HRV Chart by Age and Gender

A high HRV is usually a good sign because it means your body can adapt to changes and stress well. But remember, everyone’s HRV is unique and depends on different things like age, fitness, stress, and sleep. The most helpful thing you can do is keep track of your own HRV over time, as big changes might show you if something’s up with your health.

At Welltory, we strongly believe that Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a deeply personal measurement, influenced by a multitude of individual factors like age, fitness level, and overall health. Consequently, we don’t assign a standard “good” or “bad” HRV range in milliseconds (ms).

In our view, the power of HRV lies in monitoring your personal trends over time. This way, you can become more aware of how different aspects of your lifestyle—such as stress, sleep, and exercise—affect your HRV. We find this to be a more dynamic and accurate way of understanding your health and fitness compared to relying on fixed HRV numbers.

At Welltory, we approach the concept of ‘average’ heart rate variability (HRV) with caution due to the highly individualized nature of this measurement. Rather than focusing on an ‘average’ HRV value, we encourage users to pay attention to their own HRV trends over time. HRV is so highly individualized that only by tracking how your own HRV changes in relation to different aspects of your lifestyle can you devise a personalized and insightful view of your health and your body’s unique response to stress. This is why Welltory advises you to ‘calibrate’ your measurements by taking them for 10 consecutive days.

However, we understand the curiosity about averages, and our data suggests that 19 to 48 ms is the average for healthy adults in the age group of 38 – 42 years and 35 – 107 ms for elite athletes. Thus the ‘normal’ average range for rMSSD is 19 to 107 ms which is such a broad generalization that it’s quite clear that individual differences are too pronounced to make a general statement about averages in HRV scores.