HRV, or heart rate variability.

You may have heard of it, you may see it on a wearable, like an aura ring, and not sure exactly what it means or how to take advantage of it. We are going to make that work for you today and dive into the numbers that matter and unveil some of the strategies to optimize your HRV for better health and performance. On today's Quick Wits. Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, philip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Hello QuickWits community, I'm Philip Pape, and today we are turning the science of HRV, or heart rate variability, into some actionable strategies you can take. It's something that I've always wondered about and I follow on my aura ring and you may have access to this on a wearable that you might wear. It's not just a metric for elite athletes. It can actually be this little personal health barometer and it signals when you can push hard or take it easy. We don't want to overblow any metrics like this, but it definitely is a really good lagging indicator, sometimes when you've made choices that potentially you don't want to make again, and I can give you a specific on that in a minute. But first let's talk about numbers. A normal HRV for adults is broadly from below 20 to over 200 milliseconds, and if you want to find your baseline you just have to start tracking it daily, preferably during a calm period like your sleep. That's why I like something like the Oura Ring, where you're wearing it while you're sleeping and then after a few weeks you'll have a solid average HRV to compare daily readings against. And again, it's called heart rate variability. It's just what it sounds. It's how much your heart rate itself varies. So you've got that baseline number, and now what do you do with it?

Well, if your HIV starts trending lower than your average, this might be an indicator that you're not recovering as well. And I will tell you when mine drops significantly, it's usually after a difficult night either, where I've eaten a lot of food, I've had some alcohol, I trained hard but didn't get very much sleep. I went to bed late. Something was off in my routine, and sometimes it's obvious. Right, I know I did this thing, I know I'm not going to feel great the next day and, lo and behold, the HRV tells me this. But I think it's pretty cool that it can tell you this and so when there are maybe smaller deviations, and then you can look at that the next day you wake up and say, oh interesting, I did this thing yesterday and now I can correlate it with this element of what effectively is biofeedback. It can help you evaluate your choices. So this could be prioritizing sleep or introducing a routine to calm you down, whether that's yoga, meditation, mindfulness, walking, simply taking a rest day. It may tell you that you're training too hard or too often, too frequently and not recovering enough.

Now, on the flip side, if your HRV is consistently above your baseline, maybe it's that your body is super ready to tackle something more strenuous or some more intense workouts or more volume. Maybe you know and this might be the time to push a little bit, to try that new thing with your workouts that you wanted to try, or that extra movement or focus on some tasks that require more mental and physical stamina. So some practical strategies for improving your HRV are going to be, for example, breathing. Breathing exercises are great. Diaphragmatic breathing, counting-based breathing to shift your nervous system toward that more relaxed, parasympathetic state. Consistent sleep schedule this is a huge one, aligning your sleep-wake cycle with your circadian rhythm. But even besides that, just doing it consistently, aiming for that roughly seven to eight hours, which is what most of us can get. If you can get nine, great, but seven to eight is good. Regular training, you know, not over-training, not under-training, just doing it consistently and aligned with your goals.

Nutrition can also affect your HRV, both. You know how you eat and how much you eat when you eat, but also what you eat. You know things like your fiber and omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants and all those things. That's a whole episode in and of itself of just having a generally healthy diet. And then stress management in general. Besides the things we mentioned earlier, just any activity that brings you joy and relaxation so that you can reduce chronic stress. So I think HRV can be a helpful tool, could be a helpful number if we don't give it too much priority or credit in our life.

It's not about chasing this perfect number. I know those of you out there who are thinking that it's really about listening to your body, responding to these deviations with the care that it deserves, understanding how you can use all these aspects of data and biofeedback to give you some insights and understand how choices have certain consequences and then shift toward that healthier, more vibrant version of yourself that we're all trying to get to. So let's use these strategies to get there. You know one heartbeat at a time, to be literal about it, and all I ask is that you keep striving to be the best version of yourself. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights. If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.