Episode 231: How To Use HRV To Reduce Stress, Optimise Health, and Live Longer with Dr Torkil Færø

Dr Torkil Færø on the sense we were never given, and how to use it

TL;DR

• Heart rate variability (HRV) is the variation between heartbeats. It gives you a window into whether you're in a stressed or restful state.
• When Dr Torkil started tracking, he found he was stressed almost all the time, and the causes surprised him.
• Stress is fine if you balance it with enough recovery. Good stress builds you up, while bad stress just drains you.
• When you start tracking, change nothing for the first month, then change one thing at a time.
• His starting point is cutting back on alcohol, followed by a shorter eating window and not overdoing training intensity.

Introduction

Dr Torkil Færø is a Norwegian doctor of around 26 years, an award-winning photographer and the author of The Pulse Cure. He became a doctor because it let him travel and see life from the front row. Teaching photography workshops around the world showed him the healthiest people, while his work as a doctor showed him the sickest. Going back and forth between the two taught him a lot about what makes people well.

While writing an earlier book about using photography as a therapeutic tool, he became interested in the autonomic nervous system. Then he discovered there was a way to measure it: heart rate variability.

Please note: this is general information from Dr Torkil's perspective, not medical advice. Wearables aren't medical devices. Talk to your doctor before changing your diet, training or medication, especially if you have a health condition.

Lesson 1: HRV shows whether you're stressed or resting

Insight: Dr Torkil explains that in the restful, parasympathetic state, your heart rate rises slightly when you breathe in and slows slightly when you breathe out, creating a wave-like pattern. In the stressed state, your heart beats more like a metronome, because your body is focused on surviving the next moment.

Wearables can track this pattern, along with your movement, oxygen levels and temperature. He believes the most important insight they give is into your stress levels, because he sees too much activity and not enough recovery as a big problem in modern life.

Action: If you have a wearable, look up what it says about your HRV and stress, and learn what those numbers mean.

Outcome: You start to understand data you may have been ignoring.

Lesson 2: Your stressors might surprise you

Insight: Dr Torkil started tracking about six years before our chat, after reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk on a family sailing trip. He wore an ECG monitor taped to his chest for two years and took around 700 readings, working out what put him in a stressed or restful state.

He'd always assumed he was relaxed, because he never felt scared. The data showed he was stressed almost all the time. His biggest stressors turned out to be alcohol, not sleeping enough, the food he ate and the times he ate it. Even chilli showed up as a major stressor for him. Exercise is stressful too, but he sees it as an investment that gives you something back.

Action: Think about one thing you assume doesn't affect you, like a late meal or a couple of drinks, and notice how you feel the next day.

Outcome: You start spotting patterns you'd never have looked for.

Lesson 3: Stress isn't bad if you recover from it

Insight: When I asked about good and bad stress, Dr Torkil said most stress is fine as long as you balance it with enough recovery. Good stress makes you stronger once it's over and you've recovered. Bad stress drains you and gives nothing back.

Alcohol is the clearest example for him. It might give you a few hours of fun, but days of reduced recovery. He used to have two glasses of wine a day, because that was the advice at the time. After seeing its effect on his data, he now drinks about four times a year. He says that when you can see the physiological price of a drink, it's much easier to decide whether it's worth it.

Action: Track how you feel for a few days after a big night, compared with a week without alcohol.

Outcome: You make more informed choices about what's worth it for you.

Lesson 4: We can't feel our stress, so measure it

Insight: Dr Torkil points out that our outward senses are incredible. We can see millions of shades of colour, and we notice a tiny stone in our shoe. But we can't feel whether our heart rate is 60 or 80, or whether our blood sugar or blood pressure is high. There's no built-in alarm, which is why he believes people can slide into burnout or fatigue without warning.

He sees wearables as a substitute for a sense we never had. As he puts it, you can't improve what you don't measure. After our chat, I went out and got a wearable again.

Action: If you decide to track, choose one device and commit to wearing it consistently.

Outcome: You get information your body can't give you on its own.

Lesson 5: Change one thing at a time

Insight: Dr Torkil's advice for getting started is simple. For the first month, don't change anything. He says a device may take around three weeks to learn your baseline, so just observe. After that, change one thing at a time. As a doctor, he wouldn't start a patient on three medications at once, because if something changed, he wouldn't know which one caused it. The same applies to your habits.

His personal preference for tracking stress throughout the day is a Garmin watch, because it shows minute-to-minute changes. For sleep, he likes the Oura ring. He wears several devices because comparing them is part of his job.

Action: Pick one habit to test for two weeks, like an earlier dinner, and watch how your data and energy respond.

Outcome: You learn what actually works for your body.

Lesson 6: Start with alcohol, meal timing and training intensity

Insight: I asked where someone should start if they feel overwhelmed. Dr Torkil's first answer was minimising alcohol to the special occasions that really matter. He says that if you drink twice a week, you may never know what your optimal recovery feels like.

Next, he suggests a restricted eating window of around six to eight hours, depending on the person. He stopped eating breakfast and eating late soon after he started tracking. He believes giving your gut more downtime helps it recover.

He also thinks many people train too hard and need long recovery times as a result. His watch gave him a 96-hour recovery time after an eight-minute all-out test. If you have a stressful job or family life, he suggests being careful about how often you push above about 85% of your maximum heart rate.

He also mentioned that women may see changes in HRV across their menstrual cycle, particularly the week before their period. He suggests taking that into account when deciding how hard to train.

Action: Pick one of these three areas, either alcohol, meal timing or training intensity, and focus on it for the next month.

Outcome: You make a meaningful change without overhauling everything.

Lesson 7: The basics are free

Insight: Dr Torkil says our physiology was built for a life with lots of relaxed time and only a small amount of intense activity. Today, with stress, alcohol and social media, many people stay in a stressed state even when sitting on the couch.

His answer is to live a little more like we were built to. Eat food your body recognises as food. Get sunshine. Sleep when it's dark and eat when it's light. Move and use your muscles. Spend time with people you care about. Expose yourself to heat and cold, and drink water instead of alcohol or soft drinks. All of it is free, accessible and measurable, so staying healthy doesn't have to depend on your wallet.

He also says most people find tracking fun, almost like a game where their own health is at stake. Some people with a lot of symptoms find it harder, and he believes they often need support to change both what they do and how they think about it.

Action: Choose one free habit, like morning sunlight or a short walk with a friend, and add it to your day.

Outcome: You start recovering better without spending a cent.

Quick wins

• Cut out one unnecessary drink this week.
• Finish eating earlier in the evening.
• Get outside in the sunshine during the day.
• Avoid going all out in every training session.
• If you track, observe for a month before you change anything.

Closing insight

Dr Torkil wants people to take control of their own health. When you can see how your body responds to what you do, it becomes much easier to make the changes that matter. As he says, you can't improve what you don't measure.

Connect with Dr Torkil Færø

Follow Dr Torkil on Instagram, connect on LinkedIn or find The Pulse Cure on Amazon.

Listen to the full episode

The full conversation is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube, or press play at the top of this page.

Related episodes: Lessons on Health, Growth and Longevity Plus Listener Q&A and Prescribing Lifestyle with Dr Avi Charlton