in it.

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I feel like the data is good for finding patterns but not necessarily as accurate as a chest rig based on what I have seen.

Other then that, the tech has improved thanks to analytics AI filtering out false readings.

counting steps is still a joke though

 

[SpeedSpeak2me]

I had a garmin instinct a couple years ago and it was absolutely terrible at tracking my HR. I'd be 20 mins in to 15% incline walking and jogging, soaked, treadmill would say ~170 bpm (and quick 10-15 second hand pulse checks were close to this) and the instinct would stay below 140 the whole time. This further reinforced my disdain for "smart" watches.

Decided to give the whoop a shot and I definitely have not regretted it

I got my dad an Instinct Solar a few months ago and it's pretty good at tracking his HR as well. He'll compare it to his BP monitor (arm cuff). It's possible they made improvements to the watch. I've been happy with the Venu 2 from that aspect.

counting steps is still a joke though

I have found pros and cons with this Venu 2. It doesn't have an "auto" string length, you have to enter it manually. When I'm out walking, it's very accurate. I can manually count steps to 100 and the watch will be a match. What I have found is that vibrations screw up the counter. First noticed it when I was able to cut my yard and my neighbor's and the step count increased by about 400. Total square footage of the yards is almost 18,000. No way I cut that much grass in that few of steps. I then tested it, and sure enough, the weed eater and lawn mower vibrations screw up the watch, and it won't track steps.


If I can find a way to get the HR/HRV data from Garmin to Apple Health I'll track it for a week or so and see what it shows.