range_hr
Range (Max − Min) Of The Instantaneous Heart Rate In Bpm.
| Aliases | range_hr, hr_range |
| Domain | time, statistics |
| Distribution family | Gamma |
| Equation | `` |
| Resource intensity | ◍◍◌◌◌ low, Level 1–2 (base statistics over successive differences). (measured, see §Resources) |
Definition
Calculate the range (max − min) of the instantaneous heart rate in BPM.
What does normal look like?
Fitted normative prior: Gamma(α = 3.494, θ = 9.871), KS p = 3.7e-52, n = 61715.
Empirical distribution over the pooled nsrdb+nsr2db normative windows (360-beat windows, 120-beat stride), overlaid with the fitted Gamma prior density. Vertical lines mark the median and the 5–95% range.
Normal-range summary (pooled nsrdb+nsr2db)
| statistic | value |
|---|---|
| median | 29.82 |
| IQR (25–75%) | 20.75 – 42.38 |
| 5–95% range | 11.66 – 76.82 |
| mean ± sd | 34.49 ± 19.56 |
| n windows | 61715 |
n varies by feature only through per-window validity over the full pooled nsrdb+nsr2db table (n up to 61 715; e.g. sampen/mse drop windows where the statistic is undefined). ulf is the one exception: a 360-beat (~5 min) window contains no ULF-band power, so it uses a long-window NSRDB-only extraction (see its own page).
Use cases
- Short-term vagal / parasympathetic tone (esp. successive-difference measures).
- Ultra-short and 5-min HRV screening; biofeedback targets.
- Stress, recovery, and training-load monitoring.
Applications by area
Evidence is reported at the measure-family level; a specific variant may not be the exact index measured in every cited study.
Clinical
Coverage: statistics. A pooled literature; reviews or meta-analyses exist.
SDNN/SDANN are among the most validated HRV mortality predictors: low values predict higher cardiac/all-cause mortality post-MI, in heart failure, and even in the general population (8 cohorts, n = 21,988). CVNNI has its own well-established sub-literature as a diabetic cardiac autonomic neuropathy screening marker. One acute-decompensated-HF study reports the opposite polarity (higher SDNN/SDANN in the poor-prognosis group).
Dominant reported direction: down: low SDNN/SDANN/CVNNI → higher mortality (one acute-HF exception reversed).
Key references: (Hillebrand et al., 2013); (Rueda-Ochoa et al., 2024).
Sports & peak performance
Coverage: individual papers. A small, scattered literature with no pooled meta-analysis.
Comparatively under-used next to RMSSD in sports HRV monitoring: the field's dedicated meta-analysis pools RMSSD/HF/SD1, not SDNN. Individual studies find SDNN falls with heavy training/overreaching and recovers during taper, and tends to be higher in higher-level athletes, but effect sizes are small-sample and heterogeneous.
Dominant reported direction: down with overreaching, recovers with taper (RMSSD-dominated literature, SDNN secondary).
Key references: (Bellenger et al., 2016).
Contemplative practice
Coverage: individual papers. A small, scattered literature with no pooled meta-analysis.
The weakest of the three domains for this family: two dedicated meta-analyses found the evidence for resting and vagally-mediated HRV (including SDNN) inconclusive or null, with only a handful of trials reporting SDNN at all. Individual acute-state studies diverge sharply in direction (SDNN falls during Heartfulness meditation, rises during Chi/Kundalini-yoga).
Dominant reported direction: contested: meta-analytic null vs. technique-dependent individual-study increases/decreases.
Key references: (Rådmark et al., 2019); (Brown et al., 2021).
See the effect-distribution meta-analysis page for the harvested per-study effect sizes/p-values behind these domain summaries (docs/zoo_gen/effect_stats.csv).
Resources
Resource-intensity rank ◍◍◌◌◌ low is measured: median wall-clock time and allocations over a 360-beat window on synthetic realistic RR (docs/zoo_gen/bench_resources.jl; full grid in resource_bench.csv).
| metric (360-beat window) | value |
|---|---|
| cold median wall-time | 0.006452 ms |
| warm median wall-time | 0.007544 ms |
| allocations (cold) | 4.0 KiB |
Cold = fresh memoization caches (builds every shared representation from scratch); warm = shared representations (diff, periodogram, Poincaré coords, DFA fluctuation) already cached, so only this feature is recomputed. The tier is derived from the cold cost; see Level 1–2 (base statistics over successive differences).
Citation
BPM re-expression of the Task Force (1996) time-domain panel.
Seminal reference(s): (Task Force, European Society of Cardiology / North American Society of Pacing & Electrophysiology, 1996).
See the References page for the full bibliography.