2011-2018
After experiencing a cardiac event in 2007, I became intensely interested in the science of health behaviors and habits, and began experimenting with technology to support self-tracking and self-improvement. In 2011, I discovered Portland’s local Quantified Self meetups, eventually becoming one of the QS organizers, and giving presentations at their national and international meetings. In a QS presentation, an individual must describe their own self-tracking experiments, reporting three things:
- What did you do?
- How did you do it?
- What did you learn?
This first presentation was delivered at the worldwide QS Conference in Amsterdam.
This second presentation describes my HealthESeat project, an effort to make “seat time” less harmful by encouraging me to exercise my legs while performing computer work.
HealthESeat was a “full stack” project. It included furniture modifications, proximity and rotation sensors, an LED biofeedback light, an Arduino microcontroller, and finally PC software to accumulate data and present visualizations of trends over time. Later, I added an EKG monitor for heart rate variability measurements.
I’ve found Heart Rate Variability (HRV) to be one of the most interesting physiological measurements. Research has associated it with physical health as well as psychological resilience. I’ve experimented with ways to measure it — using either EKG or PPG biometric sensors — and ways to use it as real-time biofeedback, as well as long term tracking of trends, as described in this QS presentation from 2015.
I’ve seen benefits from my self-tracking efforts, but an even greater benefit has come from meeting such interesting people in the QS community. These associations planted the seeds for my post-retirement business, Wearable Health Labs LLC.