The Mustard Seeds approach to wellbeing is primarily based around management of physiology. Our mental and physical health are often closely connected, and lifestyle interventions that boost physiology are often a good starting point as it is relatively easy to track habits and recognise progress.

Wearable fitness devices have come a long way in the past few years and can be very useful to help motivate us and record what we are actually doing. They vary in cost and sophistication, but a basic one that record heart rate and movement can be a useful addition.

I had one of the first Apple Watches eight years ago - at that stage I found it rather intrusive as it seemed quite judgmental and it was a bit like wearing a fitness coach on my arm. Since then, the software on all the wearables has become more inclusive and less judgy - I can now record a quick walk pushing my mum and not feel like it’s a cop out!

One of the biggest changes in the latest generation is their ability to record heart rate variability (HRV) as well and your basic heart rate. HRV refers to the variation in time between the beats of your heart. These are actually signals from your nervous system. Your heart takes direction from your autonomous nervous system, which regulates the bodily functions like breathing, digestion and blood pressure - the things that happen ‘automatically’.

When you are relaxing, your heart rate slows, which shows your parasympathetic nervous system is driving responses. When you are stressed or excited, your beats faster, showing your sympathetic nervous system is in charge. Heart rate variability (HRV) reflects your body’s ability to manage signals from the two competing branches of the autonomous nervous system. You can learn a lot more about that in one of our training sessions. So, a higher HRV means that your body is managing changes in stress levels effectively and is able to make the most of relaxation. In contrast, a low HRV may mean you are not managing stress well and your sympathetic nervous system is driving things a little too hard - in short, you aren’t in balance.

This technology is at the early stages in terms of wrist wearables, and so it isn’t very accurate compared to a reading a proper chest monitor could take in a supervised medical situation. But it can alert us to trends, and it can help us to see whether our the lifestyle changes advocated in the Mustard Seeds approach are having benefits.