Heart Rate Variability

I recently listened to a neurologist speak about heart rate variability. He said it was a good thing. I had heard that before in connection to the popularity of the Apple Watch, but he said something interesting that made me think about the spiritual life.

So, heart rate variability measures the differentiation of the spaces between heartbeats. A higher and healthier heart rate variability indicates variation and irregularity between the contractions of the heart. A heart with lower variation beats more evenly.

You would think the lower variability would be better. But he gave the example of how doctors will monitor the heart rate variability of newborn children to ensure that there is some variation between the heartbeats. If a child’s heartbeat levels off to where there is the same amount of time between contractions, the doctors will become concerned for that child.

As it pertains to the spiritual life, I thought it might be interesting to say something about the importance of permitting some irregularity in our prayer life as well. Without compromising discipline or commitment, we should nevertheless allow for some variation of our prayer from time to time.

It’s not that we want to be “all over the place” with our prayer, constantly “bouncing around” between saints and devotions. We should be able, in a sense, to find a home in prayer, a kind of spiritual baseline. But I think it sometimes happens that the dynamic of our spiritual life steadies into a state of low variability, which can indicate a problem.

I think we Catholics have the hardest time with this. We are a people of ritual who tend to equate change with infidelity. We are afraid to betray this saint by reading about that one. But I do think it’s important to allow the Holy Spirit to move freely in our prayer life.

At first, I was surprised to hear that a slightly irregular heartbeat is healthier than one with low variability. But now I see it makes sense. Like an unchanging prayer life, there’s something unnatural about an immutable heart rate, something too mechanical. +