Fitness

A place to talk about fitness and health on Farcaster.

I donated blood yesterday, and this morning I've seen big changes in my 
whoop recovery score: HRV down, RHR up, and elevated stress levels impacted my sleep. This is all super abnormal for me.

This is a dumb question, but how does the blood loss affect this?

My understanding is that when your blood volume dips (you donate blood) your resting heart rate might temporarily increase while your body works harder to maintain the blood pressure and get oxygen around the body.

And regarding HRV, your body’s trying to make up for the lost volume and red cells. So, your heart beats get more uniform, less varied - and your HRV drops. 

The reduced variability is a sign that the body is attempting to recover from something, in this case like 10% blood loss.