What to do if I receive a Health Check Recommendation?

Firstbeat Life IS NOT a medical method and is not used to diagnose, prevent, or treat illnesses. 

If your results repeatedly show poor recovery, a high heart rate level or very low heart rate variability, Firstbeat Life will recommend that you contact a healthcare professional so they can evaluate possible explanations behind the result, as well as next steps. 

Getting this recommendation requires that there was exceptionally little recovery, the average heart rate variability during sleep was less than 10 ms, or your heart rate did not drop below 70 beats per minute even during sleep on at least 6 consecutive measurement days.

Changes in health and well-being are reflected in the functioning of the autonomic nervous system. Weakened recovery is typically caused by an acute stress factor, such as stress, illness, fever, lack of sleep or alcohol. Medications that affect the heart rate, chronic illnesses, poor fitness, overweight, unhealthy lifestyle, menopause, pregnancy, and genetics can also affect the result. 

If you received a health check recommendation, try to identify possible explanations behind the result, and think about how you are feeling subjectively. If you feel very fatigued or otherwise not well, without a known reason, such as illness or heavy acute stress, we recommend that you contact your healthcare provider. If, on the other hand, you can identify clear explanations behind the poor result and feel that the situation does not require further steps, it is not necessary to get a health check. However, it is a good idea to monitor your well-being with regular measurements and contact your healthcare provider if you result, and your subjective feeling, do not show any improvement over time.

Firstbeat Life measurement is based on measurement of heart rate and heart rate variability. Heart rate variability means the variation in the time between consecutive heartbeats in milliseconds. The measurement is conducted with a Bodyguard 3 measurement device (comparable to clinical-grade ECG, 1-2 ms accuracy) and with clinically tested electrodes.

The method evaluates autonomic nervous system function to identify various physiological states, such as stress, recovery and exercise. Firstbeat Life provides information about individual stress factors, sufficiency of recovery, quality of sleep and the health effects of physical activity. The method is used to promote well-being and healthy lifestyle habits.