Active Breathing
SATHeart has developed a biofeedback (self-coaching) platform based on sound-guided breathing. We call this technology Active BreathingTM. Breathing techniques are used nowadays in many fields from hospitals to sport coaching and psychotherapy. Using psycho-physiologic feedback loops, Active Breathing can improves your heart, vascular and breathing functions and releases the accumulated stress.
Active Breathing is based on monitoring your blood pulse wave with sensors such as your phone camera or third party devices. The data captured by the sensor are securely transferred to a cloud which extract the health metrics such as a Breathing Score, Heart Rate, Heart Rate Variability and Synchrony. The final health metric is your Energy Balance. Remote physicians, therapists or just friends can visualize your health metrics in real time if you share your private key. The platform is deployed on Android, iOS and as a WebApp.
Energy Balance
A key concept at SATHeart is the Energy Balance which is quantifies between -100% and 100%. The origin of this concept is from Eastern culture which envisage health as a balance between different energies sometimes boosting sometimes calming. Stress is thus viewed as an imbalance which can be temporary or chronic which should be treated seriously. The Extreme stress is quantified with an Energy Balance of 100%, while a complete relaxation has an Energy Balance of -100%. Neither of these extremes when maintained for long periods are healthy.
The Energy Balance value is a result of the analysis of the heart blood pulse wave under three aspects: Rhythm, Pattern and Neuro-Cardio-Respiratory Synchrony. These three components are analyzed to give you an Energy Balance score which reflects the fundamental functions of your nervous system, heart, respiration and the coordination of all three.
Another very important quality of the Energy Balance is that it refers to the person’s own healthy state reference. Indeed everyone is different and comparing two persons is impossible unless we have information about their health history individually.
We have implemented the Energy Balance using medical health metrics which are measured with our VitAlgos. The Energy Balance has been tested in laboratory as well as during sleep. Our Apps show and register your Energy Balance such that you can use it as a life compass to better manage your health. Too much stress and the compass arrow points to the far right and too much laziness and it points to the far left.
Breathing Score
Conscious Breathing is the ground of a healthy lifestyle. Quantifying the way we breathe is thus essential. SATHeart developed a way to quantify breathing using the information contained in the heart rhythm. The Breathing Score expressed in percentage is based on quantifying how the heart rhythm varies in amplitude, regularity and frequency.
Typical applications
- Lifestyle support
- Stress management
- Cardiovascular rehabilitation
- Pregnancy and postpartum stress and depression management
References
Patrick Celka, Niclas Granqvist and Herbert Schwabl, Traditional Tibetan Pulse Reading in the Digital Era, Sowa Rigpa magazine, No 3, pp 11-17, 2020
Patrick Celka, Niclas Granqvist, Herbert Schwabl and Stephen D. Edwards, Development and evaluation of a cardiac coherence index for sleep analysis, Journal of Psychology in Africa, Vol. 30, No. 1, 44–52, 2020
Patrick Celka, Niclas Granqvist, Herbert Schwabl, Michaël Lutz, Breathing Rhythms Extraction from Photophethysmogram, SATHeart Internal Report, January 23, 2021
Patrick Celka, Niclas Granqvist, Herbert Schwabl, Self-Coordination: The Signal Shape Factor, SATHeart Internal Report, June 14, 2021
Patrick Celka, Niclas Granqvist, Herbert Schwabl, Energy Balance: Holistic Health Quantification, SATHeart Internal Report, June 13, 2021
If you are interested to have copies of some of these articles please contact us.
SATHeart Team