Heart rate variability, the tiny fluctuations between heartbeats, predicts a 5.3-fold increase in death risk after a heart attack. Low HRV also raises first heart attack risk by 50 percent. You can measure it with consumer wearables and improve it through exercise and breathing protocols.
This one metric is associated with a 5-fold increased risk of dying after a heart attack. It's called heart rate variability, or HRV. Heart rate variability captures the micro fluctuations in your heartbeat. One beat might last 1 second, the next 1.05, the next 0.92, and that's healthy. Now, this isn't just a heart metric. It's an emergent property of brain-body integration. It reflects how your nervous system locks into and connects to your heart and tells you a lot about your overall health and resilience. And get this: low heart rate variability is associated with a 50% higher risk of a heart attack in people who haven't had heart attacks, and in those who have, a 5.3-fold higher risk of dying in the years to come. But there's good news: heart rate variability is easy to track and highly modifiable. But this is a really nuanced topic that deserves more than just a short, so check the caption below for a link where I break it all down for you, the what, the why, the how, including how to track and how to change it with particular exercise and breathing protocols. And to bribe you a little to go to the deep dive, I'll even tell you a story involving Starbucks, Andrew Huberman, a medical emergency, and one time my girlfriend's friend accidentally saw my naked white butt for medical reasons. And yes, it actually relates back to heart rate variability. Check it out. The letter, not my butt.
