heala
Recovery & sleep · 3 min read
Your recovery score, decoded signal by signal
Heala's recovery score compresses sleep, HRV, resting heart rate, yesterday's strain and a handful of lifestyle signals into one morning number. Here is how each nudges the score, why your baseline beats anyone else's, and what the number cannot see.
One number, many inputs
Every morning Heala prints one number between 0 and 100. It is a summary, not a diagnosis. Up to fourteen signals feed it, led by four: last night's sleep, heart rate variability, resting heart rate and yesterday's strain. Smaller ones — hydration, rest days, energy balance, a morning check-in — fill in the picture. Each is measured against your own recent baseline, not a population chart. The score answers one narrow question: how ready is your body to absorb load today. It does not know about your deadline, your mood or your motivation.
What each signal contributes
The score does not average four numbers; it starts every morning at a neutral 60 and lets each signal nudge it. Take a morning that lands on 72. A long night, well above your usual, adds fourteen points — sleep carries the heaviest weight. Rest days earlier in the week and hydration on target add six more. Yesterday's hard session takes four back, overnight HRV slightly below baseline takes two, and a resting heart rate two beats above usual takes another two. No single body signal can swing the score alone — HRV is capped at ten points either way.
Your baseline beats the population
An HRV of 45 ms is excellent for one person and a warning sign for another; resting HRV differs several-fold between healthy adults, so comparing yours to a friend's tells you nothing. Heala scores deviation from your own rolling baseline instead — and if you track your cycle, the HRV baseline is phase-aware, because hormonal phase moves HRV on its own. The same logic holds for resting heart rate: the signal is a reading two or three beats above your usual, not the absolute number. Give the baseline about two weeks; until then, expect wide error bars.
No watch, still a score
Sleep can come from your phone via Apple Health or Health Connect; strain comes from logged training and all-day activity. That is enough to compute a score. Exactly four signals need a sensor: overnight HRV, resting heart rate, wrist temperature and respiratory rate — the corroborating ones. Without them the score runs on thinner evidence, and Heala lists what is missing and marks the evidence level rather than pretending otherwise. If a device syncs later, the missing signals slot straight in.
What the score cannot tell you
A recovery score cannot see stress that has not yet moved your physiology. It cannot tell a hard training day from a bad night, three glasses of wine, late caffeine or a brewing cold — all depress HRV, and the score reports the sum, not the cause. And a single reading is noisy: HRV moves day to day even when nothing in your life changes. So treat one low morning as weather and a low week as climate. Adjust today's load on the score; change your plan only on the trend.
Read your score in 30 seconds
68 versus 71 is noise — both read Ready. Fresh, Ready, Fatigued or Depleted is the signal worth reacting to.
Find which signal dragged the score down. A low morning usually has one cause, not four.
Fatigued means cut intensity and keep the session. Depleted — or any low score plus symptoms — means rest properly.
One low morning is weather; three in a row is climate. Act on the run, not the day.
Quick answers
Do I need a watch to get a recovery score?
No. Heala computes a score from sleep and strain alone, using phone data and logged training. A wearable adds the four sensor signals — overnight HRV, resting heart rate, wrist temperature and respiratory rate — via Apple Health or Health Connect. Without one the score runs on thinner evidence and says so; when a device syncs, the missing signals slot straight in.
What is a good HRV number?
There isn't one. Resting HRV differs several-fold between healthy adults, so absolute values are not comparable between people. What matters is direction against your own baseline: a sustained drop is worth attention; a one-day dip usually is not. Heala scores the deviation from your rolling baseline, not the raw millisecond value.
Should I skip training when my score is low?
Usually no. A moderate score is a reason to cut intensity, not cancel — keep the session, lower the load. Skip entirely when a low score coincides with symptoms: illness, unusual soreness, or several poor nights in a row. Studies of HRV-guided training have found that adjusting hard days to the body's readiness works at least as well as a rigid plan.
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