Smartwatch scores at home: heart rate variability in context

When partners compare overnight recovery scores, a single number can start surprising debates. Heart rate variability is a clue that needs its story.

The breakfast-table scoreboard

In some households the first conversation of the day is a comparison of watch data. One partner slept badly but scored well; the other had a restful night and woke to a disappointing number. Heart rate variability can feel like an objective verdict on how recovered you are, yet it shifts with sleep, exercise, alcohol, how and when it was measured, and plenty of other influences. Any single reading only makes sense alongside the conditions under which it was taken.

Graphs and all, the visitors Dr Christine Shen, Acupuncturist, sees in Lane Cove who bring tracking data with them, and she is happy to look at it as one source of information among several.

What a number cannot prove

A movement on a wearable is not evidence that acupuncture or anything else has repaired the vagus nerve. If you share your figures with Christine, add the human details: how you felt, whether you had a late night with a newborn, what was happening at work, whether you were unwell. A conversation about symptoms and how your days are going, set beside a broad trend, reveals much more than chasing one perfect score.

• When was the reading taken, and under what conditions?
• How did you actually feel that day?
• What else changed in that week?

Defining a goal that is not a number

Try to describe the change you want in words rather than digits. Feeling less wound up at school pickup, understanding a pattern of restless nights, or learning when another kind of check-up is worthwhile are all practical aims. Christine can explain how she would watch for response over time, and what would prompt a different approach.

Calling a truce on the scoreboard

Partners who stop competing over recovery scores often find they talk more about how they actually feel, which tends to be the more revealing conversation anyway. If you would like help making sense of your own data within a wider picture of your health, Christine welcomes the discussion at the Lane Cove clinic.