HRV Recovery Score
Score your autonomic recovery (0–100) using heart rate variability. Use Instant for today's reading, or 7-Day Trend to reveal your recovery trajectory across a full week.
Enter this morning's readings for an immediate recovery score.
Enter 7 consecutive morning rMSSD readings — oldest first — to reveal your recovery trajectory.
HRV is an indicator, not a clinical measurement. Individual baselines vary widely — your own week-on-week trend is more meaningful than a single reading against population norms.
How this is calculated
The 0–100 recovery score is a bespoke composite, not a published index. In single-reading mode, four components are summed and capped at 100: your rMSSD compared against the age-matched population median contributes up to 50 points, resting heart rate up to 25, last night's sleep up to 15, and your own subjective readiness up to 10. In 7-day trend mode the score is built differently — your week's average rMSSD against the same age median sets a base of 5–90, then up to 10 points are added if your last 3 days are more than 5% above your first 4 (or 8 subtracted if more than 5% below), and a final 2 points are added or up to 5 subtracted based on how consistent your readings are, measured as coefficient of variation. The age reference values both modes score against — 42 ms under 30, 38 ms in your 30s, 32 ms in your 40s, 27 ms in your 50s, 22 ms in your 60s — are taken from Nunan et al. (2010).
Worked example
A 44-year-old with a morning rMSSD of 29 ms, resting heart rate 58, six hours of sleep and feeling average. The age reference for the 40s is 32 ms, so the ratio is 29 ÷ 32 = 0.91 — the 0.8–1.0 band, worth 28 of a possible 50. A resting HR of 58 adds 22. Sleep scored 3 of 5 adds 9, and an average readiness of 3 adds 6. Total: 65 — the bottom of 'Good'. Note what moved it: the rMSSD is slightly below par for the age, but a strong resting heart rate carried the score.
Limitations
The weighting of the four components is a judgement call, not a validated model, and no study supports the specific point allocation. Two of the four inputs (sleep, readiness) are self-reported. rMSSD is also highly sensitive to measurement conditions: readings taken at different times of day, in different postures, or on different devices are not comparable. Your own trend over weeks is far more informative than any single score.
Sources
- Nunan D, Sandercock GRH, Brodie DA. A Quantitative Systematic Review of Normal Values for Short-Term Heart Rate Variability in Healthy Adults. Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology. 2010;33(11):1407–1417. View source (opens in a new tab) The direct source of the age-banded rMSSD reference values used in the scoring. Pooled 44 studies covering 21,438 participants.
- Shaffer F, Ginsberg JP. An Overview of Heart Rate Variability Metrics and Norms. Frontiers in Public Health. 2017;5:258. View source (opens in a new tab) Background on why rMSSD is used here rather than another metric: it is the primary time-domain measure of vagally mediated HRV, and it is more reliable and less sensitive to recording length than most alternatives.
Frequently asked questions
What is HRV and why does it matter?
Heart rate variability (HRV) is the beat-to-beat variation in time between heartbeats. A higher HRV indicates that your autonomic nervous system is able to flexibly respond to changing demands — a sign of good cardiovascular fitness, efficient recovery, and low physiological stress. HRV declines with fatigue, illness, overtraining, poor sleep, and alcohol. Monitoring it over time reveals how well your body is adapting to the stress it faces.
What is rMSSD and how do I measure it?
rMSSD (root mean square of successive differences) is the most widely used HRV metric for short-term recordings and is the value reported by most consumer wearables — Garmin, Oura, Whoop, Polar, and Apple Watch all measure it. Take your reading first thing in the morning before getting out of bed, after at least 5 minutes of lying still, for the most consistent baseline.
What is a good rMSSD value?
Healthy adults show a wide range of rMSSD values. Normative data from Nunan et al. (2010) — a systematic review of over 20,000 participants — shows median rMSSD values of approximately 42 ms in people under 30, 38 ms in their 30s, 32 ms in their 40s, 27 ms in their 50s, and 22 ms in their 60s. Athletes typically score 20–40% higher. Your personal trend matters more than a single absolute reading: a consistent rMSSD that is rising (or stable) is a stronger positive signal than any one number.
What does the 7-Day Trend mode show?
The 7-Day Trend mode calculates a composite recovery score from your full week of morning rMSSD readings. It evaluates three things: (1) your average relative to age-adjusted norms; (2) whether your HRV is trending upward (last 3 days vs. first 4 days), stable, or declining; and (3) how consistent your readings are — high day-to-day variability in HRV itself is a sign of an unsettled nervous system. Together these signals give a more reliable picture of your recovery state than any single morning reading.
Put it all together
The Health Planner reads your data and gives you exactly 3 actions for today.