When it comes to your health, with my Garmin CIQ HeartMonitor+HRV it is easy to measure and track all kinds of information. Have you ever wondered what the health impact of a stressful day was? Will you perform well during your long run tomorrow morning? Is there anything you can do today that would improve your ability to have a better day moving forward? Are you about to get sick (including COVID-19)? HRV is the piece of data that could help you answer these questions.
What is HRV?
HRV is simply a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat. This variation is controlled by the nervous system called the autonomic nervous system. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is always working and regulates, our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion. The ANS is subdivided into two components, the sympathetic (fight-or-flight mechanism) and the para-sympathetic (relaxation response) nervous systems.[1]
Our brain is always processing information in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus, through the ANS, sends signals to the rest of the body either to stimulate or to relax different functions. It responds not only to a poor night of sleep, or that tough day, but also to the exciting news that you got engaged, or to that delicious healthy meal you had for lunch. If we have persistent stresses as illness, poor sleep, unhealthy diet, dysfunctional relationships, isolation or solitude, and lack of exercise, this balance is disrupted, and your fight-or-flight response can shift into overdrive.[1]
Why check Heart Rate Variability?
HRV is noninvasive way to identify the ANS imbalances. If your nervous system is in a fight-or-flight mode, the variation between subsequent heartbeats is low. If your nervous system a more relaxed state, the variation between beats is high. In other words, the healthier the ANS the faster you are able to switch gears, showing more resilience and flexibility.[1]
People who have a high HRV may have greater cardiovascular fitness and be more resilient to stress. HRV may also provide personal feedback about your lifestyle and help motivate those who are considering taking steps toward a healthier life. It is fascinating to see how HRV changes as you incorporate more https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/mindfulness-can-improve-heart-health, meditation, sleep, and especially physical activity into your life.[1]
For those who love data and numbers, this can be a nice way to track how your nervous system is reacting not only to the environment, but also to your emotions, thoughts, and feelings.[1]
How can Heart Rate Variability detect illness?
HRV is good for detecting illness (Colds, Viruses including Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)) because it is sensitive to how stressed the body is at that moment. HRV directly taps into the balance between the stress (fight or flight) sympathetic and the parasympathetic (rest or digest) branches of the nervous system.[2]
Lower HRV indicates that the body is more stressed. Although you might expect that different kinds of stress e.g. physical, mental, nutritional, affect your body differently, in fact at the base level they affect the nervous system in very similar ways. So, if you are mentally or emotionally stressed and you eat poorly (e.g. seeking comfort foods) your ability to handle training stress is much reduced. [2] There is an entire series here on managing https://www.trainingpeaks.com/coach-blog/the-whole-picture-an-introduction-to-total-load/.
Detecting the start of illness
The example below shows a typical HRV chart for a recreational athlete with a low resting heart rate between 50-60bpm (red dashed line), and a high level of HRV ~100 (blue baseline). The colored dots are the daily HRV indications i.e. Green = go, Orange = caution, Red = stop. [2]
Using HeartMonitor+HRV, monitor ‘Average HRV score’ and ‘HRV +/-‘ values. Sudden changes in these two values is an indication of stress to your ANS. This stress could be due to hard workout, Daily Stress, Diet, On-coming sickness/illness
Creating a simple table to record your daily HRV and HRV +/- to monitor your health issue all you need to do.
I have been getting a lot of questions pertaining to the zero distance in the main bubble and activity sticker in Connect Mobile App saved activity.
The Distance is zero (or incorrect) on the Connect Activity Sticker and on the Activity main bubble, due to Garmin Policy does not allow CIQ applications to write NON-GPS values. However, these policies only applies to CIQ applications not the native Garmin apps.
I cannot change the decisions of the Garmin Executives, however if there is enough complaints they may change there policy.
I encourage you to politely complain to “Garmin” (in the Garmin threads below) to follow and use the IQ SDK Fit Contributor class ‘nativeNum’, which overrides the data in the FIT file as the Garmin Built-in apps do.
I want this functionality as a Garmin User as much as you do.
Garmin blocks the distance in the following applications: Elliptical, Dance, StairStepper, SwimSports, work, any step based distance or non-GPS distance.
Here is a 30 minute elliptical workout distance is zero in the main field, but the distance is shown in the IQ section.
Yes, the Garmin’s first, second and third generation optical heart sensor hardware produces results with lower values than the Chest HRM.
Why is Optical Heart Rate generally lower:
1.) Wrist movement
2.) loose watch fit
3.) poor sensor contact
4.) hair, sweat or dirt will affect the values too
5.) Garmin Software filtering
Why are the high heart rate (Peaks) and low heart rate (valleys) missing:
Garmin Software imposes additional filters (Fast Fourier Transforms, FFT) in Activity types Strength Training, Tennis, Soccer and flexibility, due to high wrist movement in these activities. These FFT filters (advanced math) reduce the recorded peaks and valleys of a heart rate and calories calculations. Calories are based on heart rate, age, weight, gender and time.
There are a few solutions to improve the optical heart rate values:
1.) Wear the watch tighter. Poor sensor contact will result in lower HR values.
2.) Reduce wrist hair under sensor.
3.) Reduce wrist movement when possible, high movement reduces sensor contact.
4.) Chest HRM Gives best results.
Garmin Video explaining the difference between Optical and Chest Heart Rate monitors.
Thank you for considering my apps!
