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stress number and HRV number relationship

How do the stress number and the HRV number relate to understand?  For example in Garmin Connect with a Health Snapshot I recently showed a stress number of 24, but an HRV number of 60.

  • Hello! Here is a short support article explaining what you are seeing. 

  • Regarding your stress levels, the lower the value, the better.

    0-25 is no stress, 25-50 low stress, 50-75 medium stress and 75-100 high stress.

    Regarding HRV, the higher the value, the better.

    It's difficult to find a chart of "what a good HRV value is".

    FitBit has a chart of 0 to 80 ms. I would say lower values mean high stress, whereas high values (aka high heart rate variability) the better.

  • Thank you!  I am wondering how the Garmin coverts the HRV number to the stress number, if they could give a specific answer on that.

  • Maybe because stress number is easier to figure out.

  • It depends on another, stress is measured from HRV too. Body Battery too. But HRV is one value, BB and stress includes more imo. 

    Normally if you wanna check fast how fit you are at that very moment, do a health snapshot and look at HRV, the higher the better. But in general that doesn't tell the whole story. Because a healthy strong heart doesn't always have high HRV, that would as I have read, indicate something is wrong too or at least not fit and healthy. When you always have low HRV, that means your heart isn't very strong, but also doesn't mean you are ill. It's just not adapted to stress that good, so no high and low values. In fact a healthy strong heart should have both values, high, the higher the stronger of course, but also low values. This means your heart / ANS adapts to stress very well, meaning when stressed it has lower HRV, when fit it has high HRV. A friends of mine, quite fit but doing no sport or anything, eating average at best, always has very low values on her Apple Watch, around 10-30. That doesn't mean she is ill but she is not adapted to stress and she isn't really fit either. I am no doctors but have read quite a few articles because to me the HRV reading from Apple Watch didn't tell me anything. 

    F.e. the last days, staying at home, sleeping quite ok, I always had HRV of around 100+- ... I checked today in the morning after an easy relaxed morning routine. But I had a long day and night yesterday, eating much and *** and late, not sleeping good. Sleeping score was 20, Body Battery 30, stress level higher than normal, and I feel a little tired. Now my HRV is the lowest I have measured these weeks on the V2s, 38ms. So again, the higher the better, but it is normal and healthy to have low HRV too, only low number and only high numbers, even when not feeling or being sick, is not normal. Still, that also doesn't mean you have some kind of illness... 

  • Thank you Zange, this is a very helpful answer.  I have been starting to read more about the HRV from various references online.  It looks like it is a lot more complicated that I first thought!  I appreciate your taking the time to write about this.

  • I have been wondering about this as well.

    I almost always have low HRV, generally 20-60, lingering most often between 25-35.

    I am not particularly fit, but trying, not overweight, but have an autoimmune disorder and another genetic health condition which make things difficult for me. But my stress levels are also almost always low, around 25 avg, 5-13 at rest, with occasional peaks (besides those obvious during workouts). 

    So how can my stress AND HRV be low if they are so dependent on each other? I don’t get it. I love the concept of all these different metrics on the watch and I am always trying to get a good picture of my health besides just how I feel since as I said, my health conditions make me feel pretty crappy just about all the time. But it stinks when you feel like you probably can’t trust the numbers, good or bad. I would really like to know how fit/unfit I actually am and what changes would actually be beneficial.