Re: Well-being - Calm in Your Palm

From Wear-Hard Mailing list Archive (WH) Maintained by R. Paul McCarty

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reminds me of wireless heart rate monitors that were/are the fad back in=20
the early 90s,  with regards to the heart rate monitors sure for training=
=20
it maybe useful to exercise within a certain range inorder to achieve the=
=20
highest VO2max possible, in practice, it became a hassle.

Back to this sleeptrackerwatch,   what happens when after using it you=20
find your never awake!?or asleep!?   that would be weird.

reading the site "No, you should not use SLEEPTRACKERr to shorten your=20
regular night's sleep. Physicians recommend getting an average of 8 hours=
=20
of sleep per night."
-bummer, as since Napoleon, or before it seems various militaries use an=20
at min standard of 5ish hours.

many medical interns go with far less than that 8 hours.

best low sleep to productivity theory/practice i've read about is 90min=20
sleep, with 5-7 active.  again it depends on what you are doing, a 5 time=
=20
olympic goldie, credits sleeping in over 8hrs at least twice per week,=20
10hrs or such.

  On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Sebastien Duval wrote:

> Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 10:59:56 +0900 From: Sebastien Duval=20
> <> Reply-To: Wearable Hardware Discussion List=20
> <> To: ML Wear-Hard <> Subject:=20
> [Wear-Hard] Well-being - Calm in Your Palm

>=20
> The StressEraser is used to relax the wearer. I have also seen devices=20
> that monitor sleep (SleepTracker), and blood content (GlucoWatch).=20
> Anybody knows if some people really use such equipment? * [SleepTracker]=
=20
> http://www.sleeptracker.com * [GlucoWatch] http://www.glucowatch.com
>
> For the GlucoWatch we even have a publication:
>> Tierney, M., Tamada, J., Potts, R., Jovanovic, L., Garg, S.,
>> and Cygnus. Clinical evaluation of the GlucoWatch
>> biographer: a continual, non-invasive glucose monitor for
>> patients with diabetes. Biosensors and Bioelectronics,16, 9
>> (2001), 621-629.
>
> --=20
> Sebastien Duval, from Tokyo (Japan)
> SOKENDAI - National Institute of Informatics
> ----
> Source: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar06/3044
>> Calm in Your Palm By: Samuel K. Moore Biofeedback device promises to
>> reduce stress
>>=20
>> Standing in front of a room of over a hundred software developers at
>> the height of the dot-com boom, Michael Wood suffered a paralyzing
>> panic attack. Wood had reached the end of his tether after months of
>> grinding work and regular commutes between New York City and London.
>> He quit his job and devoted himself to understanding=E2=80=94and
>> beating=E2=80=94stress.
>>=20
>> The result is a sleek, solid, handheld biofeedback device called the
>> StressEraser, built by New York City=C2=ADbased Helicor Inc., which Wood
>> founded with his business partner, Adam Forbes. Essentially, the
>> StressEraser is an aid for deep breathing exercises, which are
>> commonly prescribed to alleviate stress. The device tells you just
>> when to inhale and when to stop. It does this by divining the state
>> of your nervous system by some clever analysis of your heart rate=E2=80=
=94and
>> thus indicating when you should take those deep, relaxing breaths.
>>=20
>> Basically, the device is a pulse oximeter integrated with a display
>> and a microprocessor. Pulse oximeters identify heartbeats by the
>> variation in the amount of light absorbed through the skin of your
>> finger as fresh blood pulses through it. The StressEraser monitors
>> your heart rate to identify the activity level of the vagus nerve,
>> one of 12 nerves that emanate directly from your brain rather than
>> through your spinal cord. The vagus nerve connects with your heart,
>> lungs, stomach, and all the other organs in your gut. It carries a
>> variety of mellowing signals from the brain, such as the one that
>> tells your stomach to slacken when you start eating and your heart to
>> slow down when it's time to relax. [For the vagus nerve's role in
>> depression, see "Psychiatry's Shocking New Tools," in this issue.]
>>=20
>> The relaxation signal is the one the StressEraser is programmed to
>> measure. Under the influence of vagus nerve activity, your heart rate
>> is almost always either accelerating or decelerating. Medical
>> researchers have known for decades that you can deduce what's going
>> on with the vagus nerve by following these heart-rate variations.
>> Roughly, when the time between two heartbeats doubles, the amount of
>> vagus nerve activity doubles, too. Wood and Forbes built on this
>> observation by working out, over four years, algorithms that can
>> predict when the nerve activity is about to peak and detect the start
>> and end points of a wave of activity.
>>=20
>> The StressEraser uses all this information to help you relax. You're
>> relaxed when vagus nerve activity is gently rising and falling.
>> Breathing exercises can produce this state, and they're most
>> effective when your breathing is synchronized with your vagus nerve
>> activity. The StressEraser tracks this activity and gives you an
>> audible and visual cue just ahead of the nerve's peak activity by
>> plotting tiny changes in your heart rate as a line moving across the
>> device's screen [see photo, "Sit Back and Relax"]. At the cue, you
>> exhale, counting in your head to a prespecified number, then you
>> inhale until the next cue as shown by the plot. The counting gives
>> you something to focus on, rather than letting your mind wander to
>> bothersome thoughts, and you can adjust the number you count up to,
>> based on what's most comfortable for you. What you're trying to
>> achieve is large, smooth sinusoidal changes in your heart rate. The
>> StressEraser rates your sinusoid on a scale of one to three, with one
>> being the roughest and three being the smoothest. Unlike other
>> biofeedback products, the device will give you a low score if your
>> relaxation is interrupted by emotionally charged thoughts, which show
>> up as a jaggedness in the heart-rate waveform. This feedback teaches
>> you to let go of those thoughts.
>>=20
>> In all fairness, I'm a tough nut for this kind of product to crack.
>> First, I find it difficult to stick to any kind of routine that
>> involves self-indulgence. I can't get to the gym regularly or
>> reliably remember to pack a lunch. So managing to use the device
>> three times a day for a whole week, as recommended, was out of my
>> reach. Luckily, guilt is an excellent motivator. I happened to run
>> into Helicor's Forbes at least three times while I was reviewing the
>> device. Each of those encounters led to a renewed dedication to spend
>> time staring at my heart-rate waveform.
>>=20
>> My second problem is that I'm one of the more mellow people I know.
>> So I couldn't very well expect a revolutionary decrease in my stress
>> level. That said, the device did relax me in every environment I
>> tried it in. A usually tension-inducing subway ride home was almost
>> refreshing. I nearly fell asleep in my office during one afternoon
>> session. And my ability to concentrate while working amid the clutter
>> of home seemed a bit improved following 5 minutes of
>> technology-assisted breathing.
>>=20
>> The StressEraser is easy to use and well designed, having a slim
>> stainless steel exterior that lends the device a bit of gravitas. My
>> only quibble is that I would have preferred a button marked "menu"
>> that would allow you to adjust all the device's key settings, such as
>> whether or not the cue is audible. Instead, setting adjustments are
>> distributed among the three buttons on the device.
>>=20
>> At a price of $399, the StressEraser is primarily intended to be
>> prescribed by physicians, but anyone can buy one. Helicor certainly
>> means it to be taken seriously as a medical device and is
>> manufacturing it under U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines
>> and participating in clinical trials. Two of those trials, for the
>> device's use in insomnia and in general anxiety, should be complete a
>> few months from now. Soon, stressed folks all over could be breathing
>> easier.
> ----
>
>
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