App Profile: HeartBreath HRV

Did you know that your heart beats faster during inhalation and slower during exhalation AND did you know that this is good for you?

The technical term is RSA (respiratory sinus arrhythmia) - a good arrhythmia controlled by your autonomic nervous system.

High variability of the heart rate stands for a good autonomic balance and activity of the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and relaxation nerve).

HeartBreath is a biofeedback tool, that addresses exactly this relationship between breathing and heart rate.

The app guides you through a simple slow-breathing exercise (with pictures and sounds), while detecting and displaying the intervals between your heartbeats. You can measure, train and evaluate your personal status. No additional hardware devices are needed. HeartBreath is able to detect heartbeats by positioning your finger on the lens of the phone’s camera.

KEY FEATURES:
Integrated VaYou Sound Flows, which provide an exceptional sound experience on acoustic pacing.

High quality and customizable control of the bio-feedback exercise with pictures (you can work with pictures from your photo library) and sounds.

Live display of the current heart rate and variability values while recording.

In just a few breaths, HeartBreath is able to compute your resting heart rate.

No additional hardware is needed. The calculation works with a finger on the lens of the iPhone’s (or iPod’s) camera (for iPad only device models with flash). Optionally, an external heart rate monitor can be used. For compatible devices (Polar H10) display/recording/evaluation of true ECG data is supported. As a special extra, the app allows the comparison of data between the finger on the camera and the heart rate monitor.

Unlike many other HRV apps, HeartBreath offers a precise visualization for every single heartbeat and, if necessary, tools for interactive correction of the beats. This is very important for the high reliability of HRV parameters, since single ectopic heartbeats or data artifacts can result in strange adulteration of HRV values.

Integrated tools to determine your optimal breathing speed. Various studies show that each person has an individual optimal RSA breathing rate in the range between 4 and 7 breaths per minute.

Trend evaluations over longer periods of time.

HeartBreath integrates with the Apple Health app.

Privacy is important to us! The app does not require registration and you have full control over the data of your sessions, which is only stored on your phone.