https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/heart-rate-variability-competition-tension Changes to this claim in Matteo Campagna's evidence registry: its status, its year-by-year history, revisions of the page. en-gb https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/heart-rate-variability-competition-tensionThat heart rate variability can read an archer's tension in competition is suggested by a single case, and an old one: a Japanese Olympic archer recorded in 1987 between the ends of selection events and the US Open. In the twenty seconds seated between one end and the next, when he reported more tension the interval between beats was shorter and the respiratory component of the variability lower, and on the day his win was already secure both were higher. The same work also shows how delicate the measurement is: it depends on how fast one breathes, it falls when standing, an irregular breath distorts it for about ten seconds, and deep breaths make someone who feels tense look calm. In 2025 two studies arrive that pull in different directions. In eighteen Turkish elite archers the variability measured before a national competition cannot be told apart from that measured before a training session, with an RMSSD of 69.6 against 82.8 milliseconds, while the mean heart rate rises from 68 to 76; reported anxiety does not change either, though, so the null result may simply mean that this competition did not make them more tense. Within the same study, before the competition, those with more somatic anxiety have a higher LF/HF ratio, but it is the only significant correlation out of thirty-three. The same year, in six adolescent archers under official competition conditions, a wristband reading variability at the wrist classifies the reported moments of high and low stress with an accuracy between 68 and 82 per cent, and of the high-stress moments it picks up, depending on the algorithm, between 40 and 85 per cent. The studies on archers do not agree and none is solid: today heart rate variability is a clue to tension in competition, not a measurement to rely on.claim:hrv-tensione-gara:revision:2026-07-25:3Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/heart-rate-variability-competition-tension#storiaIn thirty Turkish novices the ratio of the low to the high band of variability rises from seated rest to the shooting session. There is no competition, though, and no measure of tension, and between sitting and standing posture and effort change too, which under the rules set out in 2017 are not to be read as a state of mind. The question stays where it was, supported only by the 1992 case: reported.claim:hrv-tensione-gara:history_entry:2026-05-27:2019Wed, 27 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/mind/heart-rate-variability-competition-tensionclaim:hrv-tensione-gara:new_claim:2026-01-05:contestatoMon, 05 Jan 2026 08:00:00 GMT