The International Institute For  Self-Help Holistic Therapies Ltd.

Importance of HRV in assessing physiological change

The heart is not just a muscular organ that serves to pump and make blood flow in the whole body; the heart, being connected to the limbic brain and the autonomic nervous system, is emotional in its feelings and expression.

This is common knowledge, witness a number of idiomatic expressions with the word heart:

“to lose heart, to have the heart to do, to have one's heart in one's mouth, to take something to heart, to one's heart's content,  at heart, by heart, from the bottom of one's heart, after one's own heart, a heart of gold,  a heart of stone, break somebody’s heart, do one’s heart good, eat one’s heart out, have one’s heart in one’s boots, have one’s heart in one’s mouth, have one’s heart in the right place, heart and soul, one’s heart sinks, in good heart, in one’s heart, set one’s heart on something, take something to heart, to one’s heart’s content, young at heart”

In Chinese heart can mean spirit. The Chinese language uses more than 300 characters composed with heart as radical. Those characters total to an innumerable amount of words or idioms conveying the notion of heart as spirit in some way.

Some decades ago it was thought that the more regular the interval between two heartbeats, the better it was. Computerized analysis of Holter monitor’s measurements (a technique allowing 24h recording of the heartbeats under working conditions) proved this belief deadly wrong. A new discipline has emerged as a separate branch of cardiology: rhythmology. This is the study of Heart Rate.

The research in this field bore such tremendous promise that a Task Force composed of fellows from the European society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology, was constituted. Among different methods, the Task Force recommended the use of:

• Time domain methods

• Frequency domain methods

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the calculation of these variations in the heartbeat. The heart rate is increased during inhalation and decreased during exhalation.

Training of the heart rhythm by respiration is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia.

HRV is the instrument of choice to check the heart rate.

It has been found that a measurement of 5 minutes is enough to give a valuable and reliable appreciation of HRV.

Measurements assessed with Time Domain Parameters are in milliseconds (ms):

• Heart Rate: a mean heart rate value on entire recording (usually 5 minutes)

• SDNN: standard deviation of the N-N intervals (ms)

• RMS-SD: square root of the mean squared differences of successive N-N intervals (ms)

Measurements assessed with Frequency Domain Parameters are in milliseconds square (ms² ):

• Total Power: a short-term estimate of the total power of spectral density in the range of frequencies between 0 and 0.4Hz (ms²) representing the overall activity of the ANS (autonomic nervous system) where sympathetic activity (Fight-Flight) is principal.

• Very Low Frequency (VLF) frequencies between 0.0033 and 0.04 Hz reflecting overall activity of some slow mechanisms of sympathetic function (ms² )

• Low Frequency (LF) frequencies between 0.04 and 0.15 Hz reflecting mixed sympathetic and parasympathetic activity the last one being prevalent when breathing slowly (ms² )

• Normalized Low Frequency (LF norm) after application of a mathematical ratio on LF; LF norm can be considered to reflect changes in sympathetic activity (Flight-Fright response) (ms² ). Mental stress increases LF activity.

• High Frequency (HF) frequencies between 0.15 and 0.4 Hz reflect parasympathetic activity and corresponds to N-N variations (time between two heartbeats) caused by respiration: the respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Deep, even breathing activates the parasympathetic and raises the amplitude of HF (ms² ). Mental stress decreases HF activity.

• Normalized High Frequency (HF norm) after application of a mathematical ratio on HF reflect the change in parasympathetic regulation.

• LF/HF ratio (normalized units) high numbers mean dominance of sympathetic activity while low numbers mean dominance of the para-sympathetic activity. After deep and even breathing an increase reflects changes in the parasympathetic regulation.

Prof. Malik and Prof. Camm (both from St George’s Hospital Medical School), with the help of many contributors, edited the book serving today as reference in HRV.

Prof. A.J Moss (Rochester School of Medicine) wrote in its foreword:

“The fictitious British detective, Scherlock Holmes, would have been intrigued to deductively analyze the beat-to-beat variability in the heart rhythm for it provides clues about the activity of the autonomic nervous system on the heart… the aging phenomenon, the clinical course of patients with heart disease...the sympathetic, parasympathetic and circadian oscillations are easily detected and, as Holmes would have said, ‘are elementary my dear Watson’.”

More than ten thousands communications on the subject of HRV have been made to this day.

Increasingly there is a perception that cardiology can evolve in neurocardiology since the study of the heart’s rhythm and fresh data in the knowledge of neural pathways  demonstrate that the heart is a neurocardiac organ with intimate connections to the autonomic nervous system.

"A balance that does not tremble cannot weigh,

A man who does not oscillate is a dead one"

Erwin Chargaff  (Nobel Prize)(1978)

For example let's analyse the following numbers of subject Laurence:

heart rate (HR) 88.1 This number corresponds to the number of beats during a one minute period.

Mean R-R (mean of the intervals between two normal heartbeats): 680.9ms This number measures in milliseconds the average time between two regular heartbeats.

SDNN: 24.1ms the standard deviation from normal to normal is ± 24.1ms.

Total power: 161.9ms²/Hz

LF/HF 1.4 (LF or low frequencies in normalized units are considered to represent the sympathetic activity while HF or high frequencies reflect the parasympathetic activity).

Let's compare those figures to the ones of Jean-Philippe:

 HR:66.2   Mean R-R: 906.2ms   SDNN: 173.7    Total power: 6251.7ms²/Hz   LF/HF 1.3

Until the measurement of HRV was possible and its full significance understood, it was thought that the more stable the Mean R-R was,(that is to say a very low SDNN) the better was the patient's heart condition. New researches have demonstrated that it is actually the contrary. In fact a heart with a stable and regular heartbeat periodicity is now considered as the marker for a poor pronostic for longevity if associated with serious conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, severe form of diabetes or hypertension. Compared to Jean-Philippe Laurence's condition is quite worrying!

In the quantum theory, rythmicity is considered as the sign of information transfer and it could explain why a heart rythm oscillating within the range of a higher number than the standard deviation between two normal heartbeats (SDNN) transmits more information and can better help the heart adjust to variations in the physical and mental environment.

Measuring the SDNN in HRV can be considered as a marker of good or bad health and it may be said that since it reflects the condition of the whole mind-body it is a holistic kind of measurement.

The heart rate (HR) is under the control of the autonomous nervous system (ANS), which is under a permanent unbalance between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system is generally considered as controlling the "Flight-agression" response of the mind-body in order to deal with the environment and prepare for action: when the sympathetic is stimulated, blood is withdrawn from the intestines and redirected toward the muscles, the brain, the heart and the lung. The pupils of the eyes widen and the breath shortens, while the heart accelerates...

The parasympathetic system is considered as controlling the "Restoration response" when the parasympathetic is stimulated the blood is withdrawn from the muscles to the intestines, the heart slows down, the breathing is deeper and slower and the pupils of the eyes constrict, permitting the mind-body to restore its functions through digestion while meditation helps it to relax and boost the immune system.

Now one can understand why psycho-emotional stress causing hyperactivity of the sympathetic system associated with a decrease of activity of the parasympathetic can put a patient at risk of disorders such as (among others) cardiac fibrillation, ischiemic hazards and depletion of the immune system.

Though HRV has been recognized as a good marker for the prognostic of longevity in serious pathologies and can be considered as a way to appreciate the condition of good or bad health, unfortunately there are no ways to improve it. On the contrary numerous studies have demonstrated the noxious and depletive effects of psychoactive drugs on HRV. Research has established that the rare drugs which do not lower HRV, such as imipramine, only slightly raise it.

Since the large majority of drugs has such a strong depleting effect on HRV figures, one may ask oneself whether their prescription is not dangerous in the long run. Numerous studies concerning the longevity of chronically depressed and schizophrenic patients - two types of patients hooked on medical drugs for life - have established that their longevity is reduced by 20%!

The relation between the poor figures of their SDNN and the risk of precocious fatal issue deserves to be discussed!

Abstaining from smoking and practicing a regular physical activity have been shown to raise the SDNN by 20%.

However after treatment by CT-TFT algorithms, Dx or VT procedures and abstention from toxins we commonly observe a rise of the SDNN that can go from 50% to 500%!

Only the sequential self-administered therapies discovered by Dr Callahan yield such results!

Only toxins can harm the improvement thus obtained.

 Individual Energy Toxins (IET), such as milk, wheat, corn, chocolate etc., can erase, for those who are concerned, the improvement of the subject's SDNN figures.

Keeping away from such toxins when appropriate and redoing the treatment will make the SDNN figures rise again, attesting to the return of a healthy condition. 

WithYourVoice Ltd. Offer training courses on HRV.

These courses are specially designed for people interested in monitoring their own condition regularly, for medical professionals, for sport coaches, for sportsmen and women.