What is HRV and how does it affect my health?
In today’s fast paced world, everyone has gadgets to track their time, calories burned, amount of sleep received. Another piece of information that is now available to us is HRV. This little piece has been added on gadgets like Oura ring or Whoop. While this information is widely available, a lot of people are not aware of what it actually means and how it could be used to improve health and quality of life.
Heart rate variability (HRV) is variation of time between your heartbeats. Slower heart rates are associated when a person is relaxed, faster rates happen when one is active or stressed. HRV measures the balance of our autonomic nervous system. Autonomic nervous system is split into two branches-sympathetic (this is the zone we get into when we are stressed) and parasympathetic (this is the zone we are in when we are relaxed). HRV analysis gives us a closer look at our sympathetic and parasympathetic activities. It reflects just how adaptable one can be in changing situations. People with high HRV are able to switch from sympathetic zone (stress) to parasympathetic zone (relaxed) easier and faster than those with low HRV rates. Low HRV has been associated with heart disease, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, diabetes.
How can we ensure our HRV is high? Lately, studies have been coming out showing that acupuncture enhances cardiac vagal activity and suppresses sympathetic activity in humans. What does this mean? Acupuncture promotes parasympathetic activity in your body. This means taking your body out of stress zone, which when prolonged is very damaging to our body, and easing it into parasympathetic zone, also called rest and digest. This is the zone where body heals and repairs. Sympathetic zone is very much needed when we are in danger and our body needs to keep us alive. When we are in this zone, our alertness and heart rate go up, blood goes to our muscles, movement of the large intestine decreases. This is done to ensure that we survive the danger, but if we are stuck in sympathetic zone for a long time, which is very common to today’s world, a lot of body systems get affected. Quality of sleep goes down due to release of stress hormones, frequent constipation due to reduction of peristalsis in large intestine, prolonged increased heart rate and higher blood pressure can lead to heart disease. While back in the day running from a lion would have been the reason our body got into this zone, nowadays situations such as traffic or news can get us there in no time.
What can we do to ensure we are not in a prolonged sympathetic zone and can get into parasympathetic where our body actually heals and repairs? It goes back to the basics. Proper diet, proper sleep, exercise, meditation, and now studies have shown acupuncture. How often should you get acupuncture? Acupuncture is a therapy, so it needs to be part of healthy living. If one uses acupuncture for pain conditions, 4-6 sessions might be enough. For stress management, once a week is ideal.
Sources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12422965/
https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO200817963246462.page
