Originally Posted by
WhyFi
Yeah, I'll keep taking readings. I'm interested to see how it varies after strenuous days, sleepless nights, etc. It's also interesting that higher variance is better.
No, actually higher day to day variance is a sign of stress, good or bad. Training stress seems to be able to produce increases and decreases in HRV the following day. From my own experience, I think I tend to respond to hard workouts with increases when my baseline fitness is high and decreases when it's not. In general, you want to return to something close to your baseline before hitting it hard again. I think it's safe to say that "bad" stressors, e.g., poor sleep, circadian disruptions, alcohol, always produce decreases.