HRV: what it means and how it affects our emotional world

Today I want to write about a topic I’ve found fascinating ever since I first heard about it: the relationship between the psyche and the heart. How neuroscience research over the last decade has shown that there is clear communication between mind and heart. And, most importantly, what this means for our lives. I wrote about it a while ago. And now, after plenty of reading on the subject, I’m coming back to it, because I find it rather wonderful, and significant, that it turned out to be true after all: our heart has a significant influence on the way we think, feel and act. Once again, truth is stranger than fiction. In this article I want to focus on one element in particular: heart rate variability and its relationship with our mental and emotional state.

Heart rate variability (HRV): what is it?

Basically, it refers to how much the rate of our pulse varies. HRV gives us valuable information about how our heart works; it reflects the heart’s ability to respond. The higher our HRV and the more complex our pulse, the better the condition and responsiveness of our heart. In fact, some studies associate good HRV with a lower risk of cognitive decline, since an association has been observed between cardiovascular problems and cognitive decline, and the former often contributes to the latter.

How does HRV affect our emotions?

Research in this area has looked at the impact our thoughts and emotions can have on HRV. Interestingly, it seems that joy is the emotion that raises HRV the most, while emotions such as fear or anger lower it. This means joy would contribute to keeping our heart in good shape, while emotions such as fear or anger could impair its responsiveness.

It has also been found that people with higher HRV are better able to regulate their emotions. Conversely, people with lower resting HRV have been observed to have more difficulty regulating and controlling their emotional state.

High HRV also seems to be linked to greater tolerance of stressful situations and better management of them.

How does HRV affect our cognitive abilities?

On the cognitive side, the findings are no less interesting. Researchers have observed intriguing links between HRV and certain cognitive abilities. More specifically, higher HRV has been associated with:

• Higher IQ.
• Better memory.
• Better language processing.
• Greater attention span.

Bear in mind, though, that these are associations: we don’t really know what is cause and what is effect, and in some cases, such as IQ, the link found is modest and isn’t always replicated across studies.

And here’s something even more curious: when we get on the merry-go-round of rumination, going round and round in circles over things that worry or sadden us without getting anywhere, what happens to the heart? HRV drops. So, to put it simply, it seems that when we get stuck on something, our heart’s responsiveness also deteriorates.

Once again we see that mind–heart communication runs both ways. That’s not new: research in the field discovered years ago that communication between the two goes in both directions and takes different forms (nervous, chemical…). And it seems both of them are in charge, contrary to what has been believed for centuries, when the brain was always seen as the centre of the human being; in other words, the one calling the shots.

What does HRV have to do with how we perceive the outside world?

Possibly a lot. Various studies suggest that the heart also plays a part in how we perceive. In other words, with every beat the heart sends signals to the brain that produce certain changes (a response) at a neural level and influence how we process what reaches us from the outside world. Some authors suggest that the greater the variability of our pulse, of our heartbeat (higher HRV), the richer, more varied and broader our perception of reality would be, although this has yet to be proven. To put it another way: if there were no variability in your heart rate, you would perceive “always the same thing, in the same way”. You could say in a more robotic, less human way.

I’ll stop here, but this topic will certainly come up again. If it interests you, I encourage you to read more about it, because everything current research is uncovering is fascinating and well worth some of your time if you like the subject. In the end, empiricism and romanticism find their way back to each other. Food for thought…