Just a quick note - something I've observed from my fitness tracker. My Fitbit measures my heart rate with a little optical sensor on my wrist. It's not terribly accurate, but as always the trend is more important than the actual number. Besides steps and calories, it shows my average resting heart rate for the day.
Resting heart rate is supposed to be one measure for overall fitness, and also a measure of resiliancy. Lower is better. It tends to go up as you age, even though maximum heart rate from exercise declines with age. Mine has always been "good" based on my age and sex, a reflection of my genetics, not my fitness. But my resting heart rate has been declining since I retired, as I've been getting in shape and releasing tensions. However, I noticed Labor Day weekend that it had gone up quite a bit while we were sailing. The whole time, I was slightly on edge and it showed. As I've said, I love sailing but it has challenges - which is tied to why I like sailing so much. I was interested in how it impacted this measure of conditioning and resilience - it showed my anxiety.
After the sailing trip, it went back down to the range it's been living in. But after my mother died, it shot back up. Given circumstances, not a surprise, but exactly the kind of thing I find fascinating. I wonder if my self care efforts of meditation and exercise will be reflected in a decline, or will it stay up for a while anyway?
2 comments:
You are an influence, because I find the data interesting too. Challenge and stress reading the same to your body is really something to think about. So please post what happens.
Liz
this is fascinating. It's profound to see the plain data validating what we all know in our gut, but forget or deny at times.
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