Stress levels after eating

Yeah, I see this as well.

I am guessing that the heart is working slightly harder to send blood to the GI tract to absorb nutrients, and then to send those around the body to where they are needed.

Thanks that’s good to know! I suffer with breakouts of itchiness and am trying to find the cause, but don’t want to be restricting things if I’m over analysing the data. Would be good to get some guidance on some of these metrics on what’s normal and what isn’t. Although I appreciate everyone’s different. 

I see stress rise after eating and the larger the meal the greater and/or longer the rise. I try to have my evening meal at around 18:00 so that I'm not still dealing with that rise when I go to bed. I don't drink alcohol so I'm in no doubt that food is the "villain". 

I also avoid exercising late on the day for similar reasons. I like to see body battery back to 100% when I wake up, hopefully well before then. 

Fidgetbum said:

Is this this just a normal reaction to processing food or possibly indicating food sensitivities?

It's most likely the processing of food and what and how much was eaten.  Sugars, artificial sweeteners, salts, caffeine, processed carbs and of course alcohol will all affect HRV (stress).  Google 'diet and HRV" or something similar for some good articles and studies.

Definitely. And depending on what you have too.  Heavy fatty foods and your stress and heart rate go up.  Throw in alcohol and your body will be stressed all night.  Even if you sleep and wake up feeling decent,  your watch will reflect the truth of what your body was doing while you slept. 

you most likely have mast cell activation syndrome. Its very common but google low histamine diet and stick to those foods and see if that helps

You diagnosed a rare syndrome based on the fact the users has higher stress values while digesting the food, which is often an intense work for the body?

You even suggested a low histamine diet which is quite dangerous because, as broad as it is, it may lead to severe malnutrition, especially when not following a medical specialist on the field.

This is a forum about sport watches, people. Talk to doctors, do not follow strangers’ advices.

I’m pretty sure I just asked if everyone else’s ‘sport watch’ shows an increase of stress after eating. Because if it wasn’t what everyone else saw then maybe worth exploring further health problems.

Eating activates your sympathetic nervous system. That's normal. Ignore the foolish diagnosis in this thread. If in doubt, go talk to your doc. 

Nobody in any of my doctors' office has any idea what HRV is, suggesting that I should just ignore my gimmicky watch. Presumably the JAMA hasn't blessed HRV as a real 'thing' yet.  My only source of info for what HRV might indicate is 'strangers', but I do prefer physiologist strangers over Garmin forum followers.  It is useful to compare notes with what other Garmin watch users see in their data.  For me, carbs often makes the stress much higher for longer (pancreas?), but I had not paid attention to fat content until I read this thread, and it might be consuming carbs and fats at the same time that does it - research ongoing.