Continuous Monitoring of HRV in Esports Players

This study investigates heart rate variability (HRV) as a physiological indicator of stress and performance in competitive esports players, using continuous monitoring during live gameplay. Using Hexoskin smart shirts, the authors recorded time-domain HRV (SDRR) across esports sessions in a small cohort of male players, examining differences between winning and losing teams as well as changes over the course of games. The work is framed around a central question: whether wearable HRV measurement can meaningfully reflect in-game stress and performance outcomes.

The principal findings show that esports sessions produced a significant drop in RR intervals and high-frequency HRV, consistent with a stress response, and that most players exhibited reduced SDRR near the end of games, suggesting that certain in-game events elicit similar autonomic patterns across individuals. At the team level, HRV correlated strongly with session activity (r = 0.78), yet correlation at the individual level was weak and inter-player variability was high. Notably, the winning team displayed lower mean SDRR than the losing team, a result that contradicts prior literature linking higher HRV to better cognitive performance. The authors attribute this discrepancy to intra-team variability and a limited sample of ten players, with two devices failing to record.

The authors conclude that HRV is a sensitive marker of stress and shows a moderate association with esports activity, but that it cannot be reliably tied to performance without high-resolution gameplay context. They recommend further research and suggest possible biofeedback applications. The supporting reference base draws mainly on sports-performance studies of HRV biofeedback and athletic outcomes, alongside clinical cardiology literature on HRV as a prognostic marker, situating the esports findings within a broader autonomic monitoring framework.