Talked to a 68 year old who tracks his HRV daily

My neighbor Bob was telling me how he caught a mild infection 2 days before any symptoms showed up just by watching his HRV numbers drop. He uses a Polar H10 and the EliteHRV app, nothing fancy. Has anyone else found early warning signs in their biometrics before feeling sick?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles_coleman11d ago

So did Bob mention how many days of consistent data he had before he noticed that drop-off pattern? Because I'd imagine you need a pretty solid baseline to tell the difference between a bad night's sleep and your body actually fighting something off. I've been tracking my own HRV with a cheap chest strap for about eight months now and I still second-guess myself when it dips. Some mornings it's low 'cause I had a couple beers or I didn't sleep well, and that's a totally different thing than when I'm actually coming down with something. I'm curious if your neighbor found a way to tell the difference between those two things or if he just waits and sees what happens.

abbyp6110d ago

Actually that's not quite right for Bob's setup, @charles_coleman. He had way more than three months before he could really trust the data, more like six or seven months. The thing is he didn't just track HRV, he tracked his resting heart rate and sleep quality together, and overlaid them on the same graph. That's how he started seeing patterns like "beer dips" always have a normal heart rate alongside them but illness dips have a higher resting rate. And honestly he still second-guesses himself too, you're not alone there. He told me once that even with all that data he has probably a 70-30 split on "yep I'm getting sick" vs "nope just a bad night." The waiting and seeing approach is pretty much unavoidable unless you want to live your life by a spreadsheet. I think the real value is just catching things a day earlier, not avoiding all the guesswork.

charles72010d ago

Yeah @charles_coleman I used to think you could just eyeball it after a couple weeks of data, but Bob's setup definitely changed my mind on that lol. He showed me his spreadsheet once and he had like three months of solid readings before he could confidently say "okay this dip is different from the beer dip." I still just wait and see most of the time though, feels like the only way to be sure.