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Your Guide to Heart Rate Variability Tracking - Prevent Burnout and Support Recovery from Illness
- Kate Duder
- 1 day ago
- 16 min read
Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a tool that’s becoming more well recognized for understanding how your body responds to stress, activity and recovery.
It's being used to predict longevity as it's like your own fingerprint for stress tolerance, adaptability and resilience.
For individuals with a chronic illness or those wanting to prevent burnout tracking HRV can help guide your activities, manage rest and recovery, pace better to prevent crashes, and improve symptom management. If your feeling overwhelmed mentally and/or physically HRV can help predict future health outcomes and prevent illness and burnout.
In this article we will cover:
Practical ways to use HRV tracking
Pacing and managing daily activities
What is heart rate variability?
Most people don’t realise that our heart rate is not perfectly uniform like a metronome. In fact there are millisecond changes in the intervals between each heart beat. The variation in that time between heartbeats is HRV which is represented as a number between 0 and around 120 and this is controlled by our autonomic nervous system (ANS).
A higher HRV means the body has better adaptability and resilience, while a lower HRV can signal stress, fatigue, or illness. The higher the HRV the more easily the body moves between fight/flight and rest/digest in response to different situations as required throughout the day.
Generally speaking when our parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) activity is higher, our HRV is higher and as sympathetic nervous system (fight flight) activity is higher, HRV decreases.
It’s important to remember though, that stress and activation of the sympathetic nervous system activity isn't always bad. In fact, it's required to be able to concentrate, work or exercise and can be adaptive, to improve strength, fitness and health. It is however the balance between the systems that’s important for overall wellbeing and influences HRV.
Different devices will calculate and report HRV slightly differently as discussed below and age, gender, genetics and lifestyle also impact HRV, so it's important to look at your own HRV relative to your age and gender.
Various clinical research studies show that the average HRV for adults is 42ms and the range is generally between 19 and 75 (1).
Oura have reported that female Oura members (using an Oura ring) have an average HRV of 41.5ms and the average for males is 40.3 ms (2).
Why HRV is important to understand for health and wellbeing
How you recover from the stress and activities of each day is based on your nervous system’s responses to what you do. HRV is therefore important because:
1. It reflects the balance between your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and this has a direct relationship with health and wellbeing
2. It provides feedback on the impact of lifestyle habits, such as exercise, sleep, nutrition, stress management and more
3. Long term HRV can be used to predict future health outcomes and prevent things like burnout. Short term it can be used to predict where we are at in recovery from illness by providing data and actionable insights to manage your activities and stress.
Managing fatigue, chronic illness and stress can be hard so being able to remove some of the guesswork and have hard data can be extremely helpful!
What influences heart rate variability?
30-40% of HRV is genetic so this means our HRV is largely influenced by us. As we age our HRV lowers, males tend to have a slightly higher HRV than females and illness such as metabolic dysfunction, heart conditions, MS, ME/CFS, Long COVID, dysautonomia, neurological challenges and other conditions will also influence HRV.
50% of 20-25 year olds usually fall in the 55-105 range, while 60-65 year olds are normally between 25-45 (3).
When it comes to tracking HRV its best to focus on lifestyle factors that we can change and these include:
Sleep, hydration, nutrition and exercise/movement
These can all negatively or positively impact HRV and alcohol especially over 2 drinks can reduce HRV and has been shown to impact sleep quality.
Exercise can influence HRV in both the short and long term.
Gentle activities like yoga or tai chi can boost HRV in the moment by activating the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) nervous system. On the other hand, more intense exercise typically causes a temporary drop in HRV, as the body enters a state of stress. This is a normal and potentially beneficial response and as long as it’s followed by adequate rest, it can lead to improved baseline HRV over time. However, consistently pushing your body without enough recovery, whether from physical or emotional stress, can lower HRV in the long run and may be an early warning sign of burnout.
Psychological and emotional stress
Anxiety, mental and emotional stress can all lower HRV and impact the body’s ability to recover daily and long term if it continues without adequate recovery time. On the flip side, emotional connection has been shown to increase HRV.
Breathing and reducing heart rate
Deep slow breathing is linked to the body's ability to down regulate and switch into parasympathetic mode and this strongly impacts HRV and our ability to recover from stress. This is why mindfulness exercises, meditation and breath work is recommended for supporting our nervous system and reducing stress.
Medications and supplements
Some medications and supplements may influence HRV readings. For example, healthy Omega3 levels (EPA/DHA balance) have been shown to increase HRV (4, 5). Research shows that tricyclic antidepressants generally lower HRV (I experienced this last year when I tried amitriptyline for chronic pain), however SSRI’s don’t have an impact on HRV.
Hormones
Research indicates that postmenopausal women have a reduced HRV compared to premenopausal women. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been shown to positively influence HRV parameters, with a 6 month course of HRT leading to significant improvements in cardiac autonomic function, which may also have cardioprotective effects.
The top factors that positively influence HRV:
Breathing and a reducing heart rate
Movement and stretching
Metabolic resilience
Quality sleep
Emotional connection
Practical Ways to Use HRV tracking
People are using HRV tracking to:
Track recovery progress and guide treatment strategies for illness
Improve mental and physical resilience and adaptability
Customize sports training, optimize recovery time and improve athletic performance
Personalize work life balance, nutrition, sleep and exercise protocols
Provide early warning signs for changes in health and wellbeing including overtraining or burnout prevention
Re-balance the nervous system with live biofeedback
Remove the guess work and provide motivation for change through objective data
Identify and prevent health risks including burnout
Within this the three main ways you can use HRV data depending on the device you use and what information it provides you.
Finding and tracking your baseline
Daily activity tracking
Predicting
You can establish your HRV baseline by consistently measuring it either first thing in the morning (before getting out of bed) or at night before sleep. Once you have a sense of your usual HRV at these times, you can begin to track trends and assess how lifestyle changes impact your recovery. Comparing morning and evening HRV readings can also give insight into how well your body is recovering overnight.
Gradual improvements in HRV often indicate a healthy balance of activity, rest, and stress management. On the flip side, consistently low or declining HRV can suggest that your body is under pressure or not recovering well, which, over time, may lead to burnout or illness.
For people struggling with fatigue or who have a chronic illness such as ME/CFS or Long COVID, HRV can help you manage stress and how much activity to do. For example, if a long walk, other activity, or a combination of activities causes your HRV to stay low for several days, it may have been too much. But if a shorter walk is followed by a quick return to baseline, that’s likely a sustainable level. Keep in mind that HRV is also influenced by emotional and mental stress, so it’s helpful to consider the full context when using this for managing physical activity.
Think of HRV as both a reflection of your resilience and a helpful early warning system. HRV can also sometimes drop before symptoms flare, offering a chance to adjust activity levels early. Even if you feel okay, a noticeable drop in HRV might signal your body is under strain and indicate the need for rest. Some people have even seen a drop in their HRV before the onset of a virus.
Activities that help regulate our nervous system such as breathwork, meditation, gentle movement, exercise (within your baseline), connection and nature exposure can help improve HRV during the day and long term. Incorporating these things into your lifestyle can help balance emotional stress and enable you to better understand your body's physical and mental limits.
Devices for Measuring HRV
There are different types of devices and many different apps for measuring HRV. In general these are:
Rings or watches e.g. Oura Ring, WHOOP, Garmin watches etc
Chest straps e.g. Polar H10 and Garmin HRM-Pro offer accurate HRV tracking for short-term measurements
Heart rate monitors like Firstbeat Life with an app (available through health practitioners such as Health Coaches, Personal Trainers and Exercise Physiologists)
It’s important to know that every device measures and reports HRV slightly differently. There are different ways to measure HRV and some may use a different algorithm or a combination of variables to report on HRV. Garmin for example have a reading called Body Battery which is a combination of variables including HRV and Apple has a Health reading. This makes it hard to compare between people and devices, however the good thing is that they all track the changes in HRV readings in a similar way allowing you to track your progress and trends over time. This means you can still monitor your personal progress and see how lifestyle changes affect your HRV day-to-day and over the long term using the same device
Rings and watches are the most convenient, however the chest straps and heart rate monitors and apps like Firstbeat Life often provide you with more detailed data and can track and show other information such as mood, specific activities or situations and V02max.
Some experts have found using Apple to track HRV less accurate, as Apple uses a different measurement technique. It's also unclear when an Apple device takes an HRV reading (this may change with future technology). Consistency in measurements is the key to tracking progress because if your HRV is measured at the same time each day but you're doing something different at that time that day, you won’t get accurate readings to compare. You can however apparently trigger an HRV reading by doing a ‘breathe’ session with the mindful app on an Apple device.
My Experience with HRV
I initially used Garmin’s Body Battery and sleep tracking to help manage my recovery and balance between activity, stress, and rest. While helpful, I found the data somewhat limited and wasn’t sure how to fully interpret it. That changed when I discovered Firstbeat Life and began working with a Health Coach who specialises in HRV. With their guidance, I gained a much clearer understanding of how to use HRV tracking to better support my recovery and energy levels.
Tracking HRV throughout the day has helped me see how my nervous system responds to stress and recovery, and what’s really happening with my sleep, not just the duration, but the quality. It’s taken a lot of the guesswork out and helped me pinpoint what’s truly supporting (or hindering) my recovery.
I even noticed improvements in my sleep quality through HRV data before I physically felt the difference, which was an encouraging sign that I was on the right path and helped me continue with what i was doing knowing it was benefitting me.
One expert uses an analogy I really like: imagine your HRV as a bucket full of water. A full bucket represents optimal resilience and recovery. But if there are holes in the bucket (stress, poor sleep, illness, or overexertion) water constantly leaks out. If there are too many holes, the water level (your HRV) will decrease. You can’t refill the bucket effectively until you start identifying and plugging those holes. Once you do, the water level begins to rise again, reflecting improved recovery, resilience, and overall wellbeing.
Tracking my HRV has shown me that I’m generally pacing well, but when I don’t, it definitely shows in my numbers and impacts my sleep. I’ve found that gentle movement or 30 minutes of light exercise during the day helps regulate my nervous system and improve sleep quality.
The biggest thing that I have learnt however, is that my sleep quality isn't good which means I'm not recovering properly over night and I need more sleep than I should.
I also noticed that certain medications, like amitriptyline, kept my body in a constant fight-or-flight state, which significantly lowered my HRV and impacted my energy and brain fog. Hormonal shifts throughout my cycle affect it too. The good news is that with a few lifestyle changes, I’ve seen a improvement in my HRV and sleep quality over the past four months.
How to interpret HRV data
Below is a series of Garmin Body Battery and Firstbeat Life HRV graphs that show sleep and other impacts on mt HRV.
In the Garmin Body Battery graphs, the orange is stress (sympathetic system activation) and the blue is rest/recovery (parasympathetic activation) and the Grey is physical activity. These are Red, Green and Blue in the Firstbeat Life graphs. The Firstbeat Life graphs also show heart rate (black line) and HRV (grey line) and the activities you have done during the day. Garmin has a white line for Body Battery, a representation of HRV.
Note: The Garmin Body Battery reading is not a direct HRV number, but combination of HRV and other factors that gives you the Body Battery score.
Orange/red activity indicates stress on the bod, whether it’s from work, emotional tension, physical exertion, alcohol, illness, or anything that activates the sympathetic nervous system. To support recovery and improve HRV, it’s important to balance this with blue/green zones during the day, which reflect moments of rest, relaxation, and parasympathetic activity.
Stress or sympathetic system activation isn't all bad. It's needed during the day to get things done and some stress such as physical activity can cause adaptation, building strength, resilience and fitness, however it's finding the right balance for you to make sure there is 'blue/green' during the day and recovery is adequate overnight and long term.
NOTE: For healthy individuals daily exercise helps HRV, however for people with chronic illness or ME/CFS and Long COVID, specifically where physical activity can bring on Post Exertional Malaise (PEM), these graphs will look different. The amount of physical activity will depend on the severity of your illness and what is manageable within your baseline of energy. Taking an individual approach when tracking HRV and using it to balance activities and recovery is important for setting and achieving your own wellbeing goals.
Pacing and managing daily activities
Pacing requires the balance of physical mental and emotional stress along with rest and recovery to ensure that the body is not under more stress than it can manage.
Figure 1: This Garmin Body Battery graph shows a good pacing day that incorporates rest and recovery (evident by the blue activity and white peak line during the day), causing the body battery reading to increase at a time during the day.
Figure 2: This Firstbeat Life Graph shows a similar well paced day for me. You will notice the HRV peaks (grey line) along with green blocks during the day and a better sleep quality at night (more green than red) than the examples below.
Figure 3: Shows HRV tracking over 4 days. The purple blocks is sleep at night and you can see the consistency of my HRV over the 4 days and some recovery with peaks during the day also.
Figure 4: Not Pacing – A Garmin Body Battery graph showing minimal rest and recovery throughout the day, leading to a steady decline in energy levels and HRV. While relying on sleep for recovery might be manageable short term, consistently missing daytime recovery can lead to ongoing fatigue, energy crashes, and eventual burnout.
Figure 5: A Garmin Body Battery graph showing poor overnight recovery (low Body Battery score in the morning), indicating that I started the day with limited energy reserves. However, incorporating rest and recovery activities throughout the day led to an improvement in my Body Battery levels.
Figure 6: This 5 day HRV tracking graph highlights the impact of insufficient pacing, rest and recovery, (or too much physical activity), during the first 2 days. HRV steadily declines despite some nighttime recovery. The next two days show a noticeable shift, due to the increased rest that was needed to restore both HRV and energy levels.
This boom bust type pattern could be familiar for people with ME/CFS and Long COVID where certain levels of physical activity or stress cause a crash and PEM that takes days (and in some cases weeks or months) to recover from.
Figures 7 and 8: Each graph below represent the first two days in the graph above where there was insufficient pacing. The large blocks of blue are physical activity (long walks in this example). You will notice very little recovery (green) during the first day, none on the second day, a high HR (black line) and low HRV (grey line) during the day.
Sleep
Quality sleep plays a crucial role in supporting a healthy heart rate variability (HRV). During a quality and restorative sleep, the body activates the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting repair, recovery, and better stress resilience. Poor sleep, whether from disrupted cycles, short duration, or stress can lower HRV, indicating the body hasn’t recovered well. Over time, consistently good sleep can help improve HRV and overall well-being.
I noticed that the quality of my sleep isn't restorative enough. This was evident in the week graphs that show how much recovery I get overnight, my HRV scores in the morning and the regular blocks of red or sympathetic nervous system activity at night.
Figure 9: A Firstbeat Life graph showing significant sleep duration, but poor sleep quality, as indicated by red blocks representing stress and sympathetic nervous system activation throughout the night. These periods are linked to elevated heart rate and a noticeable drop in HRV.
There are several possible reasons for this poor sleep quality and since taking these HRV readings my sleep quality has improved through cutting out or reducing screentime and TV at night. In addition to medical conditions like sleep apnea or heart arrhythmias, factors such as snoring, exposure to blue light and screens in the evening, insufficient physical activity, late-night exercise, alcohol intake, poor nutrition, or a lack of natural light, especially in the morning, can all affect sleep quality.
Figure 10: Shows sleep quality (red line) using the Garmin Body Battery graph, with similar peaks of blue and orange throughout the night. The graph starts at 12am, so to view the first part of your sleep, you’ll need to check the end of the previous day’s graph. While this can be a bit tricky, it still provides a useful overall picture of sleep quality.
Figure 11: Shows what sleep should look like, mainly parasympathetic activation recovery (green in this Firstbeat Life graph).
Medications - Amitriptyline
We’ve discussed how various factors, including medications, can influence HRV. There are a range of medications that can lower HRV (Tricyclic antidepressants), others with no effect (SSRIs) and some that can increase it (beta blockers), so this could be a consideration if you're dealing with illness or fatigue and wanting to improve your HRV and overall wellbeing.
While tracking my HRV, I tried Amitriptyline for chronic pain and noticed a significant drop in both HRV and energy levels. Despite sticking to my usual routine, I experienced daily energy crashes, indicating that this medication wasn’t the right fit for me, as it appeared to trigger a stress response.
Note: I’m not suggesting that Amitriptyline isn't a useful drug. If you are currently taking Amitriptyline, please don’t discontinue it without speaking with your doctor, as there are other important factors to consider, including pain management, due to pain also impacting HRV.
Figure 12: Firstbeat Life HRV graph showing one day while taking Amitriptyline. In contrast to the graphs above there is almost no parasympathetic system activity for rest and recovery during the day or night, signaling a constant state of stress.
Figure 13: Garmin Body Battery HRV tracking for one day (the same day as the above graph) while taking Amitriptyline.
Lifestyle changes that have improved my HRV
Lifestyle changes that have improved my HRV and sleep include:
Reducing screen time at night – I swapped evening TV for reading a book. It wasn’t easy at first (I was deep in a Netflix hole!), but once I noticed the improvements in my sleep and HRV, I knew it was worth the change, even before I felt the difference.
Increasing protein intake – Through tracking my macronutrients as part of my nutrition studies, I discovered I wasn’t getting enough quality protein. Increasing my intake has noticeably improved my energy, brain fog, sleep quality, and HRV.
Building in more breaks and relaxation – Adding regular pauses into my day and practicing breathing or relaxation techniques has helped support nervous system regulation and provided small moments of recovery that have an overall impact on my wellbeing and HRV.
Daily movement – Just 30 minutes of gentle exercise or stretching helps reduce my brain fog and noticeably improves my sleep and HRV.
Exploring anti-inflammatory support – While taking anti-inflammatories can sometimes help my sleep and energy levels, it’s not a long-term solution. I’ve focused on adding more anti-inflammatory foods to my diet and using an anti-inflammatory essential oil protocol weekly. I also use regular red light therapy, sauna which benefits inflammation, pain, energy and nervous system recovery.
Context is really important when interpreting HRV as different activities, situations and stressors will impact HRV and what you get from the data in different ways. When measuring HRV its important to be able to track your activities, stressors and other situations so that you can easily identify what's working or not working and make relevant changes to improve your health and wellbeing. That's where Health Coaching combined with the Firstbeat Life device and app is so powerful, as it enables you to track these things daily and shows all the detail in the final reports provided.
Knowledge is power - see the effect of your daily choices.
About Firstbeat Life
Firstbeat Life is a pioneer in the HRV space with over 20 years experience in the HRV tracking for sports performance and improving wellbeing. They have made significant contributions to scientific research and operate in over 70 countries.
The technology includes a chest device and app available through health professionals like Health Coaches, Exercise Physiologists or Personal Trainers.
The HRV tracking data connects the dots between what’s happening in your body and your daily activities/stress. It shows how you react to the different demands in your life, what your daily (or longer) recovery looks like, how you sleep, your fitness and if your days include enough movement or physical activity to provide you with the positive health effects that are right for you.
It is not easy to identify the factors that cause stress, and these factors vary greatly between individuals and their respective life situations - that’s where HRV tracking and Firstbeat combined with Health Coaching can be so powerful for you. HRV tracking provides
reliable, objective data that enables you to see what works and doesn't work helping you make informed decisions about positive lifestyle changes to improve your health and well-being and reduce your chances of burnout or chronic illness.
If you have a chronic illness, HRV tracking can help you manage your recovery and tweak or finetune activities and recovery strategies to improve your health and wellbeing faster.
Firstbeat is designed to be used for period of 3-5 days at a time and provides a full report with scores on sleep, stress/recovery and exercise/movement.
Remove the guess work
Combine HRV tracking with health coaching to maximise your HRV tracking experience and get the most from making lifestyle changes to improve your health and wellbeing.
I work with people trying to recover or get their life back on track after illness, injury or other life events and those wanting to prevent burnout or improve their energy and wellbeing.
Health Coaching can help you with:
Making lifestyle changes that work for you
Nutrition for health, energy and weight management
Personalized movement and exercise strategies
Holistic stress management
Sleep optimisation
Heart Rate Variability tracking (with Firstbeat Life or other devices) to help you see the effects of daily activities and manage rest and recovery
Get 10% off Health Coaching Packages when you mention this BLOG
References:
WebMD - What is heart rate variability https://www.webmd.com/heart/what-is-heart-rate-variability
Oura - Average HRV https://ouraring.com/blog/average-hrv/
Woop - What is a good HRV https://www.whoop.com/us/en/thelocker/what-is-a-good-hrv/
Sauder KA, Skulas-Ray AC, Campbell TS, Johnson JA, Kris-Etherton PM, West SG. Effects of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation on heart rate variability at rest and during acute stress in adults with moderate hypertriglyceridemia.Psychosom Med. 2013;75(4):382-389. doi:10.1097/PSY.0b013e318290a107 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3681100
Carney RM, Freedland KE, Stein PK, et al. Effect of omega-3 fatty acids on heart rate variability in depressed patients with coronary heart disease. Psychosom Med. 2010;72(8):748-754. doi:10.1097/PSY.0b013e3181eff148 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2950909
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