My resting heart rate has crept up 12 beats over the past year on my Whoop. Should I be concerned?

A sustained resting heart rate increase of 10 bpm or more over several months, in the absence of an obvious explanation (increased training load, illness, medication change, significant stress), is a finding worth bringing to a cardiologist. Resting heart rate is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, and sustained elevation above the personal baseline can reflect: increased sympathetic tone (from chronic stress, poor sleep quality, caffeine excess, or early adrenal dysregulation), reduced cardiovascular fitness (if training volume has declined), thyroid overactivity, early cardiac dysfunction, or significant anemia. Each requires a different response.

The wearable is doing its job here: tracking trend over time is exactly what a device worn daily should do, and the trend it has identified is clinically meaningful. Elevated resting heart rate above 80 bpm is independently associated with cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in large population cohort studies, and even in lower ranges, a directional shift of 12 bpm over a year deserves investigation. Bring the trend data, a graph is better than a single number, to your physician and ask for a workup that includes thyroid function, complete blood count, and a discussion of cardiovascular risk. (Cooney et al., European Heart Journal, 2010)

Cardiologist's calibrated position, Solid (1) for sustained resting heart rate trend increase as a clinical finding worth investigating.

What to do: Export 12 months of resting heart rate data from your wearable app. Bring the trend graph to your physician with specific month-by-month data. A graph communicates more clearly than a description.

For the full picture, read What Your Apple Watch Is Trying to Tell You.