(More) Heart Rate Variability

Heart rate variability (HRV) measures the time intervals between adjacent heart beats. When you sit down for the 3 minute reading in our office, the HRV instrument reads your pulse and the skin temperature of your hand. From this data, the computer is able analyze how your autonomic nervous system is functioning. By looking at both resilience and the balance between sympathetic (fight/flight) and parasympathetic (rest/digest) tone, this reliable, non-invasive, and quick scan provides some really important information about how you have been and are currently able to adapt to stress.

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) coordinates the vital functions of your body, such as heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and sweating. The ANS has three branches, two of which are easily mapped to the spine: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic nervous system is activated when we encounter actual or perceived danger - this is the fight/flight response we feel when distressed. This part of the ANS originates in the thoracic spine (where your ribs are). The parasympathetic nervous system regulates rest and repair and originates in the upper neck and lower back (sacrum).

HRV measures the balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic tone. Like the gas and brake pedals in your car, both are important and neither should be activated all of the time. We often consider stress as having a negative connotation. What may be stressful for one person is energizing for another. I think it depends on the person and the context. Running for exercise because you want to is different than running for exercise because you are forced to, which is also different than running away from a bear. Eustress refers to “good stress” - activities which are taxing to the body and mind, but that contribute to health. Whether we consider an event or activity as eustress or distress depends largely on how well balanced the ANS is and how much energy is available to adapt.

When talking about the ANS, the energy available to adapt to stress is called resilience.

Resilience is the reserve energy in our bodies that allows us to prepare for, recover from, and adapt in the face of stress, adversity, trauma, and challenge.

Resilience varies based on the the environment and how adaptive and flexible your nervous system is. HRV measures the resilience of the ANS, which is why it is such a useful tool for chiropractic. Chiropractic facilitates the flexibility, adaptive capacity, and resilience in nervous system by directly addressing areas in the spine that are limiting the flow of energy between the brain and the body. Chiropractic is one of the ways you can positively influence your HRV. My 2021 blog post about HRV contains references and goes into more detail about this technology, as well as six ways to support the nervous system.

Two years and many scans later the most important things I have found both professionally and personally to improve HRV are meditation/contemplative practice, regular chiropractic care, and time in Nature. Our ability to adapt to the inevitable and increasing stressors that life presents depends on the tone and tension of the nervous system. HRV reflects our capacity to adapt to stress. Being able to measure this capacity is an invaluable tool. It provides a window into health and a way to track progress over time.

To learn more about this technology and how it relates to the work we do in the practice, click here.

The Triad of Change

In mythology, the 3 Fates represent the forces that determine destiny. In Greek and Roman tradition, they are described as weavers: creating (Clotho), measuring (Lachesis), and cutting (Atropos) the thread of a human life. The number 3 is symbolically useful because it asks us to see relationships beyond the duality of black-white, either-or, us-them.

Chiropractic philosophy describes the Triune of Life as an interplay (force) between intelligence and matter. Life, after all, is the expression of intelligence through matter. We recognize the vital element that animates form. We also recognize the intelligent ways living things maintain their active organization in the face of a constantly changing and challenging environment.

The Triad of Change provides a useful model to understand the ways that energy organizes in living systems. As humans, we can consider Structure (the body we inhabit), Behavior (how we move ourselves), and Perception (how we view our relationship to ourselves in the environment). This model is appropriate in the context of chiropractic practice because we work with the nervous system. As chiropractors, we assess and support the ability of the nervous system to be more flexible and more adaptive. We do this directly through the alignment of the body (structure), facilitating movement and connection between parts (behavior), and offering a perspective of coherence (perception).

Whether our preference is to lead with the energy of the fabric maker, the measurer-planner, or the action-taker, we are participating in the process of weaving. Seen from this perspective we weave with the Fates instead of at their mercy. Empowerment comes when we are in alignment with our principles. We can choose to defer our fate to perceived authority or we can do the work to build resilience, act with integrity, and clarify our perception .

The Season of Transform

Have you felt it?

This year, the influx of energy that accompanies the onset of Spring seems to be super-charged. There is a quality of density and richness, which can at times feel like trying to drink from an open fire hydrant. The art of being able to navigate, integrate, and harness the abundance of this energy is having a strategy and a practice. 

Within the paradigm of Reorganizational Healing, the “Four Seasons of Wellbeing” reflect an individual’s level of readiness for change at a particular moment in time. Stepping into the Season of Transform means changing the relationship to the body, to how energy is utilized, how attention is focused, and how movement flows in both thought and action. It describes a state in which energy is readily available and strategies are in place that allow for the constructive channeling of this energy.  

The strategy is the plan of action. What are some things that you have identified or that are asking/demanding you to re-evaluate how you are living? For me, this looks like changing my exercise routine, adding to and improving my diet, incorporating more self-care, claiming which areas of study and which opportunities to concentrate on and which to politely decline. There was never a more accurate tea tag than the one I recently read: “Energy flows where attention goes.” The strategy is the container that you create to channel where this Transform energy goes. It allows you to consciously have a say in directing the engine of change. The practice is simply employing the strategy. It won’t be perfectly executed. That’s why it’s called practice.   

And so, in the spirit of the season, I’ve crafted a Spring “To-Do” List. May it be as useful to you as the tea tag was for me.

• Harness the abundant energy of the season to consciously drive change. 
• Plant intention. 
• Water it with congruent action.  
• Tend it with refinement as it grows into form.
• Remember: the Field is fertile.