What is heart rate variability?
Heart rate variability refers to slight fluctuations in the time between heartbeats. These changes are very small, adding or subtracting a fraction of a second between beats.
These subtle changes are hard to detect with your own sense of self. It can only be tracked by professional equipment. BEARSCOME's health smartwatch has mastered this technology to easily capture subtle changes in the body. While heart rate variability can be present in healthy individuals, it can still indicate the presence of health problems, including heart disease and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.
What does HRV do?
This irregular heart beat can reflect a person's cardiovascular and cerebrovascular, heart, stress, anxiety, sleep and other conditions. HRV is mainly controlled by our autonomic nervous system, which regulates functions in the body that are not subject to human subjective control, such as heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure and digestion.
Therefore, we say that HRV is the health barometer of the human body, which can reflect the working condition of our autonomic nerves, so that we can know our physical condition. In general, the higher the HRV, the better, representing better cardiovascular function and stress resistance.
A lower HRV is associated with a higher risk of anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular mortality.
HRV can be affected by environmental factors, such as stress, which can suppress your parasympathetic nerve and activate your sympathetic nerve, thereby lowering HRV.
The reason is likely to be because of: excessive stress, mood swings, poor sleep quality and so on. In addition, smoking, alcohol consumption and some drug effects may also reduce HRV.
If there is a continuous sharp drop in HRV, sometimes it is a precursor to disease, which reminds you to pay attention to rest.
On the other hand, if your HRV is elevated, it is likely that you have been in good health recently, such as eating a healthy diet, sleeping well, or getting some exercise.
How can I obtain the HRV value from BEARSCOME Health Watch?
The daily measurement of heart rate variability is mainly through the HRV function of the smartwatch. BEARSCOME's HRV function, for example, can measure heart rate variability very accurately. The working principle of these smartwatches is mainly based on the electrocardiogram method to detect R waves in QRS complex waves and calculate the time between R waves. It can detect the heartbeat with an accuracy of 1 ms (1000 Hz), providing very accurate HRV analysis for most people of different body types and age groups. Most widely used wearables use PPG or photoplethysmography to optically detect a heartbeat by measuring blood flow waves from the wrist or ear, and then calculate the heartbeat interval, or IBI. Comparisons between different approaches are always challenging, and this is certainly true for HRV. However, different methods and devices, if used correctly and systematically, can provide users with interesting and useful information.
By wearing the BEARSCOME Health Smartwatch, you can view the HRV value in the APP. The APP also analyzes the data collected and uploaded by the watch. The APP provides HRV reference models and makes timely recommendations based on your data.
