Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Wellness

by Theresa Pallotta, MBS 2020, GCSoM

Mentor: Dr. David Averill, PhD

Have you ever wondered if there was one physiological measurement that could inform you and your health care provider about your overall wellness? The non-invasive and readily available use of monitoring Heart Rate Variability (HRV) may be able to do so. Heart rate variability measures the difference in time from one heart beat to the next. Scientific studies have shown that HRV measurements can indicate how your body responds to stress. While in most other scientific parameters consistency is desirable, this is not the case for HRV. Low HRV, meaning consistency in the interval of time between consecutive heart beats, can be an indicator of depression and anxiety as well as a predictor for chronic illnesses such as heart disease. On the other hand, higher HRV has been linked to better quality of life. If this is the case, you are probably wondering how you can increase your HRV and this can easily be done with exercise training programs.

Historically, scientific studies have utilized HRV as a biomarker to look at physical or emotional stress on the body and have used HRV measurements as an indicator of depression and anxiety as well as a number of different physical ailments such as Fibromyalgia, which is characterized by chronic widespread muscle pain, chronic heart disease, or sepsis which is a dangerous infection of the blood. It may seem odd that one measurement can serve as an indicator for this broad spectrum of disease states. However, these ailments are all characterized by disfunction of your body’s fight or flight response also known as your autonomic nervous system. Since HRV is a direct marker of autonomic nervous system function, it can easily be used to measure when this system is working improperly. HRV is generally measured using a Holter monitor. This is a small heart monitor that can be worn to measure an individual’s heart rhythm as they go about their daily activities. Exercise training, which is considered a good stressor of the body, can increase HRV leading to better quality of life. It has been shown that patients suffering from severe depression benefited the most from exercise programs that increased their HRV.

At a glance, it appears that measuring HRV in patients can be a predictor of overall physical and mental well-being. It is my opinion that HRV will become an important component in the future of preventative medicine. I believe that it will also encourage patients with low HRV, who may be suffering from any number of the conditions discussed previously, to make lifestyle changes such as implementing an exercise training regimen to organically improve their HRV. Future questions to keep in mind would be how this can be researched further, including studies combining both emotional and physical stress parameters and HRV. Additionally, it should be considered how can HRV measurements can be implemented as a preventative medicine technique during routine doctors’ visits. Lastly, some thought should be given to whether HRV be measured accurately using wearable devices, as opposed to Holter monitors, which are readily available to patients to monitor their own HRV and how this information can be electronically transferred to doctor’s offices for official interpretation.