This episode is about a health metric you may not have heard of before: heart rate variability, or HRV. This refers to the small changes in the length of time between each of your heart beats.

Scientists have known about and studied HRV for a long time. In recent years, though, new monitors have come to market that can measure HRV accurately whenever you want.

Five months ago, I got interested in HRV as a more scientific approach to finding the lifestyle changes that work best for me as an individual. It's at the convergence of some important trends in health right now, such as health tech, precision health and the holistic approach in systems biology, which recognizes how interactions among different parts of the body are key to health.

But HRV is just one of many numbers worth paying attention to. For this episode of Making Sense of Science, I spoke with psychologist Dr. Leah Lagos; Dr. Jessilyn Dunn, assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Duke; and Jason Moore, the CEO of Spren and an app called Elite HRV. We talked about what HRV is, research on its benefits, how to measure it, whether it can be used to make improvements in health, and what researchers still need to learn about HRV.

*Talk to your doctor before trying anything discussed in this episode related to HRV and lifestyle changes to raise it.

Show notes

Spren - https://www.spren.com/
Elite HRV - https://elitehrv.com/
Jason Moore Twitter - https://twitter.com/jasonmooreme?lang=en
Dr. Jessilyn Dunn on Twitter - https://twitter.com/drjessilyn?lang=en
Dr. Dunn's study on HRV, flu and common cold - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2784555
Dr. Leah Lagos - https://drleahlagos.com/
Dr. Lagos on Star Talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC2Q10SonV8
Research on HRV and intermittent fasting - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33859841/
Research on HRV and Mediterranean diet - https://medicalxpress.com/news/2010-06-twin-mediterranean-style-diet-heart-function.html#:~:text=Using%20data%20from%20the%20Emory,eating%20a%20Western%2Dtype%20diet
Devices for HRV biofeedback - https://elitehrv.com/heart-variability-monitors-and-elite-hrv-compatible-monitors
Benefits of HRV biofeedback - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32385728/
HRV and cognitive performance - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.691988/full
HRV and emotional regulation - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36030986/
Fortune article on HRV - https://fortune.com/well/2022/12/26/heart-rate-variability-improving-your-bodys-response-to-stress/

Making Sense of Science features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments in health innovation and the big ethical and social questions they raise. The podcast is hosted by science journalist Matt Fuchs