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Mindful Leadership and Technology

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Quantified Self Technology Heart Rate Monitor HRM Samsung S9

Samsung Galaxy S9+ and Heart Rate Monitor

Posted by Jonathan FriesJonathan Fries on .

I finally replaced my old phone last week and opted to go with the S9+ because it has the built in Heart Rate Monitor (HRM). This was useful for being able to measure Heart Rate Variability (HRV) without needing an external, specialized HRM to do so.

I was also intrigued by the HRMs purported ability to measure blood pressure, which is a new feature. In the past you needed a blood pressure cuff to measure blood pressure.

Here is what I have learned so far:

  1. There is only one app (as of this writing) that can use the blood pressure technology for the built in HRM. That app is the My BP Lab app. You can find it here. This is a wellness focused app (akin to Welltory), so it does other things in addition to measuring blood pressure. The app used blood pressure along with other health/stress informaiton you provide to make lifestyle and wellness recommendations. I don't have any recommendations yet, so I don't know how well it works. You can use the app without the S9 HRM, but you need some other way to measure your blood pressure.
  2. The sensor currently requires you to input an initial blood pressure reading from an external source at the same time that you take your baseline reading using the HRM in the device. Without the additional baseline reading it can only measure differences in blood pressure as a % change from the baseline.

The ramificaiton of number 2 is that it isn't really capable of measuring blood pressure, it's measuring something and then it can measure differences from that. Those readings and changes can be interpreted into a blood pressure reading as long as you have an initial reading to go along with the baseline. It's still neat in my opinion, just something to be aware of.

It may that this changes over time and as they collect more data (from Quatified Self nerds, such as myself) they'll be able to do blood pressure directly. I'm interested to find out.

I've been using the app for about a week and I had to do one recallibration using my Qardio blood pressure cuff.

The early morning reading I got from the app seemed off to me. I double checked with another device and it was off. So I re-baselined in the app. The app allows you to do this, which seems like a good feature and also possibly a bit telling.

I don't know how it handles previous measurements if you do a rebaseline. It certainly seems to call their validity into question. I'm pretty sure that, at least for the app's purposes, it is going to assume their correct and keep them around. I don't have any reason to feel that other, earlier, readings were off. They seemed in line with what I got with Qardio throughout the day, though I wasn't comparing them side by side every time.

Yes, I own a Bluetooth blood pressure cuff. Why wouldn't I?

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Technology Simple Cloud

Sometimes Mindfulness, Sometimes Repairing the Blog Site that You Blew Up

Posted by Jonathan FriesJonathan Fries on .

Today's lesson: always be smart before you're stupid. This helps you prevent some damage from your stupidity. If you're stupid first, anything can happen.

For the first time in a good long while I missed my evening meditation because I was repairing this site. Sorry if you cam here and got the 502 Bad Gateway message.

I started an upgrade process as I was leaving work, but by the time I got home I realized I had done something bad.

Blog site down. Bad Gateway! Bad! Bad, naughty, awful, shameful gateway:


Then my kids had scouts and I didn't really get to jump in and fix it until about 8:45 PM.

The solution for me was, ultimately, not to fix it. I have backups of everything, and I am not a Linux admin or even much of a user anymore. What I needed to do was:

  1. Start a new VM from my backup disk image.
  2. Delete and reimport content in ghost.
  3. Zip images on old VM and restore them on new VM.
  4. Change the DNS entries to point to new VM.
  5. Shut off old VM and release the IP address.

All of this should have taken about 20 minutes if I did it right the first time.

It took about an hour because I had to figure several of the steps out along the way.

It's kind of amazing that you can do this. You do need to be careful with backups - make sure you have them, make sure you back things up frequently and before you do anything dumb.

Always backup before you do ANYTHING that's dumb.

But once you have your backups, and once you have reached a state of self-awareness that allows you to ensure that you make them before making mistakes, the cloud makes the world a very simple place. Kudos Cloud Makers (Google in particular) you saved me a lot of time. Also, Ghost - their backup and recovery worked pretty well. I shouldn't really have had to do steps 4 and 5, but it was still pretty painless.

I'm a little sad that I couldn't fix whatever problem I created, but sometimes you must cut your losses and provision a new VM.

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Mindfulness HRV Quantified Self Heart Rate Variability

How to Improve Your Brain and Have Fun Doing It

Posted by Jonathan FriesJonathan Fries on .

As I have been pursuing my journey related to mindfulness and stress-reduction, I've been applying things to my life and seeing what helps and what doesn't.

If I divvy up 20 - 30 minutes of meditation time and use 3 different biometric devices, am I getting the same value as if I just sat there for 30 minutes and meditated?

I'm probably not.

I think that a lot of meditation and mindfulness practitioners and experts would probably take exception to what I'm doing.

At the same time, it's fun for me to do it this way, I get to play amateur scientist and try out technology I'm interested in.

I also get to look at different signals from the body and understand a bit better how they work.

This is fun for me.

Also, I get to write blog posts about them and that is also fun.

On the subject of playing amateur scientist and HRV and mindfulness, I've started using Welltory.

When it comes to HRV, Welltory does a great job of providing interpreted results and education. They provide a lot of information and integrate with a lot of other products that I use (FitBit, Google Fit, Qardio).

Welltory very much encourages the 'try it and see' or 'amateur scientist' approach to quantified self, which aligns well with how I do things. They encourage you try things and see if they help.

All of this puts me squarely in the realm of 'Quantified-Self Nerd'. Which is OK with me, I think. I'm turning the stress and stress management into a fun and interesting activity, which helps reduce stress.

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HRV Heart Rate Variability Leadership Mindfulness

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and You

Posted by Jonathan FriesJonathan Fries on .

Looking at HRV is not like looking at basic bio-data data like steps, calories, or resting heart rate.

As a measure of variability over time it is both more powerful and a bit harder to understand.

I'm currently using two different app/hardware combos to look at information related to HRV.

The fist app is called Biostrap. It provides hardware and software for looking at sophistcated biometric data including HRV. I'm currently only using the wristband, and only looking at HRV.

I'm also using Complete Coherence's Android App with a Polar H10 heart rate monitor. The Complete Coherence app doesn't provide you with direct information on HRV, but offers you insight on how well you are using their breathing exercises which are designed to improve HRV.

As a result, the Complete Coherence application is a little bit more intuitive, though not as clean or modern looking as Biostrap. Because you are measuring coherence (their term) and not HRV directly they're a bit freer to make it easier to consume. It's a simple 1 - 100 scale with color coding from bad (red) to good (green).

Here some example graphs that it produces after (not during) a session:

The one challenge is that it is sometimes hard to tell why I'm getting the scores that I'm getting. I'm doing the breathing exercises and mostly that makes the score go up, though sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, there isn't a strong indication of what I could do better. With a bit of trial and error I discovered that playing with the breath-timing settings allowed me to get more consistent results. Presumably this means that there was a breathing pattern that better suited me and changing it (changed from 6 breaths-per-minute to 5 breaths-per-minute) produced improved HRV.

But I can't actually see that directly in the app.

In contrast, Biostrap is designed to provide you directly with HRV readings. This is considerably more involved process than just strapping on a writband and having it count steps or give you your resting heartrate.

The Biostrap hardware uses a clinical-grade photoplethysmogram (PPG) to gather much more precise heartbeat data than other PPG-based fitness bands.

Because the hardware is more purpose-built for heartrate it looks a bit more utilitarian (no displays or buttons) and it requires a little more handholding. You have to explicitly tell it to do a biometric session and when you are going to sleep.

The data that comes back is much more detailed and the analysis gives you a much clearer picture of the HRV measurements the app is taking. It isn't transmuted into a user friendly number or code.

As a result I can see what my HRV measurements are: I can see averages, I can see individual data points, and I can see trend information over time. The app has a clean, modern look which you can see here:

Yes, but what does it all mean you ask? What's good? What's bad? What's average?
The first answer I found was, 'It depends' and then, 'You're better off comparing against your self over time.'

And then I found this article that at least provides some guidance.

After all is said and done, my average is a tiny bit above the average for my age and gender, so that's good, I guess. Now I have a goal to work toward which is to improve on that.

Of course, Biostrap doesn't provide me with guidance on how to improve.

For that, I'm going to continue to use the Complete Coherence system for improving HRV, along with regular exercise and meditation. Hopefully I will see long term improvement in my averages. I like the Complete Coherence program (which extends well beyond HRV into other mindfulness-related areas). I am sharing it with some colleagues who are interested in improving health and new ways to manage stress and improve energy.

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Leadership Mindfulness

Personal Energy and Leadership - How Are You Feeling Today?

Posted by Jonathan FriesJonathan Fries on .

As I've mentioned in the last couple posts I'm reading Dr. Alan Watkins' Coherence: The Secret Science of Brilliant Leadership. It explores the connections between body and mind in detail as it relates to business leadership and management.

This is a subject matter that I've written about extensively on this blog.

The book has a lot of insights based on Dr. Watkins extensive medical and consulting work with business leaders, as well as brining together a lot of other science related to behavior and personal growth.

It's a powerful book and worth reading, even if you aren't interested in mindfulness or meditation. If you're interested in being a more effective leader, this book is for you, though it will almost certainly challenge your preconceived notions of what leadership consists of; how one approaches making improvements as a leader, and what a leadership book consists of.

You have never read anything like it.

One of the primary, liberating insights of this book is that time management is unimportant comapred with energy management. Our ability to be our best selves, project constructive energy, and unlock the discretionary efforts of ourselves and others is what matters as a leader in business. Managing a calendar pales in comparison to this.

How do you do this? And what are the revelatory insights presented?

You probably need to read the book to really understand them, but I will give you a brief glimpse.

Before you even begin to look at behavior or think about business results, you must consider the physiology and emotional components of our human bodies. Our higher brain functions and behavior rest on top of these foundations. If you ignore them then you are ignoring key pieces of the puzzle that affect our behavior and the behavior of others.

The book provides positive, concrete steps and exercises that can help you understand these things and use them to your advantage.

Give it a read, it is worth the time.

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Mindfulness Leadership Negativity Bias Know Thyself

Happiness and Survival - Conflict in the Body in Mind

Posted by Jonathan FriesJonathan Fries on .

Happiness is very different from survival. The human machine - our bodies and minds - evolved to increase the chances of our survival and the continuation of our genes and our species.

The mechanisms that helped us to survive don't promote happiness. In fact many mechanisms that helped us survive do just the opposite - they make us unhappy. They also promote illness and a loop of perpetual stress. Here are some examples:

  1. Negativity Bias - this is the tendency to see or seek out possible dangers in any given situation. The mind evolved this capability in order to protect us from danger - real or imagined. Better to imagine a danger that isn't there than to miss a danger that is. By being ever vigilant to danger, we prevent ourselves from being eaten by bears. We also increase our own tendency to see the negative side of our client's request for changes and that new corporate policy.
  2. Fight or Flight Hormones - These are hormones that are put into the body when you are under stress. They help you handle short term bursts of danger, but they cause long term break down of the body's systems. They were designed to be introduced when very significant immediate stressors were placed on an individual to power survival, they did not evolve to meet the demands of day-to-day stress of the modern work place where fighting or fleeing is not terribly useful.
  3. Chaotic Heart and Breathing Rhythms - this was also part of the fight or flight response and it evolved to AVOID the use of higher brain functions in times of immediate physical danger. When heart and breathing become chaotic they suppress higher brain function, this is why we may feel like our brain is not helping us out when we are 'on the spot' or 'on stage'. This is because the stress is causing erratic heart and breathing rhythms which impair our higher brain function.

The good news is that we understand all of these things now. We know that it is happening and we can do something about it.

The trouble is there isn't a traditional class you can take or procedure to address these things. They're emotional and physical and you must practice self-awareness in order to be aware that they are happening to you and do something about it.

The last two points come from Coherence by Dr. Alan Watkins, which I am currently reading. It is an excellent book and I recommend picking up a copy if you are interested in the human condition, physiology, business leadership, and the overlap of all those things.