Tag Archives: HRV

New Graphs: SweetBeatLife Update!

Yes, you read it right! There is a SweetBeatLife update available, which includes brand new enhanced graphs. The graphs are completely interactive and allow for a better view of your SweetBeatLife metrics.

Key features of the new graphs:

Zoom in by putting your pointer finger and thumb on the graph and moving your fingers away from each other. Double tapping the graph can also be used to zoom in.
Zoom out by using the same two fingers and making a pinching motion.
By holding your finger down on the graph, you will create cross hairs to pinpoint.
There is a yellow circle with an “I” in the middle of it in the top right corner which opens up the graph’s key.
Turning your phone to the left will give you a landscape view.

Note: If you do not see these graphs when you open SweetBeatLife, this means you have to manually install the update. You can do this by going to your App store, click on the bottom right tab labeled Updates, and install the SweetBeatLife update.

See below for examples of the new graphs:

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We have been constantly working on SweetBeatLife to make it the most full functioning heart rate variability (HRV) application you’ve ever used. We hope you enjoy these new graphs as much as we do!

Happy Quantifying!

Visualizing HR, HRV, and GSR While Watching ‘Interstellar’ by Bob Troia

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This blog repost is from one of our more “connected” users, Bob Troia, also known as Quantified Bob. Bob enjoys tracking and analyzing his metrics based on the effects of many factors such as, his Bulletproof Diet, his glucose reading, even his personality type. To see exactly what Bob is tracking and read into his prior experiments go to his blog.

Interstellar

In this case, Quantified Bob took something as simple as watching the movie, Interstellar, and turned it into a Quantified Self experiment. He used a Polar H7 to capture 3-hours of biometrics, specifically RR-Intervals. The SweetBeatLife app then uses clinical grade algorithms to analyze the data. Anyone with one of our applications and a heart rate monitor chest strap (BTLE) can do the same. Bob exported his heart rate and heart rate variability data from SweetBeatLife, and his Galvanic Skin Response from a Basis B1. Read below to see his heart rate and heart rate variability response.

Heart Rate

“Interestingly, my heart rate trend (on the left, below) looks very similar to the original Reddit user (on the right)! Both of us are using data from our wrist-worn Basis devices – in my case, the older B1 model, and for the Reddit user the newer Basis Peak. Although the Peak is capable of capturing more samples, the data returned from Basis is always an average value for each minute.

However, SweetBeatLife is recording data at a resolution of 1 sample per second via the Polar H7. The per-second pulse data is a little bit jumpy and hard to follow (in gray), so I’ll also include a 60-second moving average as well (in blue):

It looks very similar to the data recorded by my Basis. Good!

Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Heart Rate Variability uses a technique in which the spaces between heart beats are measured, and is a good way to measure stress via an individual’s “flight or fight” response (the higher one’s HRV, the better). There are a number of ways HRV can be calculated, and in this case we are using what’s known as rMSSD (root mean square of successive differences). You can check out Wikipedia for a pretty good overview of HRV.

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Not only can Bob see when the movie had him in sympathetic versus parasympathetic but he can point out when he was having deep thoughts of gravity and space. Bob was also able to determine that there is, “an inverse relationship between heart rate and HRV, which makes sense – if your heart starts beating faster, you are most likely encountering more stress, which increases your sympathetic response and thus lowers HRV.”

Interview with Ronda Collier: How Heart Rate Variability Can Help You Manage Stress by Primal Blueprint

Author of “Less Doing, More Living” interviews Ronda Collier

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ari

Ari Meisel interviews Ronda Collier on HRV. See below for a summary and a list of topics. At the bottom you will find a link to the original podcast.

Summary:

In Episode #104 Ari talks with Ronda Collier, CEO of SweetWater Health™, a company striving to revolutionize mobile health monitoring and stress management by combining verified medical research with the most recent mobile-tech innovations. During their conversation, Ari and Rondatouch on the frequently overlooked value of Heart Rate Variability and the future of health technology.

7 Key Points:

The heart does not beat at a consistent interval like a metronome
Stress isn’t “bad”; How we react to it – our inability to come down – is what makes it bad
People who are in constant “fight or flight” mode normalize stress in their brains, which makes it difficult for them to institute change because these individuals don’t “feel” stressed
Monitoring HRV is a great way to maximize recovery from physical training and keep track of stress
When HRV levels are low do “busy work”; When they are high do “creative work”
Sensitivity to certain foods can significantly impact stress and HRV levels
Good nutrition, consistent exercise and self-awareness are the pillars of healthy living

Time Stamped Show Notes:

02:05 – Happy Thanksgiving from Ari and the Less Doing Team!
02:55 – Felix and Ari address tryptophan
- Editor’s Note: Ari mentions that tryptophan occurs naturally in the body – he meant to say the opposite, we can only get it from outside sources vl

03:25 – Tryptophan is not what makes us tired…overeating makes us tired
07:56 – June 9^th-12^th of 2015, Ari will speak at the Fortune Leadership Summit
19:27 – Ronda discusses her background and the journey to founding SweetWater Health
20:40 – HRV: Heart-Rate Variability
22:28 – It’s not that stress is a bad thing of and in itself…it’s how quickly we can recover from that stress.
23:00 – Why should we care about HRV? Why even track it?
25:55 – SweetBeat and how the SweetWater apps work
27:00 – The SweetWater and the Vital Connect HealthPatch
29:57 – HRV has been used by athletes for decades to help them mitigate the risks of overtraining
29:05 – How can HRV monitoring work for a non-athlete?
30:50 – SweetBeat can alert people to everyday behaviors that induce commonly overlooked stress
32:10 – Meditation has always been a challenge for Ari
33:15 – How Ronda personally uses her HRV monitoring tools
33:39 – The bucket of willpower
34:30 – When HRV is low; do busy work. When HRV is high; do creative work
34:45 – When you are “in-flow”, HRV starts to go up naturally
35:32 – Food sensitivity and how it relates to stress
39:10 – Most people are not aware of modest heart rate spikes
40:23 – The future of SweetBeat
41:35 – The value of correlation
43:27 – Ronda’s Top 3 Tips for Being More Effective:
43:43 – Improving nutrition; eating fresh
44:00 – Being self-aware of what’s going on inside your body
44:30 – Exercise, even minimally, every single day
45:10 – BeatHealthy.com

Click here to hear the podcast!

Triathlon World Summit Tickets Available Now!

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The Triathlon World Summit brings you experts that will teach you their tips and tricks to improving performance and health.

Our very own, Ronda Collier, has been interviewed for the Triathlon World Summit. She will be speaking about upping performance using heart rate variability for training. Register now for free! Ronda’s interview will run LIVE November 21st and 22nd. There are a total of 25 coaches, athletes and visionaries speaking between now and then, including our partner Ben Greenfield! View the schedule on their website.

They will play several of the interviews live and free. To get access to all of the information (over $600 in educational information, videos, slides, etc.), you must purchase the digital access pass.

FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY: digital access presale tickets are available for only $47 until event starts. The event begins on November 9th, at 2 pm PST. Get your presale tickets now!

View nearly 30 HOURS of multi-media interviews between Kristian Manietta and the world’s experts and thought leaders on:

COACHING: The Coaches who are helping you remove the noise so you train better, improve health while also helping you get to the performances you desire even when the time you have to train seems against you.

NUTRITION: The Nutrition specialists helping change the game by getting you more metabolically efficient, recovering quicker, and not destroying your metabolism or long term health in the process.

THE MENTAL GAME: The NLP expert, the lessons from World Champions and the Coaches helping you learn how to develop this crucial 6 inches between the ears so you don’t fall short.

MOVE BETTER: The Movement specialists giving you the keys to better economy. Want more power, speed, better fuel efficiency and the ability for you body to endure.. then you need to learn from these guys.

The Triathlon World Summit is packed with so much information—answers you’ll need so Triathlon doesn’t wreck your health but improves it while helping you get the performances you desire — you’ll not only watch it once, but also keep it on hand for future reference!

“CrossFit’s dirty little secret..” – by Joe Bauer

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Joe Bauer is a fitness and weight loss expert with over 13 years of experience as a CrossFit coach and personal trainer. Joe’s known as AllAroundJoe on his blog. He was able to make some very interesting discoveries using
SweetBeatLife’s HRV for Training feature. Read below for his blog post and a link to the full podcast.

“When it comes to CrossFit it’s easy to get addicted. You start to see improvements, it’s fun, you see more improvements, you’re looking amazing, you see more improvements, you’re getting competitive, you see more improvements, you push even harder, you start to feel like crap.

You cannot figure out why you feel like crap. You’ve been eating great. Mostly Paleo, lots of calories.

You workout all the time. Sometimes up to 2 hours a day. You drink tons of water. You take all of the recommend supplements for muscle growth and recovery.

Lake Chelan Ice Bath

In order to start feeling better for your workouts you take pre-workout supplements loaded with caffeine, or drink coffee. It works for a little while, and you crush workouts.

What you don’t realized is that you are fatiguing your insides. You hormones are drowning.

Finally you hit a wall. You can’t sleep (or you can’t stay awake). Your energy levels just don’t feel right unless you’re jacked with caffeine.

And finally you’re workouts start to suffer. You can’t hit the numbers that you used to hit, and when you tell your body to push… it literally shuts down, and you can hardly move.

When you ask your coach they probably say to take some time off, and eat more.

You take a week off, and when you get back to CrossFit you feel better. Well, you feel better for a few days or weeks. It really depends on how many times you’ve gone through the overreaching cycle.

The problem is that every time you train you don’t fully recover.

Eventually your hormones can’t keep up. And in my case it was my adrenal glands.

These are the glands that are located on top of your kidneys, and produce that hormones that are responsible for your fight or flight (sympathetic), and rest & relax (parasympathetic) nervous systems.

In my case the fight or flight system became fatigued, causing all of the above symptoms.

The initial feeling of fatigue is what lead me to the Ben Greenfield podcast, and the SweetBeatLife iPhone app.

The SweetBeatLife app measures your Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and the power of your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.

The coolest things is that the HRV can tell you how recovered your body is, and if it’s ready for another CrossFit workout. It will literally tell you to have an easy workout day, or even take the day off. It does this when you simply open the app and take your heart rate for 3 minutes in the morning.

The SweetBeatLife app is so beneficial that I’ve asked ALL of our competitive athletes at StoneWay CrossFit to start using it daily. If the app says to take the day off there’s no arguing.

We all want to get better, and we get better during rest from hard training.

I’ve always told people to listen to their bodies, but the real truth is that we can listen, but without tools like the SweetBeatLife app we have no idea what our bodies are saying.

In this episode you learn about CrossFit and overtraining, plus…

The HRV tracking Sweet Beat Life app.
Where to learn about HRV.
What heart rate monitor that I’m using.
And much more.

Resources and links mentioned in this podcast

Sweet Beat Life app for iPhone
60Beat Heart Rate Monitor
Ben Greenfield Fitness HRV/SweetBeatLife Podcast #1, #2, #3

*above could be affiliate links. I get a small commission if you click through them and buy, but they in no way make the products cost anymore. If you decide to use them please let me know so I can thank you.

Listening options

Help me out!

If you haven’t done so already, it would totally help me out if you could give me a quick iTunes review by clicking the link below. My goal is to help as many people as possible with this podcast, and each review helps me get more people listening.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/allaroundjoe-podcast-fitness/id690333495“

iOS 8 and Bluetooth

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There is a known Bluetooth issue on Apple’s newest iOS 8. Many of you have noticed this issue is affecting your heart rate monitor Bluetooth connection (along with car connections, headphones and speakers). Note: If you have not updated to iOS 8, we do not advise doing so.

Already updated to iOS 8?

According to Apple developers, they have resolved the Bluetooth issues in the new iOS 8.1. This version is rumored to release on October 20th. It is our highest priority to assist Apple in fixing this issue. We want our users to get their daily HRV readings!

The good news!

We have submitted a new version of SweetBeatLife and Bulletproof Stress Detective to the app store, which includes a working firmware update for iOS 8 and the HealthPatch. As soon as it is processed by Apple, it will be available for download. SweetBeatLife and Bulletproof Stress Detective users with the HealthPatch will be ready to run sessions on iOS 8.

Note: Once the apps are processed by Apple, we will send out an email to let users know to update their HealthPatch firmware.*

Update Your App!*

SweetBeatLife and Bulletproof Stress Detective users can update their applications. This update includes SweetBeatLife 1.2.2 or Bulletproof Stress Detective 1.0.2 with a pre-installed firmware update for the VitalConnect HealthPatch. The HealthPatch is now compatible with iOS 8!

How come the HealthPatch works but other Bluetooth Low-Energy (BTLE) monitors may not work?

For security reasons, the VitalConnect HealthPatch uses a more complex “handshake” to connect via Bluetooth. BTLE chest straps use “open” Bluetooth. Apple hopes to resolve the open Bluetooth issues in the new iOS 8.1.

How do you update?

Some of you have your app store set to update automatically. If you want to see which version of software you are running, select the General tab > About. If it matches with the mentioned versions you are good to go! If it doesn’t – go to your device’s App Store. You will see the Updates tab (bottom right corner) > Update SweetBeatLife or Bulletproof Stress Detective. If it says, “Open”, you already have the most recent version.

SweetWater Health

BeatHealthy™

Tag Archives: HRV

New Graphs: SweetBeatLife Update!

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Visualizing HR, HRV, and GSR While Watching ‘Interstellar’ by Bob Troia