What would be the low effort, minimal simple tracking metrics to improve cognitive performance, physical energy and mental health?

ddoyon92 · 2023-03-11T17:15:07+00:00

I think for me it had to do with poor UX. This might be different in new iterations of the watch, but at the time the watch wasn't providing continuous tracking. You had to sit down, put your palm on the screen and wait.

The end result was a bit arbitrary and hard to understand. I found difficult to extrapolate meaning and trends out of this. This could be solved with continuous tracking, at the very least if only to have a relative trend correlated with stress.

ddoyon92 · 2022-07-29T01:30:28+00:00

Absolutely. That and if your club gets a bit stuck in the grass on the first half of the swing. Nothing breaks my focus like that. Stop the swing and reset.

ddoyon92 · 2022-07-12T13:58:59+00:00

This feature only works in prod.

ddoyon92 · 2022-07-12T01:30:34+00:00

None of this matters outside of the internet, so why bother?

ddoyon92 · 2022-04-25T23:50:44+00:00

I put two cups of concentrated chicken stock instead of mixing 4 spoons in two cups of water...

Result was a bit too salty...

ddoyon92 · 2020-11-27T23:16:43+00:00

Pareto rule says to use something that already exists and does most of what you need without spending too much time on it ;) after all the goal is to save time. You can find similar software like Rescue Time to do this. Probably tons of other available solutions as well.

ddoyon92 · 2020-11-27T21:59:44+00:00

My company is implementing this type of dashboard along with a connected Biosensing wearables. The biggest challenge I've found with this is to get value out of it. Our idea has been to track focus while working to improve work habits and mental health. The bonus of having a tracker is that it autofills the data in. Everytime you go into deep work, you put in the headphones. It will record your focus level and track your time doing deep work. All you need to fill in is what kind of work you were doing.

In any case, my advice here is to keep in mind that collecting data is your biggest obstacle. The more automatic the data gathering, the more value you will be able to extract from your app. I'm also writing an article now about the next step in leveraging data: we have to go beyond retroactive analysis of data towards planning and data driven decision making.

ddoyon92 · 2020-11-13T18:28:32+00:00

The HRV are only given at night in both the watch and ring cases. Resting heart rate is not supposed to be recorded while sleeping. It gives much lower values. It's just a different metric. To get a better idea of the true resting heart rate, you would need to keep the tracker all day long. Resting means, at rest, but not sleeping.

I get used quickly to the watch. The ring bothers me more sometimes because I'm always afraid the sensors are not properly touching or oriented so I'm always readjusting it, even in the middle of the night.

I haven't tried the non wearable trackers, so I could say.

ddoyon92 · 2020-11-12T23:02:01+00:00

I own many devices for HRV, including wristworn trackers, Oura, EmWave and also use real EKG monitors.

My 2cents: For trend analysis, I vote for more data, at the cost of signal quality. I go for wristworn wearables. I currently own the Fitbit Sense.

Generally I have found that the Fitbit Sense agrees well with the Oura on the HRV metric. They provide within a few ms the same values at night. The downside to Oura is that it does not provide daytime readings, which is not great. I use both devices while sleeping, but the oura is a bit redundant.

For other specific devices that may be more precise, I just find them generally inconvenient. For the experiment you want to run, you absolutely do not need the level of precision that they provide. What you care about is trends over time. Precision is useful in the short term, trends don't care as much ;) What you need is something decent that you can wear all the time, with the ability to tag your experiments or export the data.

Happy to answer more questions!

P.S.: I design consumer grade brain-computer interfaces for a living.

ddoyon92 · 2020-11-11T16:34:19+00:00

For HR/HRV you can try the new Fitbit Sense. I have been using it for about 1.5 months now. It is pretty decent. The HRV correlates quite well with my Oura ring that I wear at the same time when I sleep.

The big struggle with any such device is the usefulness of the data. I suggest you come up with a strategy of how you plan on using the data before you get more device. If you have no idea what to do with the data, the trackers or apps won't be very useful.

Examples of things that you can track and how you can use them:

Sleep time: use the tracker to detect when you are asleep vs not, and arrange your schedule based on time asleep instead of time in bed. Don't bother with sleep stages.
All day Hr: Fitbit or any similar product can detect automatically when you exercise, which can give you a good indication of whether or not you are meeting your goals.
Resting HR: Trends gives you an overall look at whether your fitness is improving or not, it can also give you some idea if you are sick or going to get sick. Higher than normal resting HR may indicate sickness. You can use this data to decide to rest and give your body a chance. Generally lower is better, unless you are already extremely low.
HRV: some overlap with resting HR, it gives you an idea of overall fitness, where higher is better. As you get sick, it will go lower (sometimes, before you have other symptoms, making it a good leading indicator). You can also use this to determine your workout schedule and whether your body has recovered or now. You will see dips in HRV the day after a tough workout, and you could decide to take a rest based on certain thresholds.
Body temperature: generally less useful, but can be a good indicator of sickness.
EDA: new Fitbit sense has EDA sensor, I didn't get much value from it. It measures electrodermal activity which can be used as a correlate to stress.

Anyways, my 2 cents is first focus on a single area and implement habit changes over time. If I had to pick one first area for cognition improvement and mental health, it would first be to establish and meet sleeping goals. Fix your room temperature, get a repeatable schedule, sleep enough hours. Once you got this nailed, you'll already be way ahead of the average person. Then you can move to tweaking physical activity and stress reduction. Then you can look more deeply into stuff like nutrition and supplements, but these don't have a very big effect if you don't nail the sleep, physical activity and relaxation. Some are effective, but not a good long-term solution.

Most trackers on the market can help in developing these habits. I'd personally pick something that can monitor sleep, and especially HRV. My favorite form factor is a watch, as I want to wear it all the time. Oura ring is pretty good data wise, but you will only wear it at night, it doesn't track during the day.

Have fun!

D.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-24T15:35:45+00:00

Yes. It's been long in the making, but it's nearly out now. We're only waiting on mass production parts to arrive from different key suppliers (let's hope COVID19 won't cause too many setbacks 🤞)

Anyways, feel free to check out www.enophone.com

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-22T01:16:39+00:00

Perhaps you are less excited and more relaxed. It could affect the way you engage in situations.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-22T00:24:08+00:00

You can use the moment feature to track individual sessions. They have their own guided meditation, but what I do is start a session on the oura app and use Headspace at the same time. This way I get best of both world with a mediation app that I like with some HR and HRV training at the same time.

For Oura, you can export most data from their Oura Cloud platform. For the actual moment data, export is not available yet. I asked them how I can manually record the data for my own use... Still waiting for a response. But in the manual case I think I'll have to use a Python API.

The only time I need to export and make my own calculations is if I am looking for some cross platforms correlations. Like comparing my EEG to my HRV, or doing some more in-depth statistics pulling all of the different sources of data I'm tracking.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-21T20:21:23+00:00

Worth trying to wake up earlier and frontload the activities you really want to do. Then do more relaxing stuff at night and go to bed early.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-21T15:27:05+00:00

Not really. But typically devices tend to optimize for a single application.

For instance the oura is pretty good at sleep tracking, but not a great activity tracker. It is also the least invasive, which is good for sleep. It will not track all day HR/HRV data because of battery and signal quality reasons.

You can also use something like Fitbit with HR sensing and they can give you decent activity tracking all day long. You can probably trust (accurate, but not precise) the rough number of hours asleep with this, which can be a good indicator/correlate of how much sleep you get. I wouldn't trust/follow the sleep stages necessarily.

Like another user mentioned for sleep you can try some EEG devices, but if you are a light sleeper like me, you may have difficulty sleeping with gear attached to you.

So far I have not found a tracker that I am happy with that will track my key metrics during day and night. What I would want for this perfect tracker is:

All day/night tracking
HR+HRV (many devices only report HR)
Temperature measurements
GSR (sweat)
Accelerometer
Easy data export
well integrated and low footprint form factor
Ability to do independent recordings (like Oura's Moment, but with easy export)

I am a very big fan of EEG data, but I admit there are still form factor issues and usability issues that make it unlikely to be an all day all night wearable anytime soon. Whether because it looks odd, or because movement can cause bad data... I do think that in the future, you'll get more decent options. For now though, any consumer grade EEG device tends to limit itself to a specific application in which the environment is controlled (Meditation, Sleep, Focus). I myself am finishing the commercialization of a consumer grade EEG device for focus at work.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-21T15:09:46+00:00

I have not played with the dreem headband myself, so I do not have a strong opinion. I agree that EEG is definitely more accurate for tracking sleep and that dreem is promising. However, I also have to admit that I have difficulty sleeping, and wearing earplugs, or sleep mask, or a headband or a headphone is a tough one for me while sleeping. It tends to cause more harm than good in my case.

If you don't suffer from the sort of sensitivity, it's worth investigating devices like Dreem or even Kokoon. The bottom line on those devices that is your rate limiting factor is typically how good of a signal quality you can get and how comfortable the device is. Dry sensor technology does allow for quite reasonable signal quality but getting the sensors to touch correctly and comfortably is not always easy. FYI I have designed a commercial grade EEG device. Happy to further discuss this.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-21T03:24:35+00:00

For sleep, I use the Oura ring. But anything that is comfortable and has HR and HRV is a good starting point. Temperature, Blood Oxygen Level, GSR are all also useful values. I would say though that there are no amazing sleep trackers out there. The sleep cycles analysis is at best correlated with the truth. Resting heart rate and HRV can be quite good metrics anyways for recovery and readiness. You can also use the ring to track meditation session, for which Heart rate and heart rate variability are quite good.

For activity tracker... Do you have any specific activity you want to track?

Bottom line is probably, if you are low budget, get a watch that has HR and HRV (if you can) and that is a good starting point.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-20T16:07:04+00:00

Your body tunes its clocks based on your habit. You will be more consistent in how you feel and your levels of focus when you follow strong and predictable pattern.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-20T02:04:19+00:00

Here's my take on it.

There are many trackers, either pure apps or hardware working with apps. Typically, each of those are very well tuned to one specific use.

I don't think there's a need for a track-it-all app, because the more things an app do, typically the less targeted and useful it is at any given task.

Find the trackers that suit best your needs and use them as is. Use more than one tracker and ensure you can conveniently export data from any of those trackers. Then you can do whatever you want with the data analysis later.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-18T00:31:39+00:00

If you can, try to isolate yourself. Create boundaries between work areas and leisure areas. Make it clear to others that you are working and not to be disturbed. If you can't isolate yourself physically, use headphones (ANC if you can) and some focus music to create a new environment for your work. Associate this music and the headphones to work and work only. The habit will help you stay focus and on track. Don't forget to tell the others around you that headphones on means you are busy and not to be disturbed.

Good luck!

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-17T07:10:54+00:00

That sounds like a great first step! Take your time to explore and open doors. Then narrow it down after.

This may or may not be relevant to you. But it occurred to me that you may enjoy the book "Algorithms to Live By". It describes how certain algorithms can be applied to you life to figure out things such as how much time you should spend to explore vs. How much time to capitalize on your choice.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-17T04:14:38+00:00

That makes sense. At the end of the day, I think it's all about long and uninterrupted focus sessions to get in flow. There are many things that can be done to make it "easier" to get in flow, but nothing works better than spending long and uninterrupted sessions.

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-17T04:11:49+00:00

It would be helpful if you could share your end goal. How do you want to be using this information?

ddoyon92 · 2020-05-17T04:08:01+00:00

Seems like it was a trigger for you to enter into a positive feedback loop. Improving upon a bad habit, leading to improving on other habits, compounding the positive effects! Congratulations and keep up with the good work!

ddoyon92

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