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Nov 21, 2006

Emwave and Emotional self-regulation

By:

Performance FreezeFramer Alvaro

In the post Trader Peak Per­for­mance and biofeed­back pro­grams we showed the Heart Rate Vari­abil­ity pat­terns cor­re­lated with lev­els of a) anx­i­ety or b) Peak Per­for­mance, “The Zone”. Biofeed­back sup­ports our emo­tional self-regulation: we can visu­ally track what is going on inside us and train our­selves to man­age our emo­tional state. On the left you have an exam­ple of my own per­for­mance dur­ing a 5-minute exper­i­ment 4 months ago. At the top, you see my name; at the bot­tom, the dura­tion of the ses­sion. Right axis, for top half, is Heart Rate. (This is only the half left of the screen in the program-the right half would give you more infor­ma­tion.) I have high­lighted sev­eral phases:

A: you can see long waves fol­low­ing a smooth rhythm-that is the phys­i­o­log­i­cal “The Zone”, where I can per­form at max­i­mum level. I was using breath­ing and visu­al­iza­tion tech­niques that are some­times called “The Men­tal Game” in ath­let­ics and sports.

B: I stressed myself. How? well, maybe think­ing of a pre­vi­ous boss, or some bad moment in my life. You see that the “waves” dis­ap­pear, and nar­row erratic pat­terns appear instead.

C: I quickly go back into “The Zone”, using a breath­ing and visu­al­iza­tion tech­nique that works for me. There are many techniques-the virtue of real time visual feed­back is that we can find what works for us. The more we train, the bet­ter we get at it.

D: the bot­tom half is show­ing the cumu­la­tive score, and whether I fall inside “The Zone”. The line goes down in the mid­dle because it reflects my anx­i­ety dur­ing phase B.

The biofeed­back pro­gram I used is emWave‚ PC Stress Relief (there is also a hand­held device called emWave PSR). It con­tains sev­eral short “videogames” where you have to learn to relax at will in order to suc­ceed. The graph above shows the mon­i­tor option-where you can see your Heart Rate and Heart Rate Vari­abil­ity real-time.

Enjoy,

Alvaro

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Categories: Cognitive Neuroscience, Education & Lifelong Learning, Health & Wellness, Peak Performance, Professional Development, Technology

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26 Responses

  1. Emotional self-regulation and biofeedback: FreezeFramer « SharpBrains: Your Window into the Brain Fitness Revolution says:
    November 21, 2006 at 6:10

    […] (Blog­gers: please link to this post in the new blog loca­tion. Link is: http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/11/21/emotional-self-regulation-and-biofeedback-freezeframer/. Thanks!) […]

  2. Tyro says:
    November 21, 2006 at 9:47

    That’s wild. The ver­biage didn’t con­jure up much of an image, but with this screen shot I can start to see how this sys­tem may be able to live up to its promises. What a great idea.

    Does the soft­ware pack­age include a heart rate mon­i­tor? Are there any reviews that you can point us to? What would a typ­i­cal sched­ule look like for a new student?

  3. Alvaro says:
    November 21, 2006 at 11:07

    Good it helped to visu­al­ize it. I had the same reac­tion when I first saw the visu­als. It gets bet­ter when you start to see the real-time impact of your actions and thoughts on the screen-either when you are train­ing or dur­ing any nor­mal activity.

     

    The pack­age includes 1) the soft­ware, 2) the sen­sor (fin­ger one; you buy the ear-one for $25) that mea­sures both heart rate and heart rate vari­abil­ity and con­nects to your PC, so your PC acts as the heart rate mon­i­tor. (HRV, not heart rate, is the pre­dic­tor of lev­els of stress/ anx­i­ety, and to mea­sure it pre­cisely requires an algo­rithm that heart mon­i­tors do not have) c) a very infor­ma­tive book­let on man­ag­ing emo­tions while play­ing golf. We don’t have a trading-specific book, but the golf one gives a great overview of what is going on inside our bod­ies and how to man­age it.

     

    Very recent review:
    http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/291574_biocompare09.html

     

    Another one in The Econ­o­mist a cou­ple of months back:
    http://www.heartmath.org/ihm-action/media-stories/soothing-software.html

     

    Sched­ule: typ­i­cally, 3 or 4 times a week, for 5–7 min­utes each. The key is fre­quent prac­tice, so you inter­nal­ize the tech­niques and see progress. You could also add 4–5 ses­sions of 15–20 min­utes dur­ing the first month in order to get up to speed with the tech­niques and the program.

     

    For fun, why not also record what hap­pens dur­ing a typ­i­cal trad­ing ses­sion, and ana­lyze it afterwards.

     

    We will be adding com­mu­nity forums, mod­er­ated by coaches, in this web­site, so it will be eas­ier to share expe­ri­ences and get advice. Feel free to ask more questions.

  4. eleanor says:
    November 22, 2006 at 2:46

    That is absolutely mar­vel­lous — stress makes you stupid!

  5. Jak pÃ…â„¢ekonat Animal Spirit … at INBES.org says:
    November 22, 2006 at 3:36

    […] UPDATE A jak takový pro­gram na biofeed­back fun­guje … Filed under: Bounded Rationality   |   […]

  6. Jak pÃ…â„¢ekonat Animal Spirit … at INBES.org says:
    November 22, 2006 at 6:08

    […] A jak takový pro­gram na biofeed­back fun­guje …  […]

  7. Alvaro says:
    November 22, 2006 at 12:19

    Eleanor: nice to see you. “stress makes you stupid!…there is good stress but also bad one, see

    http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2006/10/22/is-there-such-thing-as-good-stress/

    For the bad one, I agree with your state­ment, both in the short-term (we can not think well on the spot) and the long-term (because too much stress inhibits learn­ing and harms our health).

  8. Widows Quest » Blog Carnival of Postive Thinking to help with Depression and Loneliness says:
    November 26, 2006 at 9:04

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Revolution, […]

  9. Lunatic Wisdom: Life Beyond the Matrix (copyrighted) » Carnival of Greatness says:
    November 28, 2006 at 12:24

    […] Alvaro presents Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer and Enhanc­ing Trader Per­for­mance and The Psy­chol­ogy of Trad­ing: Inter­view with Brett N. Steen­barger posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Revolution. […]

  10. FREE YOUR MIND Personal Development (copyrighted) » Presenting the Carnival of Greatness says:
    November 28, 2006 at 4:41

    […] Alvaro presents Emo­tional Self-regulation and Biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer and Enhanc­ing Trader Per­for­mance and The Psy­chol­ogy of Trad­ing: Inter­view with Brett N. Steen­barger posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Revolution. […]

  11. SharpBrains: Your Window into the Brain Fitness Revolution » Blog Archive » Carnivals All Around! says:
    November 29, 2006 at 2:12

    […] Issue 12 of The Synapse came out this Sun­day on Dr. Deb­o­rah Serani’s blog. It fea­tures a num­ber of arti­cles on neu­ro­science top­ics includ­ing: brain cells and neural sub­strates, cog­ni­tive think­ing styles, Alzheimer’s, dream recall, and men­tal ill­ness. Alvaro’s post on the exec­u­tive func­tion of emo­tional self-regulation via biofeed­back is there — go check it out! […]

  12. Carnivals All Around! « SharpBrains: Your Window into the Brain Fitness Revolution says:
    November 29, 2006 at 2:18

    […] Issue 12 of The Synapse came out this Sun­day on Dr. Deb­o­rah Serani’s blog. It fea­tures a num­ber of arti­cles on neu­ro­science top­ics includ­ing: brain cells and neural sub­strates, cog­ni­tive think­ing styles, Alzheimer’s, dream recall, and men­tal ill­ness. Alvaro’s post on the exec­u­tive func­tion of emo­tional self-regulation via biofeed­back is there — go check it out! […]

  13. » CultivateGreatness Success and Growth BlogCarnival #007, Nov 29th 2006 · Cultivate Greatness | Personal Development | Self-Help & Success Blog | Motivation Blog | Inspiration Blog | Business Blog | Self Help Book says:
    November 29, 2006 at 2:28

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “A visual exam­ple of how biofeed­back can help man­age emo­tions for max­i­mum trad­ing performance.” […]

  14. Investing World Today » festival of investing - November 28, 2006 says:
    November 29, 2006 at 6:05

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “Post on how biofeed­back can be used by traders to man­age emo­tions and reduce impulsivity.” […]

  15. Landlord Shmandlord » Blog Archive » Carnival of Real Estate Investing #3 says:
    December 3, 2006 at 8:00

    […] Sharp­Brains has a post about emo­tional self-regulation and biofee­back. I feel that as a real estate investor, it is very impor­tant to keep in con­trol of your emo­tions. When look­ing at a prop­erty to pur­chase, you need to remain calm and log­i­cal. It is too easy to get emo­tion­ally swept into a pur­chase, which will most-likely result in a bad investment. […]

  16. Towards Better Life Carnival Edition #3 (December 17, 2006) « Towards Better Life says:
    December 15, 2006 at 10:32

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “A visual exam­ple of how biofeed­back can help get into The Zone of opti­mal per­for­mance for trad­ing and other highly-competitive fields.” […]

  17. » Freeze-Framer for Stress Management and Peak Performance: special offer about to expire   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    December 28, 2006 at 8:04

    […] Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeed­back: Freeze-Framer […]

  18. Lunatic Wisdom - Life Beyond the Matrix » Blog Archive » Carnival of Greatness says:
    February 14, 2007 at 11:31

    […] Alvaro presents Emo­tional Self-regulation and Biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer and Enhanc­ing Trader Per­for­mance and The Psy­chol­ogy of Trad­ing: Inter­view with Brett N. Steen­barger posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Revolution. […]

  19. » MindFit and Freeze-Framer for Brain Fitness   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    March 31, 2007 at 7:18

    […] Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeedback […]

  20. Exercise And Weight Loss News From Around The World | Workout Routines And Weight loss Exercises says:
    April 9, 2007 at 9:20

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “A visual exam­ple of how biofeed­back can help get into The Zone of opti­mal per­for­mance for trad­ing and other highly-competitive fields.” […]

  21. » Trading psychology and Trader Performance   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    April 30, 2007 at 11:27

    […] Here you have a related post on Best prac­tice for top trad­ing per­for­mance: biofeed­back, and here a visual exam­ple of Emo­tional self-regulation through biofeedback. […]

  22. » Manage your feelings for conflict resolution   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    June 25, 2007 at 10:17

    […] Check her post to learn more about the label­ing tech­nique. Devel­op­ing men­tal notes can be a very pow­er­ful way to self-regulate behav­ior, not too dif­fer­ent from cog­ni­tive ther­apy and emo­tional self-regulation techniques. […]

  23. James says:
    November 10, 2007 at 12:01

    Does any­one know of a Mac OS ver­sion or another soft­ware appli­ca­tion like this one?

  24. Alvaro says:
    November 12, 2007 at 11:59

    Hello James, we are not aware of any Mac OC ver­sion. There are a cou­ple of hand­held devices (one also called emWave, the other StressEraser), with sim­i­lar tech­nol­ogy, but give back less data.

  25. Working at Home on the Internet says:
    April 25, 2008 at 4:55

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Emo­tional self-regulation and biofeed­back: Freeze­Framer posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “A visual exam­ple of how biofeed­back can help get into The Zone of opti­mal per­for­mance for trad­ing and other highly-competitive fields.” […]

  26. Vern M. says:
    February 3, 2009 at 3:02

    What an inter­est­ing exper­i­ment. I must con­fess that I could have used a portable ver­sion of one of those biofeedback  devices at a few points through­out today. I’ve seen the smaller portable ver­sions, but for me more detail is much better.

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