(highlight:: Heart Rate Variability: A Measure of the Variation In Time Between Individual Heart Beats
Summary:
Heart rate variability refers to the variability in the timing between heartbeats, which is controlled by competing inputs from the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system.
This variability is essential as it allows the body to respond to both activating and deactivating signals, maintaining a balanced nervous system. When heart rate variability decreases, it indicates that one input is dominating, leading to an imbalance in the nervous system.
Therefore, heart rate variability is not just about the heart's fluctuations, but it signifies the responsiveness of the nervous system to a wide range of stimuli, which is crucial for overall health.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Emily, what is your kind of go to definition for heartya?
Speaker 1
So if i'm being a masnerd, it's literally the variability in the timing between beats of your heart. So a lot of people, you know, you go to the doctor and they tell you, you know, oh, your heart rates 60 beats per minute. And that actually doesn't mean that it's beating like once a second on the second, you know, like a metronone. What what actually is happening is that sometimes it's beating, you know, after one point two seconds, sometimes after one point eight, one point nine. And it averages out over the minute to be 60 times in a minute. You know, that's why it the doctor, they measure it for 30 seconds or something. And that variability comes from competing inputs from your nervous system. And so our bodies have sort of two opposing branches of your arnomic nervous system. You've the sympathetic that says sort of dew stuff, activating part in the paret sympathetic, which as hat's the rest digest the slow down, the recover. And so when both of these are sort of giving instructions to the heart, you get this kind of pastic increase, decrease, increase, decrease, which causes your hurry to go up and down, Up and down, and causes variability. And that variability is actually a good thing, because over the course of time, we need to respond to both activating and dactivating signal. So, you know, we need to respond to threats, and we need to dilate our pupils, andthere's too much light in all these little things that require action. But we also need to digest food and sleep and do all these things that require inaction. And so we're constantly trading all that off. And when those systems are well balanced, you see a lot of variability because they're both sort of getting their way.
Speaker 2
And your heart's responsive to va s and as asigres as well raso. Your heart is going to do whatever sort of its being told to do.
Speaker 1
And if it's going up and down a lot, and means its hearing, for lack of a better word, instructions from both sides. Now, what starts to happen when your heartry variability goes down is that one of those inputs is sort of screaming more loudly than the other. And so your heart ts getting, your heart is getting one set of inputs almost always the sympathetic is dominating. Ah, and so it's sort of getting its way, which is activate and do stuff. You produce qartasall. And i kind of have all these i activating responses. And the pair sympathetic isn't getting heard, which means a whole bunch of stimuli that our bodies receiving are not getting actioned. And so heart rate variability is actually, it's a signal of your nervous system being balanced. And i think that that's really important and a source of confusion for a lot of our athletes. It's not so much it's good for heart to go up and down, although i's certainly not bad. It's that it's good that your nervous system is being responsive to a wide variety of stimuli. Because all these stimuli are present, and so being able to action them in a balanced way is healthy.)
- Time 0:03:40
- snipddont-post, health, heart_rate_variability,

(highlight:: Heart Rate Variability is a Measure of Resource Allocation in the Body
Summary:
Alcohol consumption redirects resources to the liver, decreasing heart rate variability (HRV) as the body prioritizes detoxification.
HRV reflects the availability of resources for allocation, with high HRV indicating abundant resources and low HRV indicating limited availability. During sickness, the immune system monopolizes resources, reducing HRV.
Conversely, HRV increases after cooling down or completing digestion, freeing up resources.
HRV fluctuates daily based on resource demands.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
So obviously, like, alcohol is going to make it shot, because you sort of rt all these resources towards your liver to sort of clear this poison out. And so that's like very high, like, our bodies prioritis getting that out, um. And so then those resources get tied up. So you can basily think about like h r v as like we have this finite number of resources, and our whole body is competing to use these resources for different things. And if my h r v is like, very, very high relative to my line, it means all my resources are available to be reallicatedm if my h ar v is really, really low, it means that, ike, most of those Resources are spoken for, so there's very little to kind of move around. And so if i'm sick, right? My immune system is going to take, just take a whole bunch of those. It's going to hold on tight, and they're not going to be available. I can't stop fighting an infection in order to run a race. Im if my h r v is sort low, because i'm hot, right? I can change, or i can turn on the a c, and all of a sudden that's going tolik, bounce back really quickly. And so then i can take those resources that are working on thermo regulating, right? We get into a thermo neutral zone, and then all of a sudden those can be reallocated. If i just, like, ate a sandwich, a whole bunch are going to go to digesting that sandwich. But as soon as that's done, they get freed up again. And so h r v changes like a whole bunch, you know, day to day.)
- Time 0:14:06
- snipddont-post, health, heart_rate_variability,