Heart Rate & HRV – Aren’t They the Same Thing?

Throughout our lifetime, the heart beats nearly 3 billion times. Both controllable and uncontrollable internal and external factors affect our heart, influencing our heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV).

Heart rate and heart rate variability – surely they measure the same thing, don’t they? The definitions themselves explain why these are actually distinct concepts.

Definition of Heart Rate:

Heart rate refers to the number of heartbeats per minute. Simply put, it measures how many times your heart beats in one minute.

One can check their pulse and count the number of pulse waves felt during 20 seconds. Multiplying this number by 3 provides the total number of heartbeats per minute.

Heart rate essentially measures the pulse from beat to beat.

The calculation works as follows:

A time interval of 1,000 milliseconds between two heartbeats becomes the denominator in a simple fraction, with 60,000 milliseconds (equivalent to 1 minute) as the numerator. This calculation yields the heart rate per minute. In this example, it equals 60 BpM (Beats per Minute), meaning a heart rate of 60 beats per minute.

This gives us a figure indicating what pulse frequency corresponds to the interval between consecutive beats.

Is this good or bad?

Guidelines exist regarding optimal pulse rates – for instance, our resting pulse should be around 60 BpM. However, heart rate per minute can also be considerably higher. Is that beneficial or detrimental? Generally speaking, an elevated pulse indicates stress or exertion. However, this must be evaluated in the context of activities.

A reading of 60 BpM tells us nothing about whether the heartbeat is steady or variable. For that information, we need to examine heart rate variability.

Heart Rate Variability

Heart rate variability (HRV) measures an organism’s overall adaptability and thus serves as a health indicator. HRV is calculated using the precise millisecond intervals between individual heartbeats.

This means HRV analyses the gaps between those 60 beats per minute, revealing whether our heart can effectively adapt to internal and external conditions.

Therefore, higher variability in our heartbeat sequence indicates a healthier, more adaptable organism. In this case, higher values are better.

A higher heart rate suggests the organism is under greater stress. Hence, lower values are preferable here.

This clearly demonstrates:

Heart rate is not equivalent to heart rate variability, and pulse is not the same as HRV.