Did you know that having high variability in your heart rate is a good thing? That’s right - you want high levels of variation in your heart rate, aka high HRV. Why? High HRV means that your body can respond quickly to stress when needed (like when you need to switch lanes in traffic to avoid an accident) and also easily returns back to a normal resting state when the stressor is gone.
Having consistently low HRV indicates that your body is strained and can’t respond as quickly to stress or go back to normal as easily afterward. This could mean that you aren’t sleeping well, you’re feeling stressed out, or that you’re getting sick. If you have consistently low HRV, you have a higher likelihood of developing insomnia, chronic pain, cardiovascular illness, and anxiety-related disorders.
Practicing techniques that give your body and mind a chance to recover like meditation, yoga, and breathwork improve HRV by supporting recovery from stress so you have control over your thoughts and emotions, what you choose to pay attention to, and your sleep. In other words, by gaining control over your HRV, you’re retraining your brain and body to be more resilient to stress, so you have control over how you feel.
