By Stephen Pate – The Heart Rate Recovery or HRR display on your Apple Watch can help you track your risk of death iEn the next 6 years and cut it in half or more.
Apple has been improving HRR and now shows it to you on the Apple Watch face. Prior to the latest update, your HRR was tracked on the Watch but you could only see it by going to your phone.
Try it now. Go to the Heart app on your watch and scroll down through your most recent Workouts. You’ll see the Workout and underneath is Recovery. Tap it. Underneath the graph are two readings for Recovery – BPM after 1 min (minute) and BPM after 2 min.
The Watch only displays today’s Workout HRR. Do see your history, go to iPhone…Activity… Workouts.
If you don’t do Workouts, why not. Do you want to die sooner than you have to?
Those HRR is considered the best predictors of your heart health. “A 1999 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that abnormally low HRR doubled the risk of dying over 6 years.” (Dr. Anthony P, The Skeptical Cardiologist)
If your HRR is less than 13 BPM in the first minute after strenuous exercise, it’s a highly predictive indicator of heart mortality, as in you die. “In a follow-up study, this same Cleveland Clinic group looked at nearly 10 thousand patients undergoing treadmill ECG testing and found HRR <13 beats/min doubled the 5-year risk of death. ”
When I first read this article, I was a little concerned since I had a heart attack and once you have one, the risk of mortality is higher. After I read the article, I checked my HRR on the phone and it was awful. I messaged Dr. P and he told me to take the reading from peak aerobic heart, not after cool down. Phew, my HRR is a healthy 31 bpm after 1 minute and 39 after 2 minutes.
“If your one-minute HRR is <13 beats per minute or two-minute HRR <22 beats per minute this is a bad prognostic sign. ” (Dr. P)
What can you do about a bad HRR to increase your chances of living? Get moving. Start exercising and which is not playing tiddlywinks or going for long relaxing walks. Aerobic exercise is 30 minutes of strenuous exercise 3 times a week.
Heart rate increases during aerobic exercise in this case 20 minutes on a NuStep, recumbent stepping machine.
Your heart rate during a workout should get close to your Target Heart Rate 80% of your maximum value. See your doctor or physiotherapist for that number.
At first you HRR will look bad but soon, you’ll be getting healthy HRR readings, which means your heart is getting stronger. A strong, healthy heart means you are more likely to live longer.
I’m not a doctor and none of this is medical advice. Read Dr. P.’s article and he is a real cardiologist and go see your doctor.
phil ryan
Thanks for the article. We’re in Australia, and not all of Apple Watch heart-related features are enabled here (the ECG for example, is not available), but we can still see HRR. I wasn’t aware of these specifics about HRR and will now take more care to check it out for both me and my wife.