Heart rate variability (HRV) and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) seem to be on everyone’s lips now, especially those who are proactive about their health and wellness.
HRV and CGM are two powerful tools that help people optimize their health and overall well-being. Optimizing your health means taking proactive approaches to improve and maintain physical, mental, and emotional well-being. It also involves making well-informed choices about your behaviors and lifestyle to maximize your overall health and prevent chronic disease.
Before discovering how HRV and CGM help optimizes your health, first, let’s learn about HRV and CGM.
An Introduction to Heart Rate Variability and Continuous Glucose Monitoring
Unlike our heart rate, which is a metric for the pace at which our heart beats, heart rate variation is something that is relatively less commonly known and understood. HRV is a measure of the varying intervals between two consecutive heartbeats.
For example, if your heart beats at the rate of 62 beats per minute, this doesn’t mean that there is a one-second gap between every beat. Instead, there may be 0.92 seconds between two beats, followed by another 1.15 seconds, and so on. These differences are what we call heart rate variability.
Since our nervous system is responsible for controlling our heart, it’s not surprising that a part nervous system, i.e., the autonomic nervous system, is responsible for your heart rate. The autonomic nervous system itself has two subdivisions: the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for fight and flight response) and the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for rest and digest response. If your bodily system is in a fight-and-flight response, it gives you a lower HRV, while if your bodily system is in a more relaxed state, it gives you a higher HRV.
HRV is a good predictor of heart health and can help you prevent heart issues like heart attacks and other forms of cardiovascular disease. What’s more? It can also give you a picture of your nutrition, mental health, and stress levels.
Continuous glucose monitoring, on the other hand, tracks the level of glucose in your blood in real-time. Not only does it help people with diabetes, but CGM can also help you optimize your overall health by giving you a clear picture of how your body responds to different activities and foods.
HRV and CGM are also connected. For example, early research has shown that people with diabetes tend to have a lower HRV as well as sympathetic and parasympathetic activity.
Together, CGM and HRV can provide you with valuable information to optimize your health and well-being.
How To Use CGM And HRV To Optimize Health?
First things first, heart rate variability measures and continuous blood monitoring allow you to establish a baseline of your normal values. You can establish a baseline of your normal heart rate variability and blood glucose level by wearing devices that track both HRV and CMG data for a week or two.
Once a baseline is established, now you (with the help of your concierge doctor) can make necessary adjustments to your exercise routine, diet, and stress management techniques based on the data.
For instance, if you see that your heart rate variability value is consistently low (which indicates that you are stressed), you may want to incorporate more relaxation techniques like deep breathing and meditation in your routine.
Similarly, if you notice that your blood glucose level spikes after eating a certain food, it’s best to avoid those foods or consume them in smaller quantities.
In a nutshell, using HRV and CGM data, you can make informed decisions about your health and understand what changes are helping you optimize your health and what changes are not working for you.
Optimize Your Health with a Concierge Medicine Doctor in New York City
If want to optimize your overall health and well-being and are looking for a concierge medicine doctor in New York City, look no further.
Dr. Tina Sindwani. is a highly experienced and skilled physician who offers high-quality luxurious concierge medical services that you need to stay at the top of your health and increase longevity. With our concierge medicine doctor, you get the highest quality medical care at your fingertips, on your own time. With our membership, there is no need to worry anymore about restrictions like holidays and after-hours.
Schedule an appointment with Dr. Sindwani by using the online appointment request form. You can also learn about each of our memberships from our membership page.