Vagal Sense: HRV & Vagus Nerve

Now on iPhone. Record short sessions with a chest sensor, follow the breathing guide and see how your body responds, session by session. Everything stays on the device.

Vagal Sense turns beat-to-beat heart rate data into simple wellness insights.

Pair a compatible chest heart rate sensor and record short sessions at rest, during a practice, and afterwards. Vagal Sense reads heart rate and RR intervals from the sensor's standard Bluetooth Heart Rate Service and shows a tachogram - a beat-to-beat heart rate curve - together with well-known variability measures such as RMSSD and SDNN.

HRV AND VAGAL TONE, IN PLAIN LANGUAGE Heart rate variability (HRV) is the difference in time between one heartbeat and the next. It changes with your breathing: inhaling speeds the heart up, exhaling slows it down. That oscillation tied to the breathing rhythm is known as respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and it is one of the most studied ways to observe vagal tone - the activity of the vagus nerve, part of the autonomic nervous system.

Vagal Sense does not interpret those numbers for you. It shows the curve, computes the indices and leaves the reading in your context: how the night went, how the day went, what you have just done.

WHAT YOU CAN DO • Record short sessions and see beat-to-beat heart rate as it happens • Follow guided breathing with a visual, audio and haptic pacer • Adjust your breathing pace and watch the response on the curve itself • Compare rest, activity and recovery within the same session • Get suggested self-care practices grouped into Restoration, Rhythm and Expansion • Save session summaries and export a PDF to share or keep • Track how your sessions evolve over time

FOR PEOPLE WHO WORK WITH THE BODY Osteopaths, physiotherapists and exercise professionals use Vagal Sense to organise what they already observe in practice: record a session before and after an intervention, keep the summary with a note, and compare it with a session from weeks ago. The PDF report comes straight off the device, ready to file or hand to the person you are working with.

BUILT FOR EVERYDAY USE • Works fully offline - your sessions stay on your device • No account and no sign-up required • No data is sent to servers, the cloud or analytics services • Password-encrypted export, so your history travels when you change devices • Available in English, Portuguese and Spanish • Light and dark themes

WHAT YOU NEED A compatible Bluetooth chest heart rate sensor that reports RR intervals. The sensor is not included. Watches and wristbands that only report average heart rate will not work: HRV needs the interval between one beat and the next.

IMPORTANT Vagal Sense is for wellness and sporting purposes only. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat or prevent any disease. For health decisions, consult a qualified professional.

Polar and Polar H10 are trademarks of Polar Electro Oy. This app is not affiliated with Polar Electro Oy.