Wearable Heart Rate Monitors for Predicting Meltdowns

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Interesting...

But can't the heart rate just increase from excitement in general? Like how would the monitor determine if its a sign of a potential meltdown...vs the kid just being excited in like a happy way about something?

But that little potential kink aside, I do wonder if this monitor could also be kind of used to help the child like perdict if they are getting overwhelmed so maybe they could use like some self calming before it results in a meltdown. I mean I just recall my meltdowns from childhood and seems it may have been cool if there was a way I could have seen them coming. Because it was always like things were fine..then all the sudden I'm melting down and wouldn't even know why. So Idk I wonder if there would be any way to use this to help children themselves identify if they may be nearing a meltdown.

When I was a young whippersnapper, one of the novelty devices that came on the market was called a Mood Ring. A mood ring is a finger ring that contains a thermochromic element, such as liquid crystal, that changes colors based upon the temperature of the finger of the wearer. It was an interesting idea but lacked the resolution to quantitatively measure stress loads or moods. But someday very soon there will be a device (similar to a Fitbit wristband) that will perform real time quantitative stress assessments. This device will be able to warn the wearer when stress levels are dangerously high and need to be remediated.

One needs a quantitative tool to assess body stress loading. When I first brought up this idea, the general response was an angry, “I know when I am stressed out.” My response is “Well actually, no you don’t, at least not with any real quantitative precision”. For example, when someone is sick with a fever, a parent can quickly tell if the child is sick by placing their hand on the child’s forehead and assessing warmth. (But the child may be unable to do this because the same mechanism that caused their head to get warm also caused their hands to get warm at the same time, and as a result, there is no temperature differential.) In 1868, Dr. William Neftel said that a physician practicing without a thermometer was like a blind man walking through the streets. A quantitative assessment of body temperature is important to finding the proper diagnosis. And in a similar manner, a quantitative assessment of body stress loads is an extremely important tool for an Aspie.

Changes in heart rate often co-vary with emotions. It is the pattern of the heart's rhythm that is primarily reflective of stress and emotional states, especially emotions that do not lead to large autonomic nervous system (ANS) activations or withdrawals. These changes in rhythmic patterns are independent of heart rate; that is, one can have a coherent or incoherent pattern at higher or lower heart rates. Thus, it is the pattern of the rhythm (the ordering of changes in rate over time) rather than the rate (at any point in time) that is most directly related to emotional dynamics and physiological synchronization. Also, the coherent state is fundamentally different from a state of relaxation, which requires only a lowered heart rate and not necessarily a coherent rhythm.

An existing device called an emWave uses a pulse sensor as a noninvasive measurement of the beat-to-beat heart rate. The sensor is connected to an emWave monitor that displays the heart rhythm in real time and calculates the level of heart rhythm coherence achieved.

Physiological coherence, also referred to as heart coherence or cardiac coherence, is a functional mode, measured by heart rate variability (HRV) analysis wherein a person's heart rhythm pattern becomes more ordered and sine wave–like, at a frequency of around 0.1 Hz (10-second rhythm). The term physiological coherence embraces several related phenomena—auto-coherence, cross- coherence, synchronization, and resonance—all of which are associated with increased order, efficiency, and harmony in the functioning of the body's systems. When one is in a coherent state, it reflects increased synchronization and resonance in higher-level brain systems and in the activity occurring in the two branches of the ANS (sympathetic and parasympathetic), as well as a shift in autonomic balance toward increased parasympathetic activity.

Heart rhythm coherence is reflected in the HRV power spectrum as a large increase in power in the low frequency (LF) band (typically around 0.1 Hz) and a decrease in power in the very low frequency (VLF) and high frequency (HF) bands. A coherent heart rhythm can therefore be defined as a relatively harmonic (sine wave–like) signal with a very narrow, high-amplitude peak in the LF region of the HRV power spectrum with no major peaks in the VLF or HF regions.
So the tools for measuring the stress levels in real time already exist. And I suspect that it will not be too long before this technology enters the mainstream.

I already know if a meltdown is coming on, because it's usually if I'm in a bad mood already, or having PMT, and alternatively I can control it if I want.

I was reading a book about interoception and one of the exercises they suggest to improve interoceptive awareness is to get a heart rate monitor and you can train yourself to become aware of your heart beating. I found a device CorSense that measures HRV and I plan to buy one soon and try it out. I have horrible interoception and don’t notice when I start to get worked up. I feel fine and then I feel completely overwhelmed, I don’t notice the build up in between. I’m really hoping they’re correct and this is trainable because I would love to notice when I start to get uncomfortable. I’m not a fight or flight person though, I’m a freezer, so I guess I’d have to find a way out of that too.