Improve Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Optimize Fertility
What is heart rate variability telling you about your fertility and why it might be the missing piece to your fertility puzzle.
If you have an Oura ring or an Ultrahuman ring sitting on your finger right now, there's a good chance you've glanced at your HRV score and thought... what does this even mean?
I've been tracking my own HRV for years — through pregnancy, postpartum, and just regular life — and over the last few months, I've seen a 30 to 40 point increase in mine from some intentional changes I made. That kind of shift got me paying close attention to what I'm seeing with my clients too.
Here's what I want you to know upfront: a low HRV doesn't automatically mean you'll struggle with fertility, and a high HRV doesn't guarantee anything either. But I do think there's an indirect connection — and that's exactly what we're going to talk about.
What is HRV?
HRV stands for heart rate variability. It measures the variation in time between your heartbeats.
You might think your heart should beat at a perfectly steady rhythm, but that's actually not what we want. Your heart rate goes up when you inhale, down when you exhale. It rises when you're stressed, slows when you're calm. That constant tiny adjustment? It's a good thing. It means your body is responding to what's happening around it.
A higher HRV means your body is adapting well — it's flexible, it's recovering, it has resources.
A lower HRV means the opposite: your body is under some kind of load and doesn't have as much capacity to bounce back.
As for what numbers to aim for: I'd say 40–60 is decent, 70+ is great. But more than any specific number, I want you to look at your trend. Is it going up over time? Going down? What does it do when you sleep poorly, or when you've had a stressful week?
The trend tells the story.
HRV as a Window Into Your Nervous System
I like to think about HRV is as a marker of how your nervous system is doing.
We have two branches of the autonomic nervous system: the parasympathetic (rest and digest) and the sympathetic (fight or flight). Your body is always moving between the two — and that's normal and healthy.
What I see a lot in women who are struggling with their fertility is that they're stuck in one or the other.
Some are stuck in fight or flight: always anxious, wired, can't sleep, running on adrenaline. I see this a lot in women who've been in "go, go, go" mode for so long they don't even realize it anymore.
Others are stuck in parasympathetic — but not in a restful way. More like a depleted way. Think: sluggish metabolism, tired adrenals, a body that's been under chronic stress for so long it's just... slowed down.
Neither of those is a place where your body feels safe enough to prioritize reproduction.
Why Is HRV Low?
If your HRV is low and you feel like you're doing all the right things, here are the most common culprits I see:
Poor or disrupted sleep. This one is obvious but worth saying. Whether it's postpartum wake-ups, sleep apnea, mouth breathing, a tongue tie, a busy mind — if you're not getting restful, deep sleep, your HRV will reflect it.
Chronic stress. Think of it like a stress bucket. Emotional stress, work stress, family stress, inflammation, gut infections, blood sugar swings, past trauma — they all go in the same bucket. When it's overflowing, your body can't recover.
Too much exercise, or the wrong kind. More is not always more. If you're always sore, always tired, always pushing through hard workouts, that's a lot of stress on your body. HRV is a beautiful tool for checking in on whether your exercise is actually working for you right now.
Not eating enough. This is probably the one that surprises women most. Chronically undereating — especially carbohydrates — is incredibly stressful on the body. Your nervous system’s preferred source of fuel is carbohydrates. If you've been scaling them back in favor of all-protein, it’s time to reconsider.
Skipping meals or intermittent fasting. Same idea. Blood sugar swings — going too low for too long — are a physiological stressor your body has to manage, and that shows up in HRV.
Dehydration and low minerals. Especially if you live somewhere hot (hi, Houston 🥵). Drinking plain water without enough minerals means your body isn't actually absorbing it. Salt your food, consider a mineral supplement or hydration packet, and make sure you're actually replenishing, not just drinking.
Alcohol. Not surprising, but worth naming. Alcohol affects your sleep, your blood sugar, your liver, your nervous system. If you're working on your fertility and regularly drinking, even a few nights a week, that is affecting your body's ability to recover.
Hidden inflammation. This is a big one I see with fertility clients. Sometimes there's no obvious symptom, but something is quietly driving inflammation — a gut infection, a vaginal microbiome imbalance, blood sugar dysregulation, even oral health issues. Your body is working hard to fight it, and that shows up as chronically low HRV.
What the Research Shows
I dug into some research before writing this, and a few things stood out to me.
Women undergoing IVF who had higher HRV tended to have better outcomes — which, when you strip out the IVF piece, really just says: a body that's more adaptable, more nourished, and more regulated is a body better able to conceive.
Men with higher HRV also tend to have better fertility markers. Which is a good reminder that this is a two-person process. What your husband is doing in the 90 days before you conceive matters — his sleep, his stress, his nutrition — because it impacts the quality of his sperm, which impacts the health of your future baby.
And women with PCOS tend to have lower HRV compared to women without. But this doesn't have to feel discouraging. The same foundations that improve HRV — better blood sugar regulation, gut health, nervous system support, adequate nutrition — are exactly the foundations that help PCOS too. The diagnosis doesn't change what the body needs.
What Helped Me Increase My HRV 30 points
These are things I've personally experimented with over the last few months that I genuinely believe contributed to my 30–40 point HRV increase. I'm not saying these are the answer — but I'm sharing because maybe one of them is helpful for you.
Taking a break from social media. At the start of the year, I took over a month completely off. I used a little device called a Brick that blocks apps until you physically tap it to unblock them. I didn't realize how much my brain was constantly "on" until I gave it actual silence. I felt calmer. I had more capacity. Things that used to take up mental space just... stopped.
Evening walks after dinner. Even 15–20 minutes. This one is so simple and so effective. It helps regulate blood sugar after eating, helps your body unwind, gets you outside in natural light, and starts signaling to your nervous system that it's time to wind down. If you're in Houston, evening walks are infinitely more pleasant than midday ones. Go watch the sunset.
Going to sleep by 9–9:30 PM. Non-negotiable for me right now. With two kids, I can't control the night, but I can control what time I get into bed. Earlier bedtime = more sleep = better HRV. Simple, not always easy.
Topical magnesium spray. I already take magnesium at night orally, but I started trying a topical spray on my feet occasionally and noticed I slept deeper on the nights I used it. Not every night, but worth experimenting with if oral magnesium hasn't moved the needle for you.
Morning stretches before touching my phone. A forward fold, some arm stretches, breathing through it — even five minutes of this before jumping into the day made a noticeable difference in how I felt going into my morning. Bonus: my kids usually climb on me, which somehow makes the stretches better.
Unfollowing and muting almost everyone on social media. Less input = less noise in your head. If you're in a fertility journey and constantly seeing pregnancy announcements and baby photos, that's a lot of emotional stimulation your nervous system has to process. It's okay to create some distance from that.
Cold plunging (with caveats). We have a cold plunge set to about 45 degrees, and a three-minute plunge — especially in the evenings — has been genuinely transformative for my HRV on nights I do it. Cold exposure to the back of the neck activates the vagus nerve and helps bring your body into parasympathetic mode. But this is not a starting point if you're in the middle of chronic stress or haven't worked on your foundations yet. And one important note: cold plunging around ovulation may not be ideal — ovulation is an inflammatory event, and we actually need some inflammation for it to happen properly. Be mindful of where you are in your cycle.
Your HRV and Your Cycle
One more thing worth knowing if you're cycle-tracking: HRV naturally fluctuates across your cycle.
It tends to be higher in your follicular phase (before ovulation) and lower in your luteal phase (after ovulation). And it typically dips to its lowest right before your period. So if you're looking at your data and panicking about a low number — check where you are in your cycle first.
So What Does This Mean for You:
If your HRV is low and you're working on your fertility, I want you to see it as information, not a verdict. Your body is telling you something. There's a stressor somewhere — physical, emotional, nutritional, inflammatory — that it's working hard to manage.
The good news is that the same foundations that improve HRV are the same foundations that support hormone health, cycle regularity, and fertility.
Eat enough. Eat enough carbs. Sleep. Manage your stress. Give your body actual rest. Reduce hidden sources of inflammation.
And if you feel like you're already doing all of those things and your HRV is still in the trash? That's when we look deeper. Because something is there — it's just not obvious yet.
If you're dealing with "unexplained" fertility struggles and want to understand what your body might actually be trying to tell you, my free guide is a great place to start. It walks you through what's really going on beneath the surface — through a Catholic lens — so you can start getting real answers.
Download it here: savorli.co/catholic-unexplained-infertility-guide
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