When the 24-year-old wakes up in the morning, she receives a report on the quality of the night’s sleep. In the reading room, she gets an overview of her stress level hour by hour that same morning. At lunchtime, she looks at her watch to find out how her body reacts to different foods. – I ate pizza on Monday with someone in the class and there was a high stress level throughout the evening. It was absolutely sick, says Arntsen. The 24-year-old is one of several who actively relate to stress measurements and relatively new concepts such as “body battery”🔋. More on this in the next section. – I often wake up with a body battery at 100 per cent, but it drains throughout the day depending on what I do. If I stress a lot, it drains quickly, she says. Anne Sofie Arntsen says she can see on the heart rate monitor that the body likes some foods better than others. Ultra-processed food and heavy meals create a stress reaction, she says. Photo: Marthe Svendsen / news Extreme interest The 24-year-old got the inspiration for this lifestyle from general practitioner Torkil Færø’s book “Pulskuren”. The book has been on the general literature bestseller list since it was released. The author says the response has been overwhelming: – It has been absolutely extreme. I was completely unprepared for the amount of interest and inquiries from all sides, says Færø. The lifestyle change the doctor recommends involves using heart rate monitors, such as heart rate monitors, to monitor the stress level in the body. Then take active steps to reduce stress. Torkil Færø is a general practitioner and author of the book Pulskuren. Photo: Privat Pulse watches measure the stress level in the body by measuring pulse and pulse variation, also called heart rate variability (HRV). But what is heart rate variability, you may wonder? When you are stressed, your heart rate is equally high on inhalation and exhalation. When your body is in resting mode, your heart rate is faster when you breathe in than when you breathe out. This is called high heart rate variability and is positive. It is linked to lower stress levels and general good health. Pulse variation and measurements The body’s autonomic nervous system has the job of maintaining the body’s basic functions. Such as blood pressure breathing and digestion. The autonomic nervous system consists of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is particularly activated in stressful and demanding situations. The activation will lead to changes in the body, such as the heart beating faster, the blood vessels dilating, the blood supply to the digestive organs decreasing and the airways expanding. The pulse variation, i.e. the difference between the pulse on inhalation and exhalation, becomes lower. The parasympathetic nervous system is activated when we relax. The activation leads to the opposite of what happens when the sympathetic nervous system is activated. The pulse variation becomes higher. Much research has been done on heart rate variability in the last thirty years. There is broad agreement about the connection between high heart rate variability, lower stress levels and overall good health. The pulse clock’s measurements of pulse variation are made by an optical sensor on the underside of the clock. They are based on pulse changes at the millisecond level. When Anne Sofie Arntsen’s watch indicates that she is stressed, it is partly because she has a low heart rate variability. If Arntsen checks her “body battery”, this is an overview of how much available energy she has, according to heart rate monitor manufacturer Garmin. This is affected by the amount of stress throughout the day, the company believes. Little research has been done on the body battery, but there is broad agreement that pulse variation is related to stress and general health. Anne Sofie Arntsen checks information about her stress level in real time on her watch. Photo: Marthe Svendsen / news Understand your own stress General practitioner Torkil Færø advises people to use a heart rate monitor to better understand what stresses us, and how big an impact it actually has on our health. According to Færø, alcohol, late meals, ultra-processed food, smoke and snuff, little sleep and eating foods you cannot tolerate cause stress. In the same way, the heart rate monitor will be able to show how breathing techniques, meditation, time-limited eating and cold baths get the body into rest mode, says the general practitioner. What do you use the heart rate monitor for? Training 🏃♀️ Stress measurements 😖 EVERYTHING! Adjust sleep, diet, exercise, activities and stress 🧠 Want others to think I’m sporty 💋 Show result – But are the watch’s sensors precise enough to pick up pulse variation? – Yes. I have used EKG meters that are attached to the chest in parallel and have at times worn five different meters. And then I’ve seen that the heart rate monitors are good enough, absolutely, says Færø. But far from everyone agrees with the doctor about whether we can trust heart rate monitors. Critical to precision Ulrik Wisløff is professor and head of the Cardiac Exercise Research Group at NTNU. He says the heart rate monitors’ measurements are not precise enough. If you use the heart rate monitor for several years, it may eventually be able to notify you of changes in your state of health. – But this requires a long time to collect data before you can benefit from it, so it is not just about buying a watch and trusting HRV today, says Wisløff. Ulrik Wisløff leads the research group Cardiac Exercise Research Group at NTNU, and is critical of the heart rate monitor’s measurements of pulse variation. Photo: Per Ingvar Rognes Wisløff receives support from Stephen Seiler, professor of sports science at the University of Agder. Pulse variation measurements are useful, but heart rate monitors do not measure this well, says Seiler. That’s because the wrist is a bad place to put a sensor. – Should we use the heart rate monitors’ measurements of heart rate variability to adjust how much we sleep, how late we eat, what activities we do and how much alcohol we drink? – Our experience of studying training processes in athletes over several decades indicates that one should not rely on just one variable to guide behavior and habits. That is the recipe for disaster. I would therefore never recommend this approach, says Seiler. Stephen Seiler is professor of sports science at the University of Agder. He says measurements of pulse variation are a good tool, if the measurements are precise. Photo: University of Agder Michael Thorp is a doctor and specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation. He and his colleagues actively use heart rate monitors and measurements of pulse variation in the treatment plan for post-covid patients. Thorp believes heart rate monitors are useful and are becoming very accurate in their measurements. Unicare Bærum, where Thorp works, is now creating a treatment plan where all patients must have a heart rate monitor and accompanying app. – Both for registration, mapping but also as a tool for psychoeducational follow-up, says Thorpe. Michael Thorp is a doctor and specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation. He and his colleagues use heart rate monitors and measurements of heart rate variability to treat post-covid patients. Photo: Privat Doubts about our own experiences Technologies such as heart rate monitors can change the way we perceive ourselves. Emil Røyrvik, professor of anthropology, thinks so. He says heart rate monitors can make us doubt our own subjective experiences. – Turning ourselves into numbers that we manage according to seems alienating, says Røyrvik. The anthropologist says that turning health into numbers is alluring, because it gives us a sense of direction and control. – The figures appear objective, true and neutral. They are not necessarily, he says. Røyrvik also believes that stress measurements can reinforce the problems they are trying to solve. We get more stressed by dealing with the measurements and not being able to live optimally, he says. Anthropologist Emil Røyrvik points out that so-called intimate technology is part of a larger social tendency to measure and quantify, i.e. to express something in a measurable size. Photo: Privat Saying no to alcohol more often Anne Sofie Arntsen (24) does not feel that she gets more stressed by watching her heart rate monitor. She finds it exciting to learn more about her own body and health. Arntsen himself has seen that the stress factors mentioned by general practitioner Torkil Færø have a major impact on the clock. Poor sleep and alcohol have a particularly negative effect. – I say no to alcohol more often now than I did before, because I know how much it affects. I get really bad sleep, even from a small glass of red wine. It is thought-provoking, she says. Arntsen thinks it is exciting to see how the timing and content of meals affects the heart rate monitor’s stress measurements. Photo: Marthe Svendsen / news The 24-year-old has also experienced that watching TV, knitting, yoga and the computer reduce the stress level and get the body into rest mode. – I don’t let the clock decide everything, but use it more as a guide throughout the day, she says.
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Uses heart rate monitor, heart rate and heart rate variability HRV to make choices about food, sleep, exercise and alcohol – news Trøndelag
