Heart Rate Variability and Anxiety

This is something new to me so thought I would share...I was alerted to it when the new OS in my Apple Watch came out last month.

In addition to checking my pulse periodically, it provides this measurement called "Heart Rate Variability" (HRV).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate_variability

It's not the speed in which your heart beats, but the variation in the time between the beats. In doing research, higher variability is better and also correlates to lower stress. Athletes appear to use this to see how recovered they are from strenuous workouts as a lower number indicates less recovery.

Bottom line is the higher your HRV the better apparently.

Mine is interesting...in the morning the variability is low (like 10 milliseconds or less), but later in the day it increases to up to 60 milliseconds. This is exactly my own rhythm with anxiety and stress. Morning is always the worst, but by evening I'm much more relaxed.

Not that the Apple Watch can give you as good a reading as an EKG, but it does seem to track with my general anxiety and stress.

Yeah, as strange as it sounds, seeing that my body has a physical response to (or perhaps the cause of) my anxiety is somewhat comforting. Guess it helps me realize that I just have an oversensitized nervous system and have since I was a kid.

Knowing all these things, I tend to treat myself with more kindness and compassion as a result which makes the panic attacks much more muted when they happen. Coping skills are also a big help and they have become better with time.

Plus I always like a challenge, so now will try to get this number higher as much as possible!