If you wear a watch or ring, two of the most useful numbers it collects are your resting heart rate and your heart rate variability (often shortened to HRV). MigraineMe reads both and uses them as part of your risk score. This article explains what they are, briefly.
What resting heart rate is
Resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute when you are sitting or lying still. A common range is between 50 and 90 beats per minute, but everyone's "normal" is different.
What matters for migraine is your own usual number. A noticeably higher resting heart rate than your usual can suggest your body is working harder than usual: fighting off illness, recovering from poor sleep, or under stress. All of those can also increase the chance of a migraine.
What HRV is
HRV measures the tiny differences in time between one heartbeat and the next. A higher HRV usually means your body is well-rested and recovering well. A lower HRV usually means strain.
Like resting heart rate, what matters is your own usual range. HRV varies a lot from person to person, so comparing your number to a friend's is not useful.
How MigraineMe uses them
The app turns these two numbers into the stress index (the 0 to 100 number on the Cognitive card on Monitor). If your watch is a Garmin or your ring an Oura, the app uses the stress number the device itself reports instead of calculating its own.
Over time, MigraineMe learns your usual ranges. When today's numbers are unusual in the direction that tends to mean strain (higher resting HR, lower HRV), the stress index goes up. If a high stress index lines up with your migraines often enough, it becomes one of your active triggers.
Where to see them
- Open MigraineMe.
- Tap the Monitor tab at the bottom.
- Scroll to the Physical Health card for resting heart rate, and the Cognitive card for the stress index.
- Tap either card to see the 14-day trend.
What you need for this to work
You need a wearable that tracks heart rate and HRV, and it needs to be syncing to your phone:
- iPhone: any Apple Watch, plus WHOOP, Garmin, Oura or Polar through their direct connections, or other watches via Apple Health.
- Android: WHOOP, Garmin, Oura or Polar directly, or other watches via Health Connect.
If the cards are empty
- Make sure your watch has synced today.
- Open your watch's companion app (Apple Health, Garmin Connect, Oura, etc.) and check today's numbers are there.
- In MigraineMe, refresh the Monitor screen. On iPhone, pull down on it. On Android, switch to another tab and back.
In short
Resting heart rate and HRV are two simple signals from your watch that help MigraineMe spot strain on your body. Together they feed into the stress index, which becomes a trigger when it lines up with your migraines.
This is general information only.
