Heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) data cannot unequivocally be translated into your recovery, stress, physical or mental strain, or anything else, really.
What is your opinion about Garmin's Body Battery and Coros Wellness Check? It is a reflection of all-day HRV? There is a reason to wear the Garmin device consistently?
thank you Chris. For the Wellness check, that is fine as you are in control of the measurement, and you can use it e.g. for a morning check of your resting physiology. You could also enter your data in HRV4Training using Manual Input, as part of the morning questionnaire (https://marcoaltini.substack.com/i/140250699/manual-input). For ‘body batter’ and other (mis)uses of HRV data, I think it is not worth our time, for a number of reasons that I tried to cover here: https://marcoaltini.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-on-continuous-heart - check out the article as it might provide some useful pointers. I don’t see any reason to wear watches or other devices outside of training or for a morning / night measurement, for the reasons covered in the article.
I sometimes feel like they do more harm than good as well, but enough people in my surroundings do say to have increased their sleep quality since "measuring" it. Perhaps it's more the act of starting to measure it rather than the sleep scores themselves that is helpful.
thanks Erik, and for sure, I have no doubt some people can have benefits, probably for the reasons you mention (we are also very good at convincing ourselves of pretty much anything, especially when we have invested in it). I question the whole idea that we need to somewhat 'trick them' with inaccurate / made-up scores that cannot possibly reflect more complex aspects of recovery / sleep, as opposed to simply showing the data (e.g. resting physiology as one aspect of recovery) or focusing on the basics (e.g. a simple checklist of good sleep habits, like consistent bedtime, limited screentime / alcohol, etc. - might better reflect behavior / a good sleep routine, and provide the same benefits, without the downslides). I fear the rhetoric that technology knows better and automation is always the solution, eventually can lead to lack of awareness and excessive reliance on these tools (which, in fact, do not know better), as opposed to increased self-awareness (which is how I would see the technology being useful, next to our subjective feel). Just some thoughts
What is your opinion about Garmin's Body Battery and Coros Wellness Check? It is a reflection of all-day HRV? There is a reason to wear the Garmin device consistently?
Thank you!
Chris Papadopoulos
thank you Chris. For the Wellness check, that is fine as you are in control of the measurement, and you can use it e.g. for a morning check of your resting physiology. You could also enter your data in HRV4Training using Manual Input, as part of the morning questionnaire (https://marcoaltini.substack.com/i/140250699/manual-input). For ‘body batter’ and other (mis)uses of HRV data, I think it is not worth our time, for a number of reasons that I tried to cover here: https://marcoaltini.substack.com/p/a-quick-note-on-continuous-heart - check out the article as it might provide some useful pointers. I don’t see any reason to wear watches or other devices outside of training or for a morning / night measurement, for the reasons covered in the article.
Your newsletters are a wonderful gift to science!
too kind Lenny!
Insightful piece, what is your take on wearables such as Fitbit, e.g. giving a "sleep score"?
thank you Erik, I'm afraid sleep scores have been the cause of more issues than anything else, see orthosomnia (https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.6472) and other dysfunctional behaviors: https://marcoaltini.substack.com/p/developing-healthier-relationships - the nature of the scores is also very simplistic, just like readiness / recovery scores (https://marcoaltini.substack.com/p/physiology-heart-rate-hrv-or-readinessrecovery). Sleep is of course important, but I don't see made up scores as the solution to better sleep (let alone the lack of accuracy of these devices even in detecting things like when you fall asleep).
I sometimes feel like they do more harm than good as well, but enough people in my surroundings do say to have increased their sleep quality since "measuring" it. Perhaps it's more the act of starting to measure it rather than the sleep scores themselves that is helpful.
thanks Erik, and for sure, I have no doubt some people can have benefits, probably for the reasons you mention (we are also very good at convincing ourselves of pretty much anything, especially when we have invested in it). I question the whole idea that we need to somewhat 'trick them' with inaccurate / made-up scores that cannot possibly reflect more complex aspects of recovery / sleep, as opposed to simply showing the data (e.g. resting physiology as one aspect of recovery) or focusing on the basics (e.g. a simple checklist of good sleep habits, like consistent bedtime, limited screentime / alcohol, etc. - might better reflect behavior / a good sleep routine, and provide the same benefits, without the downslides). I fear the rhetoric that technology knows better and automation is always the solution, eventually can lead to lack of awareness and excessive reliance on these tools (which, in fact, do not know better), as opposed to increased self-awareness (which is how I would see the technology being useful, next to our subjective feel). Just some thoughts