heart coherence simulator user manual june 22 2010

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HEART COHERENCE SIMULATOR

June 22, 2010 version

Paul Chin



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HEART COHERENCE SIMULATOR

June 22, 2010 version

Paul Chin

www.webcambiofeedback.com



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Copyright © 2010 by Paul Chin

All Rights Reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any

means without written permission of the author.



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This book and Heart Coherence Simulator

are dedicated to my amiable wife and best friend Annie and

my two adorable sons Adrian and Darren, all of whom

are the raison d’etre and inspiration for my passion

in biofeedback.



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PREFACE

This is the second program after my first one PC Webcam Biofeedback was released on May 22, 2010.

This second program draws its motivation from emWave’s Desktop by Heart Math. The emWave is an

excellent software that teaches you how to achieve heart coherence using the Quick Coherencetechnique. I have high admiration for the genius and simplicity of emWave. And so, I set out to build a

similar one which could work with any ordinary webcam. And I have tested it against emWave and

surpisingly I found it to be quite accurate in depicting heart coherence. I hope you will find it useful as I

have. It is not a substitute for emWave of course, but if you want to have something that is free and

works almost like emWave then this would be a good bet. Personally I use both. At the office or in

situations where it is not so convenient to take out my emWave earlobe sensor, I can just use the

webcam. However this first version does not have any games. I may add some games in future versions.

As before, this is a non-profit project so feel free to distribute it to all your friends and loved ones.

May you have good health and peace always!

Paul Chin

June 12, 2010




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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 7

2. HOW IT WORKS ........................................................................................................................... 10

3. HOW TO INSTALL ........................................................................................................................ 11

4. CALIBRATION ............................................................................................................................... 12

5. HOW TO USE .................................... .......................................................................................... 16

CREDITS ........................................................................................................................................... 19



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1. INTRODUCTION

Heart Coherence Simulator (HCS) uses any ordinary webcam to detect breathing to simulate heart rate

variability (HRV). It is also known as non-contact computer-vision-based biofeedback. Because you do

not need to use sensors on your finger or earlobes or any parts of the body, it is convenient and easier

to use compared to more traditional biofeedback systems. The program detects whether you are

breathing in or out and also measures how deep and how fast you are breathing. It then shows you a

live graph of your breathing together with the variables, viz. volume, rate, and whether you are inhaling

or exhaling. With the Quick Coherence (by Heart Math) technique (discussed later) , your breathing

becomes deep and smooth and HRV becomes regular. You become relaxed and more peaceful. This

improves your overall well-being.

DEEP BREATHING & HEART RATE VARIABILITY (HRV)

Did you know that when you breathe in, your heart beats faster and when you breathe out it slows

down? Figure 1 shows how breathing affects the heart rate. This change in the heart rate which is based

upon breathing is called heart rate variability (HRV). For a healthy person, heart rate is flexible and

closely follows breathing. This is known as respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA).

The reason deep breathing is good is because it causes HRV to also become smooth and regular (Figure

1). When HRV is regular, we say there is heart coherence. This brings about deep healing and

improvement in physical and mental health. On the other hand, when breathing is shallow and irregular,

heart rate is also irregular (Figure 2). Irregular HRV is unhealthy. An unhealthy person (stressed) has a

rigid heart rate which does not closely match the breath.

Figure 1. Smooth and regular breathing causes smooth and regular heart rate variability (HRV)



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Figure 2. Irregular and shallow breathing causes irregular heart rate variability (HRV)

* Note that breathing is measured in breaths per min, whilst heart rate is measured in beats per min. Figures 1 and

2 are approximations between breathing and heart rate variability for illustrative purposes only. In actuality they

are not identical, but quite close.

Positive emotions (eg. appreciation, care, love, peace, joy) can also bring about regular HRV, whilst

negative emotions (eg. frustration, anger, resentment, anxiety) causes irregular HRV. The easiest

emotion to have is peace. It comes automatically when you breathe from the chest (discussed later).

Note:

We have also compared HCS with emWave and found it to be quite consistent in depicting HRV. While it

cannot actually tell you the heart rate, it can show you the graph of the breath. And from the above

discussion, we know that the graph of the breath resembles the HRV graph once coherence is reached.

Hence, we postulate that it is possible to use the breathing graph to train for heart coherence. The

breathing graph correlates with the heart rate graph (once the breathing is deep, regular and smooth) .

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8UThsfZXAo for a comparison study.

WHERE TO GET IT

You can get your free copy of Heart Coherence Simulator from:




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Be sure to also get the latest copy of this book (the one you are currently reading):

Heart Coherence Simulator

SUPPORT AND INQUIRIES

You may contact us for support or inquiries at:

[email protected]

[email protected]



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2. HOW IT WORKS

Through the webcam, HCS detects breathing via motion-tracking in the chest region. When a person

breathes in, the chest rises and conversely, when a person breathes out, the chest collapses. Using

computer vision motion tracking algorithms, HCS detects this rise and fall of the chest and then

calculates the breath volume, rate of breathing and whether the user is breathing in or breathing out.

Figure 3 shows the architecture of the system.

Figure3. Heart Coherence Simulator system (HCS)

The system then makes use of the variables to display a graph of the breathing. If the breathing is

regular and smooth, the heart coherence ratio color will turn green. A cumulative score of high

coherence is depicted via a bar graph. The goal is to try to score as many high coherent points as

possible.



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3. HOW TO INSTALL

Installation is easy – there is nothing to install. After unzipping the file, just click on the Heart Coherence

Simulator.exe file to launch the game. It would be a good idea to create a desktop shortcut. Just right-

drag the exe file to the desktop and select create shortcut here.

System Requirements:

This software has been tested on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, with minimum hardware being

pentium dual-core processor and 1GB RAM using webcams with resolutions 640 x 480 (any ordinary

webcam). It has also been tested on built-in webcams found on laptops (eg. DELL, Toshiba, HP, Compaq,

Acer, Lenovo) but should work for other PCs too.

If you get an error message saying, no webcam, close the program, enable a webcam and re-start again.

You also need .Net Framework 2 (or higher) on your PC. If you are using Vista or Windows 7, it is already

there. But for Windows XP, you may need to download and install it from Microsoft. How to know if you

have it? Just try to run, if you get error (eg. mscoree.dll not found), then you need to download .Net

Framework 2.



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4. CALIBRATION

For HCS, calibration simply means making sure you are sitting in a position whereby the webcam can see

your chest properly. To calibrate, click on the Start button.

Figure 4. Main screen

Figure 4 shows the main menu that opens up when you launch the program. Calibration is necessary in

any biofeedback system.



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Figure 5. Calibration screen (webcam 640 x 480 resolution).

Figure 5 shows the calibration screen that appears once you click on the Start button. The green graph

shows the rise and fall of your chest. The bluish image is your image. Those parts that has movement

shows up as blue. If you kept absolutely still, the background would be pitch black. The horizontal

orange line marks the middle of the screen. Anything below the line is detectable as motion. Any motion

above it is ignored. If you get a webcam display as shown in Figure 6, it means that the webcam’s

resolution is only 320 x 240 and this would not work with HCS (your graph would be flat and

unresponsive). You need to get one that is of resolution 640 x 480 which is the standard webcam.



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Figure 6 Webcam 320 x 240 resolution not suitable

Make sure that your chest is visible. Preferably half the screen should be filled with your chest. It is not

necessary to detect the head – only need to detect the chest. You should be leaning backwards on the

chair. Do not sit straight upright and especially do not lean forward in your chair. You should always lean

back. This makes the rise and fall of the chest more apparent to the webcam. Secondly, you should sit as

close to the webcam as you can. The nearer it is, the more easily it can detect slight movements in the

chest. This makes the graph have a higher peak-to-peak amplitude – which is good. It means the system

is more sensitive to your breathing.

Figure 7. Incorrect and correct seating positions

Figure 7 shows some incorrect and correct seating positions. Note that once you are seated, try not to

change your position. Doing so may cause the webcam to lose visibility of your chest and you may have

to re-calibrate again. Also, do try to keep still, except for the breathing movements in your chest. Once

you have finished calibration you may close the calibration window. Alternatively you may keep it open



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so that you can keep a lookout for it as you use HCS. If you happen to move out of range of sight of the

webcam you need to re-open the calibration window and align yourself to the webcam again.



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5. HOW TO USE

Once you have calibrated, focus on your chest area where the heart is. Imagine that you are breathing

from the heart. Imagine air coming into the heart in the chest and going out from the heart as you

breathe out.

Figure 8. Graph on top, bottom left is accumulated coherence score, bottom right is coherence ratio

GRAPH

The graph indicates breathing and is a general approximation of heart rate variability (HRV). When the

breathing is deep and regular and produces a smooth wave, heart coherence is achieved.

HEART CONCSCIOUSNESS

(a variation on the Quick Coherence Technique by Hearth Math)

To achieve high coherence, focus on the chest area of the heart. Imagine the breath coming in and going

out of the chest. Focus on the peaceful feeling coming from the heart and allow yourself to sink into it.

You could also take deep breaths and enjoy the peaceful sensation. Think of a happy memory, or,



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imagine something nice, or someone or a pet you love or care about, or, a beautiful imaginary place, or,

something funny, anything that makes you feel good. Smile. If you dislike something, then ask yourself

what is it you would have instead. Then imagine yourself already getting it. Then feel the change of the

emotion from negative to positive and breathe this emotion from the heart. If you are unable to get any

positive emotions from any visualization or any good memories, then just focus on the heart breathing.

As you put your whole attention on the heart, your breathing will deepen automatically. You can gently

assist the process by taking easy deep breaths. You will begin to feel the deep peace as you shift from

mind-dominated living to heart-based awareness which is infinitely vast, still and joyful. You could also

practice Metta Bhavana (Buddhist meditation on loving kindness). Remember, your awareness must

always be on the heart.

COHERENCE RATIO

(Bottom right of figure 8)

There are three boxes, Low, Medium and High. When the coherence is low, the Low box will be lit in red.

When coherence is medium the Medium box will be lit with blue and when coherence is high, the High

box will be lit with green. Try to get high coherence (green). You can change the difficulty level by

selecting the Challenge Level using the combo-box on the top left. The default is Challenge: Low. If you

find it difficult to get green coherence, change to Challenge: Very Low. Only increase the challenge level

if you can consistently get maximum Accummulated Coherence Score (discussed next) with at least 80%

green coherence. There are 4 Challenge Levels: Very Low, Low, Medium & High.

ACCUMULATED COHERENCE SCORE

(Bottom left of figure 8)

The accumulated coherence score shows the cummulative score of your coherence level. It will update

every 10 seconds. So if you are in green coherence, you get 4 points. For blue it is 2 points, for red minus

1 point. Try to increase the height of the blue bars. You can do this by hitting green coherence ratio

more often. Once the blue bar reaches maximum score, the game will stop and you can replay again by

clicking on the Start button. If you have mastered the Low challenge level, then increase it to Challenge :

Medium then play again. You should aim for at least 80% green coherence ratio, before changing to a

higher challenge level. The ratio is indicated by the three boxes on the bottom right of the screen in

Figure 8.

CALIBRATION WINDOW

If you had earlier closed the calibration window, you can re-open it by clicking on the Edit menu.



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VOLUME

On the status bar, volume refers to an arbitrary unit of measure of how much air you inhale. As you

breathe in, volume increases and as you breathe out, it decreases.

RATE

Also on the status bar, rate refers to how fast you are breathing in breaths per minute. If your breathing

is irregular (with many pointy spikes), then rate will be high even though your inhalation and exhalation

is slow. This is how HCS is able to calculate your heart coherence ratio.

RECORDTHISSESSIONRECORDTHISSESSIONRECORDTHISSESSIONRECORDTHISSESSION

Check this box to record the raw volume data to a text file called hcs.txt which is in the same folder as

this program. Used for data analysis with other programs, eg. SPSS or Excel. For, example you could

import the file into SPSS for correlation analysis with other biofeedback devices.



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CREDITS

1. Heart Math for the excellent emWave Desktop program from which this project draws its

inspiration.

2. Gary Bradski for Opencv tracking & motion libraries.

THE END

heart coherence simulator user manual june 22 2010

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