Acutality: Heart rate variability, allows you to assess the state of the autonomic nervous system, which is useful for studying the condition of athletes, including endurance athletes, for example, ski racers. The stress index indicator is often used to assess the impact of stress on a person. It is shown that the stress index is closely correlated with the intensity of metabolism and with the indicators of energy consumption of the body.Objective. To provide information on the values of the stress index for athletes depending on a number of factors, including their sports specialization, and for ski racers on the volume and intensity of the training load during the preparatory, competitive, transitional periods of the ski season.Materials and methods. The literature analysis in the Pubmed database for the last 10 years in English and Russian languages has been carried out.Conclusion. A review of the literature on the magnitude of the stress index showed that athletes who train for endurance, this indicator is low, especially among ski racers, if it is compared with the magnitude of the index in representatives of other sports, as well as with healthy people who do not play sports. There is no information about the value of the stress index in athletes in foreign literature, but there is such information in the domestic literature, which allowed us to present this review, which also includes the results of our research.