Uploaded April 2019 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Stress is something we all experience all too frequently. The effects of different stressors accumulate, and when the resultant load is excessive, we are at increased risk of a range of diseases. So, to avoid the amount of stress we experience exceeding our bodies’ capacities to cope, it would be useful to have a way to monitor how we’re responding to stressors.
In the last few years, numerous wearable devices that claim to monitor how we’re responding to stress have become available, and most of these measure either heart rate variability (HRV) or pulse rate variability. In this episode of humanOS Radio, Professor Phyllis Stein explains what you need to know about HRV, including what it is, why people measure it, and whether you should measure your own HRV.
Stress is something we all experience all too frequently. The effects of different stressors accumulate, and when the resultant load is excessive, we are at increased risk of a range of diseases. So, to avoid the amount of stress we experience exceeding our bodies’ capacities to cope, it would be useful to have a way to monitor how we’re responding to stressors.
In the last few years, numerous wearable devices that claim to monitor how we’re responding to stress have become available, and most of these measure either heart rate variability (HRV) or pulse rate variability. In this episode of humanOS Radio, Professor Phyllis Stein explains what you need to know about HRV, including what it is, why people measure it, and whether you should measure your own HRV.
