Published in partnership with ŌURA to celebrate the launch of the ŌURA X Equinox The Rest and Recovery Kit, available now.
Heart rate recovery, or HRR, measures how quickly your heart rate returns to a normal rate after a bout of peak effort exercise. It’s used as a measure of fitness, to track how athletes are improving, and is also associated with risks of serious disease and even mortality.
Your HRR gives you valuable information about the function of your autonomic nervous system, which controls vital functions like breathing, says Mike Nelson, Ph.D., C.S.C.S., an associate professor at the Carrick Institute. To understand why HRR is important for this, he says, think of your autonomic nervous system like a race car.
The sympathetic (fight-or-flight) side of your nervous system is like the gas pedal — the harder you push it, the faster it goes. The parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) side is like the brakes. The harder you push on the brakes, the faster the car slows down, Nelson says. Your HRR measures how well your brakes are working. And that’s important: “If you’re all gas, no brakes all the time, odds are you’re eventually going to blow your engine.”
Your Oura Ring helps you keep track of what’s happening with your heart rate in several ways. For instance, by measuring your heart rate throughout the night, Oura establishes your Resting Heart Rate (RHR) — this can help you figure out when your heart rate has returned to normal. You’ll find your RHR in the Sleep and Readiness tabs of the Oura App.
Additionally, the Gen3 Oura Ring measures your heart rate throughout the day, and you can see the results in the 24-hour Heart Rate Graph. You can even use the Live Heart Rate feature to measure your heart rate during or after physical activity.
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