What is Sleeping Heart Rate (SHR)?
Your Sleeping Heart Rate (SHR) is the number of times your heart beats per minute while you are asleep, providing a key indicator of your body's recovery and overall cardiovascular fitness. Tracking this metric helps you understand how lifestyle factors like exercise, stress, and sleep quality impact your well-being.
What Sleeping Heart Rate Is
SHR is a measure of your heart's workload when your body is in a state of complete rest. Since your body is least active during sleep, this value is often the lowest heart rate you'll have in a 24-hour period. The app establishes a personalized normal range for you based on your historical data, making it easy to see when your SHR deviates from its typical pattern.
- Lower SHR: A lower sleeping heart rate generally indicates a more efficient heart and better cardiovascular fitness. As you get fitter, your heart muscle becomes stronger and can pump more blood with each beat, requiring fewer beats per minute.
- Higher SHR: An elevated SHR can be a sign that your body is under stress. This could be due to intense training, illness, poor sleep, alcohol consumption, or psychological stress.
Why Sleeping Heart Rate Matters
Monitoring your SHR provides valuable insights into your body's readiness and long-term health. A consistent or gradually decreasing SHR over time is a positive sign that your body is adapting well to your training and recovering effectively. It serves as an excellent long-term marker for improvements in your cardiovascular health.
Conversely, a sudden spike in your SHR above your normal range can be an early warning sign. It may indicate that you are overtraining, not getting enough restorative sleep, or that your body is fighting off an illness. Paying attention to these changes allows you to adjust your activity levels and prioritize rest when needed.
How Sleeping Heart Rate Is Measured
Your SHR is measured automatically by the optical heart sensor in your connected smartwatch while you are sleeping. The app collects this data throughout the night and calculates a representative value for that sleep session. This value is then plotted on a graph, allowing you to track trends and compare your most recent reading to your personal baseline.
Summary
This article explains what Sleeping Heart Rate (SHR) is and why it's a crucial metric for gauging your cardiovascular health and recovery. By tracking your SHR, you can monitor your fitness progress, identify signs of stress or overtraining, and make more informed decisions about your daily activity and rest.