Heart Rate Variability

A measure of your equilibrium and capacity to respond to stress

Like any organism on earth, your equilibrium is constantly challenged by your environmental and daily life stressors. Your autonomic nervous system (ANS) strives to maintain your equilibrium (“homeostasis”) by coordinating and directing your organ systems. Heart rate variability (HRV) measures how well your ANS is performing, and how much capacity you have to tolerate stress from virtually any source.

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Certification Program

If you’re interested in learning more about the science and application of HRV, we offer an accredited self-paced online workshop called The Foundations of Heart Rate Variability.

Clinical Research

HRV-guided interventions have been shown to improve health, wellbeing and fitness:

26%

Anxiety

Reduces Anxiety

Featured Study: John A. Chalmers et al. 2014

X%

Blood Pressure

Reduces Blood Pressure

Featured Study: John Smith et al. 2019

14%

LDL Cholesterol

Reduces Cholesterol

Featured Study: Rollin McCraty et al. 2009

13%

Fatigue

Reduces Fatigue

Featured Study: Rollin McCraty et al. 2009

60%

Fewer Injuries

Featured Study: Antti M Kiviniemi et al. 2010

40%

Improved Fitness

Featured Study: Sean Williams et al. 2017

26%

Less Time Exercising

Featured Study: Ville Vesterinen et al. 2016

HRV tracks closely with important physiological changes:

Sleep quality
Psychological wellbeing
Longevity
Inflammation
Pain
Chronic disease progression

Primary Research

Heart rate variability (HRV) research is exploding, with over 1K papers published each year using HRV to explore human physiology, performance and chronic disease.

A great starting point for exploring the research around HRV is looking at a meta-analysis of HRV and its relationship with stress.

HRV & Stress

Meta-analysis of Stress and
Heart Rate Variability

Featured Study: Hye-Geum Kim et al. 2018

HRV and Fitness

HRV is a popular tool to measure recovery after exercise and improve athletic performance. Here is a sampling of that research:

Benefits of HRV Tracking

HRV and Health

Chronic activation of our survival mechanism impairs health

Low HRV has been positively correlated with 9 out of 10 leading causes of death.

Low HRV is associated with a 32-45% increased risk for a first cardiovascular event.

HRV Predicts All Cause Mortality and Morbidity

Evidence indicates that changes in HRV and chronic autonomic disregulation may be the final common pathway for a host of conditions and diseases including cardiovascular disease and mortality.

— Dan Quintana, PhD

Examples of Research

Longevity and healthspan

Cardiovascular disease

Diabetes, pre-diabetes and obesity

Cancer risk and progression

Immune Function

Autoimmunity progression

HRV and other biomarkers of inflammation

Psychosocial health and addiction

Sleep

Elite HRV is Accurate

Elite HRV has actively worked with over 117 research institutions and organizations (as of Oct ’20), supporting their use of HRV as an important project endpoint. Many of these publications have validated Elite HRV software and hardware as part of their project protocols. A few notables of publications who contacted us and validated our products include: