"What is Heart Rate Variability" with Chance Nicholson, PhD

Dr. William “Chance” Nicholson joined the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing as an assistant professor in August 2019. He received his PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a focus on neurophysiological correlations between the vagus nerves’ cholinergic pathways, psychiatric comorbidities (e.g., perceived stress, depression, and post-traumatic stress) and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders. Dr. Nicholson's research interests and publications center on neurophysiological substrates that form the basis of cognitive-behavioral symptoms (e.g., anger, impulsivity, depression, suicidality) often observed in trauma-based disorders, in particular post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder.In this episode Dr. Nicholson and Dr. Bergquist talk about heart rate variability, or HRV. With the wearable devices becoming more and more popular, HRV is often thrown around as one of the metrics being measured, but do we understand what it means? What does it reflect? How is it descriptive of our health and wellness, if at all? Should our HRV be low or high? What are the factors that influence it and what we can do to improve our HRV? We answer all of those questions and more in this episode. Tune in to learn more!This podcast is brought to you by Emory Lifestyle Medicine & Wellness. To learn more about our work, please visithttps://bit.ly/EmoryLM