What is Heart Rate Variability (HRV)?

Chiropractic and Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

We are so excited to have our new scans in practice – these help us to more accurately know how well your spine and nervous system is functioning. One of these scans is measuring heart rate variability. But what is this?

Heart rate variability is the ability of our nervous system to increase and decrease our heart rate based on demand of our environment. For example when you are going for a run you need to increase quickly to pump more blood and oxygen to our muscles as they work harder. And on the flip side when we are relaxing or trying to go to sleep we want our heart to be slower and steady.

When our bodies are function at our best we should be able to quickly adapt to environment and increases these levels as needed. When there are areas of the spine that aren’t working as well as they could the brain is not receiving accurate information about our environment and can mean that functions such as heart rate variability aren’t able to be accurately controlled and changed as needed.

Studies have found that chiropractic adjustments can help to improve HRV. This allows our bodies to be more adaptable to different stressors in our environment and allow us to function at our best.

Dr Emily Neil (B.Chiro)

Haavik, H., & Murphy, B. (2012). The role of spinal manipulation in addressing disordered sensorimotor integration and altered motor control. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 22(5), 768-776.

Acharya, U. R., Joseph, K. P., Kannathal, N., Lim, C. M., & Suri, J. S. (2006). Heart rate variability: a review. Medical and biological engineering and computing, 44(12), 1031-1051.

Zhang, J., Dean, D., Nosco, D., Strathopulos, D., & Floros, M. (2006). Effect of chiropractic care on heart rate variability and pain in a multisite clinical study. Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics, 29(4), 267-274.