Welcome to the Longevity Blueprint.
I'm Dr.
Linda Friedland,
And I'm so happy to be sharing some valuable ideas with you.
HRV has become one of the most talked about measurements in health,
Fitness and longevity.
If you wear a Garmin,
An Apple Watch,
An Oura Ring,
A Whoop,
Or use an app like Weltery,
You have seen the letters HRV.
Heart rate variability.
I want to confess something.
I'm a doctor.
I've spent a good deal of time researching and studying this,
And I still sometimes look at my own reading and think,
What exactly am I meant to do with us?
So let us make it simple.
This subject is covered in three separate videos.
This first one explains exactly what HRV is.
The second video will include a breath work practice you can use to influence it.
HRV is not your heart rate.
Let me unpack it.
If your heart beats 60 times a minute,
It does not beat exactly once a second.
One gap between two beats may be 0.
9 seconds,
The next 1.
1.
That small variation is heart rate variability.
And it is a good thing.
Your heart is not meant to be a metronome.
Here is why the variation is there.
Every time you breathe in,
Your heart speeds up a little.
Every time you breathe out,
It slows.
That slowing is the work of your vagus nerve,
The calming,
Restorative branch of your nervous system,
Called the parasympathetic nervous system.
You may remember your sympathetic nervous system,
Which drives the fight or flight response with adrenaline,
Think of your vagus nerve as a brake.
When the break is working well,
Your heart rhythm has lots of variation.
When your body is under strain,
The brake eases off.
And the variation shrinks.
So HRV is really a window into your vagal break,
Which means.
If your HIV drops below what is usual for you and stays there for a couple of days,
Your body is telling you something is affecting it.
It might be a virus you have not noticed yet,
A hard week of training,
Too little sleep.
A couple of glasses too many of wine.
A stressful stretch of time.
The number does not say which.
It just says something is going on.
And when your HRV comes back up,
The brake is back on.
You have adapted,
You have recovered.
Now three things that trip almost everyone up.
Firstly,
There is no good or bad number.
Importantly,
With age changes,
HIV roughly halves between your 20s and your 60s.
So you have a much lower HRV when you are older.
It is higher if you are particularly fit.
And the other aspect.
Is that equally healthy people The same age,
Two people with the same age can have completely different readings.
A high reading is not automatically good news,
And a low reading is not automatically bad news.
What actually matters is your personal trend,
How your own numbers move over days and weeks,
Not any single reading taken on its own.
This is where the real information lives,
So please do not compare your number with anyone else.
The only comparison that matters is with your own usual range.
The second thing is different devices measure differently.
Watch,
Your Oura Ring,
Your Whoop number,
If that's what you use,
Or a phone app are not interchangeable.
And they're not even necessarily calculating.
Heart rate variability the same way.
Pick one and stick with it.
The third thing is that the way that you measure it matters.
Lying down,
Breathing slowly at the end of a quiet meditation will give you a beautifully high reading every time.
This is not a lie,
But it is not ideal.
The best time is to take it first thing in the morning,
Same position,
Breathing normally,
Sitting up,
Sitting on a chair gives you a better trend.
A trend that you can most trust.
So is it worth tracking at all?
Here is my honest view.
Its real value is in two situations.
It highlights something in that your body knows something before you do,
And when it makes something visible that will help you change your behavior.
It is one thing to know that alcohol affects your sleep.
It is another to watch your own heart rate variability and your recovery drop significantly the next morning.
And if you find the daily score is making you anxious rather than informed,
That is worth noticing too,
No real value then.
There is one more reason I find heart rate variability fascinating.
And it is the reason for the next video.
Of all the things that influence it.
There is.
The power that you have to change,
Even in the next 60 seconds.
Using your breathing,
Slowing your breathing down,
You can watch your heart rate and your HIV respond in real time.
I'm going to show you just how in the next video with a beautiful exercise we will do together.
So from me,
Dr.
Linda Friedland,
Watch the trend of your HRV,
Not one single reading.
Live well and age boldly.
