What Do My HRV Measurement Results Mean?

Have you completed your first 24-hour HRV measurement and are wondering what to do with your results?

A 24-hour HRV measurement comprises approximately 100,000 numbers in sequence. Their informational value is unlocked through calculations, visualisations, and understanding of the recognisable patterns within. The intuitively perceptible fire-like display creates an emotional connection and fosters readiness for change. But where can you find all the relevant information in your measurement?

Your first step should be to access your measurement in the analysis portal at https://portal.lebensfeuer.com/. There, you’ll find all essential explanations and recommendations.

The more intense and dense the colours (blue, red, yellow, etc.) and the higher the ‘flames’ burn in the spectrogram, the more vital, youthful, and well-trained you are!

If the diagram shows only small flames and little colour contrast, the image suggests reduced vitality, minimal parasympathetic activity (regeneration, economy), exhaustion, or even illness.

The Lifefire Image Analysis

In our blog post “My Lifefire – Painted by the Heart”, we explain the HRV spectrogram.

To analyse your image, you can focus on the following points:

1. Intensity, Density, Height: How do these three characteristics present themselves? What’s the intensity, density, and vibrancy of your life-fire? Does it burn strongly, or are there noticeable dips that might indicate stress?

2. Day/Night Rhythm: Is there a clear reduction in heart rate during night-time? Or does the heart rate remain relatively constant compared to daytime levels?

3. RSA: Is there evidence of RSA during the night? How pronounced is it during sleep?

4. Frequency Ranges (Learn more about the different frequency ranges in our blog post on HRV Fundamentals):

4.1 VLF: Higher values indicate greater muscular resources
4.2 LF: Emotional and mental activation in the 0.1Hz range, showing concentration, focus, sympathetic activation, performance readiness, and sometimes tension
4.3 HF: Parasympathetic component, shaped by breathing patterns.

5. Recovery: Are breaks being taken? Are these breaks restorative, allowing for relaxation? In both scenarios, heart rate should decrease, with relaxation showing reduced sympathetic activity and recovery displaying visible RSA.

Fig.: The Lifefire Image Analysis (Source: Autonom Health, 2022)

Heart Rate Variability – Every Heartbeat Matters

Our My Autonom Health software provides extensive information across various sections. You can find relevant details about your measurement in the following areas:

Activity Bar (1):

The activity bar displays all your logged activities. Clicking on an activity reveals its duration and rating on a scale from 1 (poor) to 10 (excellent). The colour coding also provides insights: green indicates excellent, red indicates poor.

Fig.: Activity and Performance bars in a 24h HRV measurement (Source: Autonom Health, 2022)

Performance Bar (2):

The performance bar also provides 5-minute-precise insights into how you’re performing during specific activities and across the full 24 hours. You can hover your mouse over this colorful bar between activities and the HRV spectrogram to receive information about whether you were tired, tense, moderate, good, very good, or even in a flow state.

5 Health Factors:

Health Status, Biological Age, Performance Potential, Stress Processing, Burnout Resistance – detailed explanations and results inform you about your health standing, including comparisons with other men/women in your age group.

5 Lifestyle Factors:

Sleep, Recovery, Physical Performance, Mental Performance, Nutritional Behaviour – comprehensive explanations and results inform you about your health status, including comparisons with other men/women in your age group. If an activity like “Recovery” isn’t logged, no result will be provided for that category.

Performance

This section provides detailed insights into your performance during each activity. You can determine what percentage of time you spent in different states. For example, in this case, 8 hours of sleep were recorded, with 75% being very good quality, 2% good quality, and 19% showing potential snoring indicators.

Recommendation

Recommendations are always based on the results. You’ll find various exercises and information about which HRV analysis values can be improved through these suggestions.