HRV Trace – Training For Resilience Under Stress
UPDATE 12-18-2021
I have not received any messages from users regarding this and am looking into that.
We discovered a problem in the way the app connects with bluetooth devices. This is only a a problem with people who have iOS 15 installed before installing HRV Train. Users who installed the app before upgrading to iOS 15 have not had any difficulties. Our analysis suggests that this has something to do with changes in the way iOS 15 handles device permissions. We hope to have this worked out in the next week or so.
We apologize for the inconvenience this must cause.
HRV Trace opens a window into your stress-response system by showing you the shape of your heartbeat pattern, your HRV Trace. As your heart traces a path, beat-by-beat, across the screen, you receive instantaneous information that enables you to respond more effectively to stress.
NEW in Version 2.0 – Scenario Mode
This is a major update implemented July 2018 and it gives the user the option of recording audio/video overlaid with their HRV trace. The recording is saved so it can be reviewed later. Seeing the HRV trace change as a situation unfolds gives the user an unprecedented level of detail about their stress physiology as it responds to their environment.
IMPORTANT – Please see the revised Privacy Policy.
Instructions for Scenario Mode
Stress and Strain
Stress comes from our environment. To respond to stress we must activate our sympathetic nervous system. This causes strain on our body.
Stress –> Sympathetic Activation –> Strain
We cannot escape from stress because it is a part of life. We can learn to regulate our level of sympathetic activation so that we respond instead of react. And we can reduce the strain that comes dealing with stress. By managing our stress we can improve our health, our performance at work, sports, and school, and our relationships.
HRV Trace is a tool that augments stress-management and resilience training. It has been used with health care and law enforcement professionals. It is currently being used by the International Performance Resilience and Efficiency Program, iPREP, as part of their program to help first responders improve critical decision making in high-pressure situations.
HRV Trace will help you learn the following skills:
- Recover – how to shift quickly to a state in which you recover from strain and recharge
- Ready – maintain a level of activation that adapts to a dynamic situation
- Reset – reduce excessive sympathetic activation in seconds
- Recondition – reduce excessive reactions that have been conditioned to stressful situations
Together these skills increase your effectiveness under pressure and enable you to sustain a high level of intensity. Each of the skills creates a certain type of pattern in the heart trace. These patterns vary from individual to individual. The process for using HRV Trace is:
- Use HRV Trace to identify your heart trace signature for each of the skills: Recovery, Ready, Reset and Recondition.
- Apply these skills as instructed to increase your recovery rate from stress, and increase your ability to handle stress with less strain.
- Use HRV Trace to check your progress.
HRV Trace applies techniques from chaos theory used to analyze complex systems. That makes it a powerful tool for augmenting stress-reduction, mindfulness, and resiliency training programs. It is meant to be used with the guidance of a professional who is familiar with stress and heart-rate changes under stress, preferably one trained in the use of the app by Ibernetics, LLC.
Some people may already be familiar with stress-reduction concepts and so may be able to benefit without professional guidance. If you wish to use HRV Trace on your own then please see our terms of use.
HRV Trace as been tested with the following heart rate monitors:
- Zephyr HxM Smart – this is the only monitor that transmits activity data to the app
- Polar H7 and H10
- FirstBeat
- CardioSport TP3 and TP5
HRV Trace developed by Ibernetics, LLC
iOS programming by Owen L Brown at www.back-40.com
HRV Trace 