Today we’re talking about why female HRV scores are on average lower than male HRV scores. This came up with a (competitive) couple we’re working with, and the female didn’t like that she couldn’t “beat” her partner’s HRV score.
The reason women tend to have lower HRV is their hearts are smaller, which means the hearts need to beat more (on average 3.5x more per minute) in order to meet the body’s oxygen demands.
A smaller more simply means it takes more beats to accomplish the same job. Yes, women tend to have smaller bodies as well, but based on the average heart rate this doesn’t offset the change in heart size.
While this is a small detail, it speaks to a broader, more important point about HRV: it is individualized.
Don’t Compare Your HRV to your spouse, friend, or competitor
The only person you should be competing with when it comes to HRV is yourself.
Go Own It.
We don’t need to be heartless to be successful but we do need to use our ‘heart—-less”. The more efficient we are the more effectively we can recover from high bouts of physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional stress.
This is the superpower that we all have innately but requires intention and work to get there. No matter the size of our heart we can work at mastering the process of what it takes to get there and focus on the controllable and Own It.