Heart Rate Variability Podcast

About Heart Rate Variability Podcast

Welcome to the Heart Rate Variability Podcast where we discuss the research and applications of heart rate variability.

Publisher

Optimal HRV

Category

business · health & fitness · science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Apr 2021

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

263 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   How HRV Wearables Can Help Track Mental Health and Relapse Risk During Addiction Recovery

   Can heart rate variability help clinicians better understand—and eventually anticipate—the challenges people face during recovery from substance use disorder? In this episode of the Heart Rate Variability Podcast, host Matt Bennett speaks with Dr. J. Gregory Hobelmann, Dr. Wendy Insalaco, and Dr. Andrew Huhn about their research on physiological and mental health changes during residential substance-use disorder treatment. Their study paired wearable measurements of heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate with self-reported assessments of stress, anxiety, and depression. Although participants generally demonstrated favorable changes during treatment, their individual trajectories varied widely. For some people, physiological and self-reported improvements aligned; for others, the two told different stories. The conversation explores why this variability matters, how objective biomarkers may complement—not replace—traditional clinical assessments, and how wearable data could eventually support more individualized care, timely check-ins, and relapse-prevention efforts. Topics discussed include: What a typical 28-day residential treatment experience involves Why substance-use treatment outcomes have traditionally relied heavily on self-report How WHOOP wearables were used to monitor HRV and resting heart rate The relationship between HRV, stress, anxiety, and depression Why physiological recovery and perceived wellness do not always move together State-versus-trait differences in anxiety and autonomic functioning The importance of sleep and healthy cortisol patterns during recovery Using biometric changes as prompts for supportive clinical conversations The risks of overconfidence and overreliance on wearable data The potential for personalized treatment plans and just-in-time interventions How academic and residential-treatment partnerships can advance precision medicine About the guests: Dr. J. Gregory Hobelmann, MD, MPH, is an addiction psychiatrist and Co-CEO and President of Ashley Addiction Treatment in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Wendy Insalaco, PhD, LCADC, LCPC, is an addiction psychologist and researcher who serves as Director of Quality Outcomes and Model of Care at Ashley Addiction Treatment. Andrew S. Huhn, MBA, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research examines opioid use disorder, relapse risk, sleep, stress, mood, wearable technology, and treatment outcomes. Resources: Read the study:https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1755153/full Learn about Ashley Addiction Treatment:https://www.ashleytreatment.org/ Learn more about Dr. Andrew Huhn:https://profiles.hopkinsmedicine.org/provider/andrew-stephen-huhn/2777487 Explore Optimal HRV:https://www.optimalhrv.com/ The Heart Rate Variability Podcast is produced by Optimal LLC and Optimal HRV. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before applying any strategies discussed in this episode.

2. 

   6 Oct 2026

   This Week in HRV - Episode 58

   MEDICAL DISCLAIMER The information in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition. Please consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making any changes to your health regimen, training program, or clinical practice. Heart rate variability is a powerful and scientifically validated tool for understanding autonomic nervous system function, but it is one piece of a much larger picture, and context always matters. Nothing shared in this podcast should be taken as personalized medical advice, and individual responses to interventions vary enormously. Always work with qualified professionals when making decisions about your health. This week on This Week in HRV, we explore the relationship between HRV and human performance across four distinct domains — golf putting, sustained cognitive work, drowsy driving, and competitive wrestling. Together, these studies reveal how the autonomic nervous system shapes and reflects our capacity to perform under pressure, sustain attention, stay alert, and adapt to training stress. 1. Exploring Attentional Mechanisms of Strategic Self-Talk Through Heart-Rate Variability in a Golf-Putting Task Among Novices PUBLICATION: Behavioral Sciences AUTHORS: Emmanouil Tzormpatzakis, Theodoros Proskinitopoulos, Orestis Panoulas, Evangelos Galanis, Evgenia Nikolakopoulou, Nikos Comoutos, Yannis Theodorakis, Antonis Hatzigeorgiadis KEY FINDING: Novice golfers who underwent personalized self-talk training showed progressively higher parasympathetic activation (RMSSD) in later stages of a putting task at the final assessment — a pattern not seen at baseline or in the control group — alongside significantly better putting performance. SIGNIFICANCE: This study provides preliminary physiological evidence that psychological skills training can shift autonomic regulation toward more efficient, automatic processing during motor performance, opening a new direction for understanding how mental skills work at the level of the nervous system. Read the full study: https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16081347 2. Exploratory Temporal Dynamics of Heart-Rate Variability During a Prolonged Two-Back Task Under Nap-Deprivation Conditions PUBLICATION: Sensors AUTHORS: Di Meng, Luyao Yu, Tianjiao Min, Jing Zhang, Liufeng Zhu, Hengcong Gong, Yifei Feng, Ying He KEY FINDING: A fiber-optic seat cushion (ballistocardiogram) captured HRV continuously during 60 minutes of demanding cognitive work under nap-deprivation conditions. While mental fatigue was large and unambiguous by self-report and reaction time, no HRV feature survived false discovery rate correction at the group level — and individual HRV trajectories varied dramatically across participants. SIGNIFICANCE: The null group-level result and striking individual heterogeneity together suggest that HRV-based cognitive fatigue monitoring may require personalized calibration rather than universal group-level algorithms, a critical insight for anyone building real-world fatigue detection systems. Read the full study: https://doi.org/10.3390/s26196099 3. Tracking Vigilance While Driving: Pilot Study of Heart Rate Variability Classification Under a Controlled Sleep-Deprivation Protocol PUBLICATION: Sensors AUTHORS: James Elber Duverger, Eli Moser, Philippe Boudreau, Marie Claude Ouimet, Diane B. Boivin, Alireza Saidi KEY FINDING: Twelve healthy adults underwent a 30-hour sleep-deprivation protocol with driving simul...

3. 

   29 Sept 2026

   This Week in HRV - Episode 57

   Medical Disclaimer: The information shared on This Week in HRV is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your health routine. This week on This Week in Heart Rate Variability, we cover six studies that together sketch the future of HRV science. Each one points in a distinct direction: a new metric for measuring rhythm organization across a large psychiatric population, a systematic content audit of consumer HRV apps, a rigorous benchmark of five noninvasive sensor technologies measured simultaneously in the same subjects, a new mathematical framework that challenges the stationarity assumption underlying conventional HRV analysis, a nonlinear dynamical study of group physiological coordination using attractor reconstruction and neural network clustering, and a deep learning system that extracts HRV from facial video alone to detect driver drowsiness at nearly ninety-five percent accuracy. What unites these studies is not a single topic but a shared direction: the field is expanding its metrics, scrutinizing its tools, rethinking its assumptions, and reaching toward applications that would have seemed impractical not long ago. 1. Heart rate fragmentation in psychiatry: across age stages and association with conventional heart rate variability PUBLICATION: Psychiatry Research: NeuroimagingAUTHORS: XinFan Zhang, AiMei Ye, Min Su, Hao Chai, YanYan Wei, YiYi Yang, YuXuan Xiong, Yin Cui, Dan Zhang, Xiong Jiao, HuiRu Cui, LiHua Xu, XiaoChen Tang, HaiChun Liu, MingLiang Ju, LingYun Zeng, ChunBo Li, LiYing Huang, Jin Gao, JiJun Wang, and TianHong Zhang KEY FINDING: Researchers analyzed resting three-minute electrocardiograms from 3,813 patients with schizophrenia, depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, or sleep disorder, ranging in age from 10 to 80 years, treated at the Shanghai Mental Health Center. The study derived both heart rate fragmentation indices—specifically the percentage of inflection points (PIP) and the related percentage of alternating segments (PAS)—alongside conventional HRV measures including RMSSD, SDNN, low-frequency power, and high-frequency power. Heart rate fragmentation increased systematically across age groups, while every conventional HRV index declined. That divergence is the central finding: aging appears to produce both less variability and less organized variability, and these are not the same thing. Partial Spearman correlations and multivariable linear regression confirmed that PIP retained independent associations with all conventional HRV metrics, even after adjusting for available covariates, with the strongest association observed for high-frequency power. Sex differences in fragmentation were confined to adolescence and early adulthood, with males showing higher PIP than females in those life stages, but these differences disappeared by middle and late adulthood. Diagnostic category had a statistically significant main effect on PIP, but the differences between diagnostic groups were modest and did not meaningfully interact with age. SIGNIFICANCE: Heart rate fragmentation asks a different question than conventional HRV metrics. While RMSSD and SDNN measure how much the intervals between heartbeats vary, fragmentation measures how organized that variability is. The consistent independent relationship between PIP and conventional HRV metrics suggests that fragmentation captures something about rhythm organization that amplitude-based measures do not fully account for. Because fragmentation can be computed from the same R-R interval data used in conventional HRV analysis, there is no additional measurement burden when adding it to existing protocols. Read th...

Who has been a guest on Heart Rate Variability Podcast

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Joshua Marchant
• Dr Aliyah Snyder
• Dr Nate Ewigman
• Dr Christine Sanchez
• Stephanie White

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

3.5 / 5

10 ratings

Spotify

3.0 / 5

5 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 61 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

89

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

85

Contact Heart Rate Variability Podcast

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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