There is a certain truth to the adage, "A heart skips a beat" to refer to the heart's action when they are in love. I was first reminded of this as I watched an episode of "how I met your mother" where Barney FINALLY has an inkling of romantic feeling towards someone else. Interestingly, that episode was playing as I was working on my research on heart rate variability (HRV).
In short, and to avoid boring academic jargon, HRV is a measure of how the heart fares with outside stress. If the person is undergoing some sort of specific stress, let's say for example, they are encountered with a bear, that experience will signal the heart to beat at an accelerated and consistent heart rate, as opposed to when a person is not under such stress. Likewise, when a person is relaxed, and sometimes, even happy, their heart rate between beats becomes variable.
And in enters "how I met your mother", and how the doctor found that at a certain time in the day the heart monitor reported a "skip in heart beat". This happened exactly when he first saw Nora (his first potential ROMANTIC love interest) in the date. Theories behind HRV and its purpose are still up for debate (at least from what I have read). Some say it relates to heart disease (there is a HUGE debate regarding that). In other words chronic low HRV (constant high heart rate) is risk factor/marker for heart disease. In Barney's case his heart wasn't high, but it was a variant of HRV whereby the intervals between beats were longer. If this is the case, it may imply that love and or the concept of it allows us to be in a pleasant state that is very good for you, physiologically speaking. So yes, maybe there is a truth to that adage "your heart skips a beat", and yes, it could have implications for great cardiac health!
So be in love as much as you can, because, apparently, it's good for your heart.
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