What If Your SweetBeat Stress Level Is High Because of Coherence?

10 Replies

Many of you are using SweetBeat for one of its several useful functions (stress, heart rate variability [HRV] for training, food sensitivity testing, etc.). Many of you are using HeartMath technologies in conjunction with SweetBeat – which we fully support! The Sweetwater Health team and HeartMath are front leaders in the HRV movement and long-time partners.

emWave® technology is based on learning to change your heart rhythm pattern to create coherence; a scientifically measurable state characterized by increased order and harmony in our psychological and physiological processes.

“Personal coherence, also known as psychophysiological coherence, refers to the synchronization of our physical, mental and emotional systems. It can be measured by our heart-rhythm patterns: The more balanced and smooth they are, the more in sync, or coherent, we are. Stress levels recede, energy levels increase and our brain and what HeartMath calls the “heart brain” are working together. It is a state of optimal clarity, perception and performance.” – As defined in the HeartMath FAQs.

SweetBeat has three main components: HRV for Training, stress monitoring and food sensitivity testing. If your body goes into a state of coherence, it will have an effect on your stress monitoring.

Below are some tips on how to understand your SweetBeat numbers:

  • There are industry standards for low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) ranges

–     LF = 0.04hz – 0.15hz

–     HF = 0.15hz – 0.4hz

  • Coherence is associated with a “spike” at 0.1hz frequency (LF)
  • The SweetBeat stress levels are associated with a high LF with respect to HF (high LF/HF ratio). Because coherence is associated with a high power spike at 0.1hz, which falls into the HRV definition of LF, coherence shows as high stress in SweetBeat.

Here is an example of a coherence spike at 0.1hz:

fftspectrum

  • Very high power in the LF range (0.04hz – 0.15hz; blue) and little to no power in the HF range (0.15hz – 0.4hz; red). This is coherent data represented in Kubios

This is what a SweetBeat “Heart Rate Graph” looks like during coherence:

sweetbeatcoherenceHR

If you haven’t already, download SweetBeat and start quantifying! Compatible heart rate monitor required for stress management and HRV for training.

Please email support@sweetwaterhrv.com with any additional questions.

10 thoughts on “What If Your SweetBeat Stress Level Is High Because of Coherence?”

  1. quantifiedathlete

    How do these low and high frequency ranges correspond to the power frequencies that get output within the app?

    I constantly register high stress values and am pretty sure I’m not that stressed, but also have never trained my coherence. Just trying to work this out.

    Cheers

    Reply ↓
    1. sweetwaterhrv Post author

      I’m so sorry you’re comment totally flew under my radar! We use scaled versions of the accepted ranges that are shown in the post. I think that you may be experiencing what we call “good” stress. Truth is a lot of times LF is higher than HF. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

      How to differentiate good and bad stress:
      Good Stress – power levels (LF/HF) of nervous system are high during good stress even if sympathetic (high LF) dominates. HRV increases when one is “in the zone” and highly creative
      Bad Stress – Fight or flight (high LF) response accompanied by low HRV and low power levels

      Hope this helps! Email support@sweetwaterhrv.com if you have anymore questions.

      Reply ↓
      1. Justin

        Can you show some graphs that demonstrate the differences of high power good stress vs low power bad stress? I think this explains what I have been experiencing, but I would like to compare my charts to something. Thanks.

        Reply ↓
        1. sweetwaterhrv Post author

          Hi Justin,

          Thanks for using SweetBeat! I will work on getting some examples into a post about good and bad stress. In the meantime, feel free to check out our HRV Explanation Guide – http://www.sweetwaterhrv.com/documentation/HRV_Measurement_Explanation.pdf. Slide 10 has some information on good and bad stress.

          “An unexpected realization about how to identify good stress from bad stress
          Good Stress – Power levels of nervous system are high during good stress even if sympathetic (LF) dominates – HRV increases when one is “in the zone” and highly creative
          Bad Stress – Fight or flight response (LF) accompanied by low HRV and low power levels”

          Also, slide 7 has age-specific standards for HRV and power levels.

          If you have more questions, please feel free to email support@sweetwaterhrv.com.

          Reply ↓
      2. Sean Moorhead

        Hello. I am having the same issue. The app keeps telling me I am stressed but I am not. (I do practice coherence with Heart Math.)

        Is there any way to know quantitatively if I am having “good stress” or “bad stress”? You say bad stress is characterized by high “LF accompanied by low HRV and low power levels.” By “low HRV” do you mean lower than my normal? By “low power levels” what do you mean?

        Also, if it shows me I am at stress level 5 and I start my coherence breathing and I stay stuck at 5, is it safe to assume that I am experiencing “good stress”? (Unless I am being eaten by a tiger, haha!)

        Thanks and best regards,
        Sean

        Reply ↓
        1. sweetwaterhrv Post author

          Hi Sean,

          I know we previously had a conversation about coherence and how it affects your stress levels. I’m not sure if you ever read our HRV Measurement Explanation: http://www.sweetwaterhrv.com/documentation/HRV_Measurement_Explanation.pdf. Go to pages 8 & 9 to read about how coherence is presented in our application. It is easy to see if you are coherent in a session based on your heart rate. If it looks like the graph in the guide, then you are coherent. If the heart rate fluctuates more, then you are not coherent. Many people are chronically stressed and may not know it. It will be interesting to see which one is true for you.

          Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. You can email me at support@sweetwaterhrv.com.

          Cheers,
          Rado

          Reply ↓
          1. Sean Moorhead

            Hi Rado. Yes, I remember that. You are saying that after my session is done, I can look back at the Session Summary and say “I was not really stressed, I was in coherence.” I have looked back and I do not think that is helpful. 1. The waveforms tend to be compressed during longer sessions (the image you show is only about 18 breaths). 2. That does not keep me from the unhelpful situation of being stressed because I am in coherence, seeing the breath prompt, pausing and breathing, driving myself into a further “stressed” state because of going further into coherence, and wondering why I am not coming out of the stressed state.

            I’m looking for something different. I want to use the app throughout my day and have it trigger the breathing prompter EXCEPT when I am in coherence. Can you add some kind of a check box that allows me to selectively disable the breathing prompter when I’m in coherence? You don’t have to implement a full FFT of the data (like the Kubios image, above). You’d just need a calculation of power between a range of, e.g., 0.095-0.105 Hz (or whatever). It is very frustrating when the breathing prompter kicks in, I stop what I am doing, focus on my breathing, and stay in deep red stress (because coherence caused the algorithm to say, I was in high stress).

          2. sweetwaterhrv Post author

            Sean,

            That is a great recommendation. I will pass it on to the team and see what they think. In the meantime, there is a way to turn off your alerts. Go to your Monitor screen in the app, select the settings wheel in the top right corner. Make sure your stress and heart rate alerts are turned off (not showing as green). If this does not work, let me know. Feel free to email me at rado@sweetwaterhrv.com so I can help you faster.

            Cheers,
            Rado

  2. Allie

    Can you show an HRV graph for this coherace session? I was wondering about this so I really appreciate the information

    Reply ↓

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