Marijuana Boosts HRV – so says Whoop Data
More: Detailed Whoop Review and accuracy analysis
I find the statistics on marijuana usage from Whoop quite incredible. These statistics were recorded by Whoop users who have tagged certain days as ones in which they have used marijuana. Whoop has then correlated those days against other performance metrics. There are some very interesting findings, at least I thought so.
Firstly, it’s important to note that Whoop users are almost certainly way more active and fit than the average population. Additionally, it’s possible that a certain type of fit person might use marijuana while a different type of person might not. It’s also important to consider that Whoop has gone in search of correlations rather than starting out with a theory and then testing it. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the findings.
Who uses the stuff (or at least tracks it)?
It seems like about 1 in 10 of you do. Jeez. I’m surprised. And it’s mostly relative youngsters in the 20-29 age group who most often use it.
When?
Perhaps unsurprisingly the recreational nature of this is skewed heavily towards the weekend
The Kicker
Here’s the crunch. The only stat here that might be significant is that HRV is 3ms higher (ie ‘better’) for those NOT taking marijuana. Even rHR is higher for those who take it, in my naivety I assumed it was a relaxant.
Take Out
There you go. Your parents were right. Don’t do drugs.
As whoop concludes
Overall, we saw no significant impact to WHOOP members’ next-day recovery after logging marijuana use.
Thinking about it, some people may have tagged Marijuana meaning CBD/cannabis oil
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correlation != causation
it is quite reasonable to think that mj users might do so because they are stressed. the differences are not statistically significant anyway
yes and a i said above, theyve effectively done a data mining exercise to find the correlations. if you check enough things then one of them will correlate…that’s how a lot of ‘science’ works to get results but it should be frowned upon
Sorry to be a bit off-topic, but regarding HRV is there still a way to “trick” some Garmin watches to save HRV data during a workout? I found an old article of yours that mentions something about putting a fit file in some directory but the file seems missing…
just enable HRV…it’s in the system options menus somewhere. you’ll need a chest strap
Can’t find it on an Instinct 2. Seems weird since it’s a recent watch, but really can’t find it anywhere…
system/data recording/
same place as where you set smart recording
it might not be on the Instinct at all.
Yh it’s not there. Which seems really strange since it captures HRV during sleep. Anyway, thanks for the help.
yes but hrv during sport can only come from a chest strap.
i assume it’s just not an instinct-level feature
Yes, I’m using a chest strap. But apparently the Instinct line doesn’t have this feature…