Dr. Andy Galpin

People that are more stable in their HRV are generally better. If you have a score that is doubling every other day, we would immediately start thinking, all right, this person's hyperreactive. Whatever they're doing is causing a huge change in their autonomic nervous system. We need to create more stability here. That's how we become more resilient. That's how we become more predictable.

That's what we're after. If you're so tight, no matter what you do, we're getting the same response every day. Then we know that system is actually quite stable. And no matter what insult hits you that day, work stress, Environmental toxin, who cares? Your body is able to handle it. You're not hitting the wall on the highway. You're moving left and right, right?

That's what we're after. If you're so tight, no matter what you do, we're getting the same response every day. Then we know that system is actually quite stable. And no matter what insult hits you that day, work stress, Environmental toxin, who cares? Your body is able to handle it. You're not hitting the wall on the highway. You're moving left and right, right?

Your car is swerving, but you're not hitting the wall. So those numbers aren't changing. That's where we're bringing back that highway analogy. And that's what we're talking about when we're talking about nervous system stability. So we never make changes based on one day. We never use a cheap consumer wearable to tell us how to live our life.

Your car is swerving, but you're not hitting the wall. So those numbers aren't changing. That's where we're bringing back that highway analogy. And that's what we're talking about when we're talking about nervous system stability. So we never make changes based on one day. We never use a cheap consumer wearable to tell us how to live our life.

To exercise today or to not exercise, to sleep today or to not sleep today, that is, and I think the people behind most of these companies would say the same thing, that's not the best way to use something like an HRV score.

To exercise today or to not exercise, to sleep today or to not sleep today, that is, and I think the people behind most of these companies would say the same thing, that's not the best way to use something like an HRV score.

Interpret your numbers in the appropriate context, but regardless, we should be able to get better and maybe become more resilient in our overall nervous system responses to stress. Back to our highway analogy. What causes people to be more stable versus less stable with their HRV is a bunch of different stuff, genetics. And then it's also the dumb stuff. It is an irregular sleep schedule.

Interpret your numbers in the appropriate context, but regardless, we should be able to get better and maybe become more resilient in our overall nervous system responses to stress. Back to our highway analogy. What causes people to be more stable versus less stable with their HRV is a bunch of different stuff, genetics. And then it's also the dumb stuff. It is an irregular sleep schedule.

Once we get people sleeping just in a consistent time, HRV almost always goes up. In fact, so much so, it is very often the first thing I look at. When somebody asks me about their HRV, or we're going through their overall analysis of all their data, and we see HRV's poor, my eyes go right up to sleep irregularity. If their sleep is irregular, then I honestly don't go much past that.

Once we get people sleeping just in a consistent time, HRV almost always goes up. In fact, so much so, it is very often the first thing I look at. When somebody asks me about their HRV, or we're going through their overall analysis of all their data, and we see HRV's poor, my eyes go right up to sleep irregularity. If their sleep is irregular, then I honestly don't go much past that.

When their sleep irregularity goes up, HRV just goes up. So if you're like, man, I've been doing everything, I've been doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, my HRV doesn't go up, and your sleep's irregular, well, that's stop number one on the train. Other stuff is honestly, sorry to be sound this way, but it's kind of what I call the dumb stuff. It's alcohol.

When their sleep irregularity goes up, HRV just goes up. So if you're like, man, I've been doing everything, I've been doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, my HRV doesn't go up, and your sleep's irregular, well, that's stop number one on the train. Other stuff is honestly, sorry to be sound this way, but it's kind of what I call the dumb stuff. It's alcohol.

It is lots of bad negative health habits. All this stuff will bring it down. So if you remove all those from the equation, it's probably going to go up. Another one I wanted to bring up here. that people don't pay a lot of attention to. Two things have stood out when I was diving back through some of our databases. One was wild changes in exercise within the same week.

It is lots of bad negative health habits. All this stuff will bring it down. So if you remove all those from the equation, it's probably going to go up. Another one I wanted to bring up here. that people don't pay a lot of attention to. Two things have stood out when I was diving back through some of our databases. One was wild changes in exercise within the same week.

So what I mean by that is if you're pretty standard throughout the week, and then you're the type of person who goes bonkers with your exercise on the weekend, We see this huge instability of HRV.

So what I mean by that is if you're pretty standard throughout the week, and then you're the type of person who goes bonkers with your exercise on the weekend, We see this huge instability of HRV.

So whether you do your 10 mile run on the weekend, or you do the multiple classes, or you like to play five hours of pickleball or whatever, and it is drastically different than your week, that will also explain a lot of instability with your HRV and your resting heart rate for that matter. So that one will sneak up on people.

So whether you do your 10 mile run on the weekend, or you do the multiple classes, or you like to play five hours of pickleball or whatever, and it is drastically different than your week, that will also explain a lot of instability with your HRV and your resting heart rate for that matter. So that one will sneak up on people.

The last one I'll bring up is actually nutrition related, feeding frequency of food. Specifically, we have had a number of people come in for sleep-related issues, whether that is really bad sleep or just kind of suboptimal sleep, and they're eating one meal a day. Now, I'm not fundamentally opposed to one meal a day, but in our experience, this has led to really, really compromised HRVs.