How To Improve Your Heart Rate Variability

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⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• If you love strong coffee but don’t love caffeine, scroll back up to today’s “Loading Screen Tip” for a hot recommendation!

• Heart rate variability is an underrated measure of good health

  • This refers to how quickly your heart rate can “change gears”, when switching between heart rate zones (resting to peak heart rate and back to resting)

  • A higher heart rate variability is better than a lower one

  • While doing plenty of cardio helps, certain small lifestyle changes actually help a lot more!

    • (See today’s main feature for more details)

• Obé Fitness can really help with the cardiovascular fitness and body mobility side of things!

  • (Check out today’s sponsor section for details)

Read on to learn about these things and more…

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

How Bo Talley Williams (77 years old) Completely Changed Her Body

As we witness Bo's incredible transformation, it's inspiring to see her motivation to achieve longevity and health in her golden years. She emphasizes the importance of self-care through proper nutrition and exercise and encourages us to adopt healthy health habits:

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🫀 MAIN FEATURE

How’s your heart rate variability?

The hallmarks of a good, strong cardiovascular system include a medium-to-low resting heart rate (for adults: under 60 beats per minute is good; under 50 is typical of athletes), and healthy blood pressure (for adults: under 120/80, while still above 90/60, is generally considered good).

Less talked-about is heart rate variability, but it’s important too…

What is heart rate variability?

Heart rate variability is a measure of how quickly and easily your heart responds to changes in demands placed upon it. For example:

• If you’re at rest and then start running your fastest (be it for leisure or survival or anything in between), your heart rate should be able to jump from its resting rate to about 180% of that as quickly as possible

• When you stop, your heart rate should be able to shift gears back to your resting rate as quickly as possible

The same goes, to a commensurately lesser extent, to changes in activity between low and moderate, or between moderate and high.

• When your heart can change gears quickly, that’s called a high heart rate variability

• When your heart is sluggish to get going and then takes a while to return to normal after exertion, that’s called a low heart rate variability.

The rate of change (i.e., the variability) is measured in microseconds per beat, and the actual numbers will vary depending on a lot of factors, but for everyone, higher is better than lower.

Aside from quick response to crises, why does it matter?

If heart rate variability is low, it means the sympathetic nervous system is dominating the parasympathetic nervous system, which means, in lay terms, your fight-or-flight response is overriding your ability to relax.

See for example: Stress and Heart Rate Variability: A Meta-Analysis and Review of the Literature

This has a lot of knock-on effects for both physical and mental health! Your heart and brain will take the worst of this damage, so it’s good to improve things for them impossible.

This Saturday’s Life Hacks: how to improve your HRV!

Firstly, the Usual Five Things™:

1. A good diet (that avoids processed foods)

2. Good exercise (that includes daily physical activity—more often is more important than more intense!)

3. Good sleep (7–9 hours of good quality sleep per night)

4. Reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption (this is dose-dependent; any reduction is an improvement)

5. Don’t smoke (just don’t)

Additional regular habits that help a lot:

• Breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation

• Therapy, especially CBT and DBT

• Stress-avoidance strategies, for example:

  • Get (and maintain) your finances in good order

  • Get (and maintain) your relationship(s) in good order

  • Get (and maintain) your working* life in good order

*Whatever this means to you. If you’re perhaps retired, or otherwise a home-maker, or even a student, the things you “need to do” on a daily basis are your working life, for these purposes.

In terms of simple, quick-fix, physical tweaks to focus on if you’re already broadly leading a good life, two great ones are:

• Exercise: get moving! Walk to the store even if you buy nothing but a snack or drink to enjoy while walking back. If you drove, make more trips with the shopping bags rather than fewer. If you like to watch TV, consider an exercise bike or treadmill to use while watching. If you have a partner, double-up and make it a thing you do together! Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Take the scenic route when walking someplace. Go to the bathroom that’s further away. Every little helps!

• Breathe: even just a couple of times a day, practice mindful breathing. Start with even just a minute a day, to get the habit going. What breathing exercise you do isn’t so important as that you do it. Notice your breathing; count how long each breath takes. Don’t worry about “doing it right”—you’re doing great, just observe, just notice, just slowly count. We promise that regular practice of this will have you feeling amazing 😎

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

Obé Fitness: Rewriting the Rules of Fitness!

The human body is built for movement, and as they say, "movement changes everything". We certainly agree.

Do you wish you could have the accountability of a fitness class, but not have to actually leave your house and go to it? We know the feeling, if so!

Obé Fitness is an online fitness platform, offering live and on-demand fitness classes, including:

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🌏 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

• Why the causes of poor mental health may share a common root

• Switching to a Mediterranean-style diet may be equal to taking 4,000 more steps each day

• New Alzheimer's drug shows 35% reduction in cognitive decline in late-stage trial

• Women with hardened arteries need stronger treatment than men to prevent heart attacks

• Diet and dementia: study uncovers gut-brain link to Alzheimer's

• Peloton recalls over 2 million bikes after more than a dozen injuries reported

• Does expired sunscreen still work?

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Move: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind Free - by Caroline Williams

• Get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, says the American Heart Association

• There are over 10,000 minutes per week, says the pocket calculator

Is 150/10,000 really the goal here? Really?

For Caroline Williams, the answer is no.

In this book that's practically a manifesto, she outlines the case that:

• Humans evolved to move

• Industrialization and capitalism scuppered that

• We now spend far too long each day without movement

Furthermore, for Williams this isn't just an anthropological observation, it's a problem to be solved, because:

• Our lack of movement is crippling us—literally

• Our stagnation affects not just our bodies, but also our minds

  • (again literally—there's a direct correlation with mental health)

• We urgently need to fix this

So, what now, do we need to move in to the gym and become full-time athletes to clock up enough hours of movement? No.

Williams convincingly argues the case (using data from supercentenarian "blue zones" around the world) that even non-exertive movement is sufficient. In other words, you don't have to be running; walking is great. You don't have to be lifting weights; doing the housework or gardening will suffice.

From that foundational axiom, she calls on us to find ways to build our life around movement... rather than production-efficiency and/or convenience. She gives plenty of tips for such too!

Bottom line: some books are "I couldn't put it down!" books. This one's more of a "I got the urge to get up and get moving!" book.

Get your get-up-and-go up and going with "Move"—order yours from Amazon today!

May you be ever moving in the best possible direction,

The 10almonds Team