My watch measures my HRV, Heart Variability Rate. It’s the difference between consecutive heartbeats in microseconds.

I don’t understand it. Higher is better. Why? An out of shape individual whose heart rate doubles when he gets up to go get another doughnut will have a higher difference in his pulse than an athlete whose pulse barely increases.

Mine is in the 60’s. Looking at the above graph, that’s equivalent to a 22 or 24 year old. And 60’s is high, which is good according to all that I read.

But what about the unbalanced part? In the second picture, see the grey zone? Outside of that is unbalanced. See how it adjusted, bringing the grey up higher? No article I’ve read addresses balanced or unbalanced HRV. Search, and the link will take you to articles, but those articles don’t mention balanced or unbalanced. Including Garmin, the maker of my watch and the app that gives the data.

WTF?

Either I’m in great shape physically, or I’m going to explode any second….

Have a great weekend!

I don’t have a good understanding of HRV. I know it’s the variation in time between one heartbeat and the next. But I don’t understand the balanced / unbalanced versus the “higher score is better” general rule described in many tutorials. Mine remains quite low, I think.

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in the images above, the unbalanced portion roughly coincided with my visit to the USA for my high school reunion. Other than that there has been no significant difference in my daily activities or diet that I am aware of to cause this variation.

According to the tutorials, a higher HRV number is better. What does that mean? That there is more variation between hard beats? Why is that better? What does the balanced / unbalanced mean?

I’ve studied it, and it doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe you can explain it to me, in a way that a child could understand it.

Thanks, and, Have a great day!