5 Minute Facts - Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability

This is episode 224 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Welcome. Welcome to Performance Power. This is our our monthly event that we take a look at anything nutrition, performance, training, recovery, injury, you name it, we cover it and we start with our five minute facts. Now, if you don't know me yet, then this is a little bit of a deviation than what I'm normally doing day in and day out in coaching businesses, coaching leaders and consulting for businesses and leadership and culture creation. However, this is a throwback. This is from my background in high performance sport at the Olympic level. So I love to bring the five minute facts with the latest relevant science and also target the questions that people ask me so that they can have the real information that is cutting edge and new. So here we go, five minute Facts. Today the topic is heart rate and heart rate variability. Now, you may have heard of heart rate before, you may have used it in exercise, you may have used it in training, and you may have heard of heart rate variability before. So I'll dive into these really quickly and then bring in your questions. I have some questions that people have sent in to me, but also I would love to field any questions that you have. So you can pop them in the chat or you can I'll invite you to ask them online. So here we go, five minute facts, Heart rate and heart rate variability. Number one, resting heart rate. The ideal area, or this typical zone is typically between 60 beats per minute and 100 beats per minute. So when we pe, when we say beats per minute, this means how many beats the heart is beating in 1 minute, 60 seconds. So 60 to 100 beats per minute. Anything over 100 beats per minute is considered something a medical term called tachycardia. Anything under 60 beats per minute is typically referred to as bradycardia. Now, it doesn't mean that you have something wrong with you per se, if sometimes your heart rate is going over 100 beats per minute or sometimes it's below 60 beats per minute. Because if you've heard of athletes having a low heart rate, that's exactly what happens. Athletes that have a low heart rate, it's because they are able to pump, pump more beats, more blood, I should say, per beat. So the left ventricle, when it contracts, can pump more blood in each beat. And that's why the heart doesn't have to beat as frequently, because the Blood is pumping more in every beat. That's why an athlete or someone very well trained is going to have a lower heart rate than someone who doesn't work out or isn't very well trained. So that's where the health benefit comes in, in that in the span of our life, we're actually not beating as many beats and our heart is more efficient in every beat. That's why a lower heart rate is considered more of a health factor. So there are some, there are some factors that influence our heart rate and they are age, fitness, being a smoker or non smoker, having a cardiovascular disease or high cholesterol or diabetes. So some diseases, air, temper, will affect our heart rate, body position. So me standing and speaking, my heart rate will be more elevated than if I were sitting or if I were lying down. So those will change my heart rate, body size, smaller sizes tend to have a little quicker heart rate. Think of an, think of a rabbit versus an elephant. Medications, and then we're in that zone. We want to take a look at whether there's tachycardia or bradycardia. So here's fact number two. A lower heart rate, as I said, is associated with less of a cardiovascular risk than a higher heart rate. But I want to add a little research to this. So with women who have resting heart rate over 79 beats per minute, they have a higher risk for a cardiovascular event than those with less arresting heart rate, less than 79 beats per minute. So if you've been lucky enough to take your heart rate when you're working out, or have someone take your heart rate, or have some sort of metric measure, whether it's a fitness watch or a strap around your chest, that will tell you some of those metrics, some of your resting heart rate when you're coming away from a workout, or if you've been sitting for periods of time, now the best time to get your resting heart rate will be first thing in the morning when you've just woken up and you're still lying in bed. That's a really good measure of a resting heart rate versus if you've already started the day and you're moving around or you've been speaking or different things like that. But we really get our lower heart rate typically when we're sleeping. But unless you're wearing a sleep monitor of some sort, whether it's an aura ring or a polar strap or a Garmin, then you're not usually getting that resting heart rate when you're sleeping. You're usually getting it right when you wake up and you can manually take it if you don't use something that monitors it already. So maximum heart rate. So I just talked about resting heart rate. Maximum heart rate is typically predicted. I personally don't like predicted mass maximal heart rates because they walk you down a rabbit hole that don't tell you all the information. So here it is. Here's the predicted heart rate, max 220 minus your age. Now just think about that for a second. So think about what your max heart rate would have been when you were 20. It would been 200. But your max heart rate, if you're 50, they're predicting your max heart rate is 170. Now the problem with this predicted max heart rate is that then all kinds of workout prescriptions are based on the max heart rate. Someone will say to you, or a treadmill will tell you, or a trainer will tell you, we want you working out between 50% or 85% of your max heart rate. Well, if your predicted max heart rate isn't accurate, then every single workout prescription you're doing cardiovascularly is off. So I want that to land for just a second because this is what happens primarily out there unless someone has this little extra bit of knowledge. So the only way that you can accurately use heart rate percentages is if you've done a true heart rate max. And that's kind of a, a strenuous thing in that you're doing a biking, biking intervals until you get to what you perceive, your maximal effort. And you've tried to sustain that for say 30 seconds to, to 120 seconds. And then you're going to come up with something that looks like your max heart rate. Maybe it's running, maybe it's biking, but that will give you a max heart rate. So for instance, for me, my max heart rate is probably around 190 beats per minute, give or take. I could redo it, but it's around there. I've done thousands and thousands of heart rates on myself and yet that I'd be predicted at 170 beats per minute. So I would be very, very off if I was using heart rate max predictions or, or prescriptions for exercise based on the prediction. So I wanted to really spend a little more time on that one so that you are not going down that space of using a percentage prescription that is off for what your heart is actually dictating. Okay, fact number three, we're going into heart rate variability. And this is so exciting because this is something that has been emerging so fast in research over the last 20 years that we now have wearables that can predict our heart rate variability. Whereas when I did research in this very topic, we didn't even have the technology to be able to get more than about seven hours of data. And now we can get days of data with one little ring or one little strap. So it's really powerful. So here's what heart rate variability. Has everyone heard of heart rate variability? Just want to pose that out there. So here's why it's fantastic to use. It is what is an indicator of how well we handle stress. And I don't care whether this is physical stress, mental stress, emotional stress, illness stress. Heart rate variability will be a very efficacious way to monitor your stress. So here's what it is. Heart rate variability is the distance. It's the time in between each R wave of your heart rate. Heartbeat. In your heartbeat, you have a P, Q, R, S and T wave, I believe. P, Q, R, S, T wave, yes. And it starts with the P, Q. And that's kind of a little bump and then a drop and. And then the R is the big spike in the beat and then it drops again to the. You are S and T wave, those little other drops and then bump. Every single beat has these components. And the distance between R wave and R wave measured by a time in milliseconds is typically different from beat to beat. If it's like a metronome, you are in a stressful state or in a primarily sympathetic nervous system state. When that's the case for an extended period of time or days or weeks or months, then the result of that will be something that you probably don't want. Whether it's headaches or illness or stress results, it won't be good. You cannot stay in one zone of stress like that for extended periods of time without physical repercussions. So what we want is variation. And so heart rate variability measures the variation between beats. So one beat might be shorter or shorter in time and the next beat might be a little longer in time and then shorter in time. Longer, longer, shorter, longer, shorter, longer, longer, shorter, shorter, shorter. It's a variation in between instead of being boom, boom, boom, the exact same interval between beats. I hope that. I hope that explains it. Well, the reason this is important is because the parasympathetic nervous system. So there's overall your autonomic nervous system, there's your sympathetic and your parasympathetic. Parasympathetic is the part that is your rest and digest. It's your recovery, it's your balancing out from the go, go, go, sympathetic nervous system. So this measurement, this beautiful metric, this incredible little tool called your heart rate variability can tell you whether you are getting that harmony and balance that you need between the driving go, go, go, those stressful states and the recovery. We want and need some level of stressful states in our lives. That's called exercise, it's called attention. It's called some unknown circumstance. It's and how we manage that and recover from that stressful part is our recovery. It's our parasympathetic nervous system, our rest and digest, our calm and relax. And that is what gets measured is how well we respond from those stressful bouts with heart rate variability. Okay, so the fact number four is this. We want to know what is good heart rate variability numbers. Well, guess what? There is no good heart rate variability numbers. And the reason I say this is because it's so very individual. We cannot apply a number to it the way we would apply a number to heart rate. Heart rate has a number that's applied to it in that zone of resting heart rate between 60 and 100 beats per minute. But heart rate variability doesn't. So what you notice when you start to monitor your own is you notice when it's higher, the number that's great, that's recovery. When it's lower for extended periods of time, you are in a stressful state. You might even have an indicator that an illness is coming on before you feel it. So there are that low zone and you will discover for yourself what those numbers look like. There are a number of conditions that affect the heart rate variability number and they would be things like infections, heart conditions, asthma, diabetes, hypertension, anxiety, depression, long bouts of stress, all of those would affect your heart rate variability. But sleep, restorative sleep between seven and nine hours a night will massively help your heart rate variability. Your recovery, your overall autonomic or your, your parasympathetic nervous system, mindfulness, daily physical activity, meditation, deep breathing, 20 minutes per day, making time for self care, minimizing alcohol, processed foods, minimizing eating late at night, minimizing, overworking or over stressing, all of those things will improve your heart rate variability metrics or scores. For me, for instance, as an example, as time goes by, as people age, the heart rate variability scores tend to lower a little bit, but that it's unclear as to why. So if someone stays fitter and stays healthier, they don't lower as much. That's what known and researched so far. However, if I look at my heart rate variability in a span of time when I'm close to nature, my heart rate variability is higher. If I am a little bit off with my husband and we're not connected as well, my heart rate variability is lower. If I don't get as much sleep, my heart rate variability is lower. If I'm I can handle a lot coming at me in work and my heart rate variability can still be very high. As long as I'm meditating, I have my sleep, I get my time with my dogs and my family and nature and it's all good. But if there is a hard travel for many days or I'm presenting multiple days in a row or there's lack of sleep for multiple days in a row, then the heart rate variability will drop. So for me, a low score for heart rate variability would be something like 30. That would be very very low. For me, something a moderate zone would be somewhere in the 50s. But when my when I feel truly relaxed and I can still be training that same day, but I'm truly relaxed, my heart rate variability scores will be between 70 or even over a hundred. So those would be just some examples. But those would not be necessarily your scores because yours would be very individual to you. And lastly, the last thing I'm going to leave with on this one and this was more than five minutes, apologies, but this is a topic I'm going to make my excuse here a topic I really really love. Just like all of the sciency topics. The last one is this. Wrist straps are not necessarily as accurate as chest straps. So I find that what research is showing and when there's comparables and I'm going to post a link of an article that has some comparables between products. But I find my favorite brands are Polar because they were the originals in heart rate tech research and they've come a long way in that. Garmin and Aura, those are my three favorite monitors. Whoop is not as good with this particular metric, but it has a fantastic app and group support. But I prefer Polar Garmin and Aura as the three that are the best. With that an Apple watch just doesn't it's great for day to day and multipurpose use, but just not as good in this realm. So I'm going to open it up to questions on this topic or any topic related to training, nutrition, recovery, health that inspires you. You can unmute yourself and just pop your hand up or pop the question in the chat. And I also have a couple other questions that people have sent in with me. Okay, what do we have? Pop your hand up if you've got a question on anything in this realm and I'm going to put you in and go ahead. You're unmuted there.

Is that Lynn or me? Lynn is mooted.

Oh no, I've got, I've got you, Liz. Go ahead. Sure.

Thank you for explaining the. The hard variation. I never got the sense of anything that tell me I have a whoop and I have this everything I only thing I check is out of alignment. That I don't know exactly what that means. That's good to know. Actually lower the number. Actually the worst. If you have a lower number.

Yes.

Other way around. Okay.

It's the opposite of heart rate. It's the opposite of heart rate. So heart rate. When your heart rate is lower, that's a good indication of fitness and health. When your heart rate variability is higher, it's a great indication of recovery and just overall being able to balance out the stressors from what's occurring in your life.

Yeah. For day to day I can imagine that if like if one day I have a lot of stress, like overwhelm, I can see that matrix maybe get higher because.

The heart rate might be higher but the heart rate variability might go lower. They might be frozen. Okay. I don't know. Can you still hear me, Lynn? Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to answer your question, Lynn, because I think Liz is frozen here. I wear the aura ring and I also use Garmin. Yeah, I, I really like aura ring a lot because of sleeping. I don't like sleeping with a watch on and I've slept. I've done tons of research sleeping with a monitoring strap. So I've done lots of research there. But it's just not as comfortable. You're not going to put a strap on before bed if that sounded really bad. But. But that is just not as comfortable as the ring itself. So I'll wear the ring to bed and. And I take the watch off. I used to wear the watch a lot. It's just not as accurate as wearing the chest strap and it's just not quite as accurate as the metrics on the ring. So there is some, there's some error. But I. Yeah, I really like the ring. Some people don't like it, but it's best really for. Best for sleep and recovery. This isn't as great of a tool as something like a Garmin for monitoring let's say cycling distances and the metrics that go with it and running Distances or intervals or things like that. But either one of them, I compare both of these, the Garmin and the Aura, I compare them both when it comes to step counts. Some of my recovery metrics and you know, there is some variation, but they're so close that at least I'm getting the idea that I want to discover of what's happening there. Okay.

Is there an app with both of.

Those that's on your phone? Yes, absolutely. And I'll show you what they, they look like here. This one is what the Aura app looks like and what it looks like really for it. It gives me every morning when I wake up, it's going to give me a, a restfulness score or a recovery score and it's going to give me a sleep score. So you're going to see some red or some blue or some numbers in there that show you a few things. Now it's. And then it'll give you activity as well. Scores and you can monitor things along that. You can. There's meditations built in here as well with the, with the Garmin. There's an app as well for that which currently is updating. But. Yeah, so right now it's updating. So it's not going to show exactly, but it will have, it will have a lot of those same metrics, but more based on training and performance. So a little more based on the last workouts you did. It's just got a different feel. There's more you can do with the Garmin app. There's a lot more you can do with it than with something like an aura. One is more specialized to sleep and recovery. Awesome. Okay, other questions we've got about time for one more. This could be nutrition. This could be sleep. It could be any of the things. It could be training. It could be your last workout, it could be a little injury. It could be the best way to get a certain result. What's there for you?

Sorry, I just came back.

Sorry about that.

K. Would you talk about the breath? Like how you train yourself 20 minutes.

What do you do? Okay, so, so what I mentioned in the five minute facts was the research around what can contribute to a better recovery, which is the heart rate variability score. So the 20 minutes of breathing isn't any breathing. So you've seen us do some breathing that might be priming breathing. So it might be a really fast inhale and fast exhale and an arm moving that would get you into more of a, an alert or awake state. That's not the breathing typically that we're talking about unless it's a long span that builds and then brings down to a relaxation. So the easiest way to bring your state into more of a rested state or a higher heart rate variability is with long exhales. Long exhale. So when you're looking at your breathing count, if you're inhaling through your nose and a longer exhale, That is the type of breathing that will support heart rate variability. You can easily do an entire bout where you go from a faster state of breathing into then a slower state of breathing. And that will do it as well in that 20 minute span of time, as long as you're getting the slower, longer exhale parts of breathing that will be really important to get into that state. The other factor as well that will make a big difference is and it affects what's called your vagal nerve. Your vagal nerve within your body sends feedback from your basically your chest cavity, your digestion system, all the way up to your brain. And if you're lying down, that vagal nerve gets signals to say okay, you can relax now, it's okay, you don't have to be as alert. And that those signals from lying down with slower breathing that will help you adjust some of those stressful states into more of a relaxed and fluid and recovered state with increasing your heart rate variability. There's one more thing I was going to say with that and I forgot what it is. So that will do it. Oh, I know what it was. It's this, it's using nasal breathing. So I think you've experienced with me before that if you block one nostril or if you use only nose, it slows the breathing. And when we're in an anxious state, we're breathing shallow and we're breathing quickly. So by slowing the breathing by the slow through the nose, the long exhale, or doing nasal breathing with one nostril and then the other nostril, those really help in breathing practices, in being able to get to that relaxed state and increase your heart rate variability. Okay, any last questions or comments?

Thank you Carrie, those are very helpful.

No problem. Okay. Thank you so much for bringing such interesting questions and, and tech questions and device questions because I really think that this is a topic that is, is such a, a whole gold mine of information on yourself. So if you find a way that you can monitor your heart rate variability, there's even some apps in Apple as well where you do. It's like reaction time. Reaction time can be an indicator of how relaxed you are as well. Those are really useful ways to just have that monitoring of yourself. And I know you know yourself. We, we know our breath, we know how we feel, we know how relaxed we are. Those can be indicators. But sometimes we're in a state for such a long period of time it feels normal. And that's sometimes when we can overlook the fact that we're simply not getting the relaxation and recovery that our body truly needs. Our mind, our body, our spirit truly needs. So that's where it can be worth to to use tech to monitor it in a way that supports us, not in a way that gets hyper vigilant, but rather just to go, oh, you know what? I think it's time for some breath work, some meditation, a hot tub, a walk, a connection with a loved one. The things that are really going to allow that autonomic nervous system to have the harmony it needs between go so hard versus recover and be so. I hope that supports you. Have a beautiful rest of your day and thank you for joining us on our performance Power.

Thank you so much Carrie. Great to see everyone. Have a great week ahead.

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