Heart Rate & Resting Heart Rate
Alongside HRV (the "fluctuation" of the heartbeat), another basic metric is heart rate (HR). The two look at different things. This page explains, with sources.
Heart rate and HRV are different
- Heart rate (HR) … how many times the heart beats per minute — the "speed" of the moment
- HRV … how much the interval between beats fluctuates — the "way it fluctuates"
Two hearts can both read 60 bpm: one ticking regularly, the other stretching and contracting with the breath. HR is speed; HRV is suppleness — two complementary windows.
Figure: heart rate usually falls during sleep and rises during the day. The dotted line is an illustration of a person's resting heart rate (RHR). The figure is illustrative, not actual measurements.
Resting heart rate (RHR)
Resting heart rate (RHR) is the beats per minute at rest. In general, a better-trained heart tends to be lower.
- A meta-analysis of large cohort studies reported that a higher resting heart rate is associated with increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality (Zhang et al., 2016)
- Daily RHR measured by wearables shows large individual differences and varies with age, sex, sleep, BMI, and season (Quer et al., 2020)
So, "your own baseline"
Both RHR and HRV vary widely between people in absolute terms. What is meaningful is not comparison with others, but change from your usual self.
A higher morning than usual
A morning when RHR is higher than usual can be a sign of sleep debt, fatigue, a shift in condition, or alcohol. Don't judge by one day — watch the trend over several (Quer et al., 2020).
But note
These are population-level associations, and Feelmo does not diagnose illness. If a change you're concerned about persists, please consult a medical professional.
How Feelmo handles it
Feelmo treats both HR and HRV as background to the Regulation Score. How metrics are integrated is the core of Lumo Core and is not disclosed, as a trade secret. Related: Understanding HRV · Age, Sex & Individual Differences.
References
- Zhang D, Shen X, Qi X. Resting heart rate and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the general population: a meta-analysis. CMAJ. 2016;188(3):E53–E63.
- Quer G, Gouda P, Galarnyk M, Topol EJ, Steinhubl SR. Inter- and intraindividual variability in daily resting heart rate and its associations with age, sex, sleep, BMI, and time of year: Retrospective, longitudinal cohort study of 92,457 adults. PLoS One. 2020;15(2):e0227709.
- Umetani K, Singer DH, McCraty R, Atkinson M. Twenty-four hour time domain heart rate variability and heart rate: relations to age and gender over nine decades. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 1998;31(3):593–601.
About these references
The works above provide general scientific background on heart rate and HRV; they do not prove the effect of the Feelmo app itself. Nothing on this page is a basis for medical decisions.