I got FitBit a few weeks ago. Less for weight loss, more for curiosity. I needed to know whether I should recommend it to my patients wishing to have slimmer hips.
However, in the process of wearing the strap I discovered features that were useful far beyond weight loss. .
Stress leads to high blood pressure
There are many reasons for high blood pressure. One may blame it on poor dietary habits, obesity, kidney problems, medication, lack of exercise, and few hundred others. Every single one of these have their part in wrecking our hearts, but none is as contributory to high blood pressure as chronic stress.
My experience as a doctor taught me that although people can judge their average stress level, they have really hard time identifying specific sources of the stress. This is where FitBit comes in.
Stress increases heart rate
Life is unpredictable, stress is unavoidable. It is going to happen sooner or later, but when…? The answer is easier than you think.
Stress is reflected in the heart rate. Since stress increases the heart rate it is easy to see why people under stress end up with palpitations. That’s true, provided that meds don’t get in the way. Meds can mask our physiological responses and prevent us from seeing underlying health issues.
Let FitBit be your stress detective
Since FitBit has a feature that allows for continuous pulse monitoring, discovering the source of stress is as easy as glancing on the smartphone screen and detecting spikes.
How did your exam go? How did you manage during the presentation? How about nerve-racking discussion with the boss at 3pm?
- Find out when stress causes high blood pressure
- Early patterns of high blood pressure caused by stress
Tracking heart rate and matching it to your whereabouts can be quite insightful. Are you stressed all day long or just when you work on a specific project? Are your rushed mornings contributing to quicker beats or it is your junk food that causes that mysterious “heart”burn?
Your “detectivism” may find not one but multiple sources of stress and they may be rather surprising. You may discover that it is a specific place, person, food, job, or a situation that causes discomfort.
Give your life a makeover
Once you track down the stressor all you need to do is to figure out how to eliminate it. You can ask to work on a different project, avoid highways while going to work, eat in a different restaurant, order from a different menu, have meetings in the mornings instead of evenings, and if necessary even consider changing your job.
These are immediate actions you can take to reduce the stress load while designing a plan to permanently calm down the nervous system. But why should you even bother?
How to measure your stress coping ability
Heart rate is an excellent health tracker. Resting heart rate is tied to cardiovascular fitness and some researchers suggest it can predict longevity. Ability to relax and recover from stress has been shown to parallel better health and uncomplicated longer live.
According to “The New England Journal of Medicine” heart rate should drop 12 beats or more within the first minute after ending a stressful event, in that study they used exercise as a stressor. Not that you should get obsessed with minute-to-minute heart beats, but the moral of the story is sound. Healthy people see a dramatic drop of heart rate within the first few minutes after ending a stressful event (whether exercise or no). People with compromised health don’t.
Heart rate recovery, stress, and high blood pressure
Heart rate graphs can be insightful. It is easy to see a heart rate spike if you bring your work stress home or if the traffic jam on the way home affects you for the rest of the evening.
I love my FitBit for that. It can tell how good I am at calming down. In other words it shows how long it takes to slow down my heart rate. The shorter it takes the better stress coping abilities, which translates to lower blood pressure, and chances for increased longevity.
Your heart is not any different than my heart. Understanding how much stress you personally experience and how it affects the body is the key to health improvement. If you can see major spikes on the graph that are not related to physical activity or worse, heart rate stays high all day long, it means stress is affecting your life.
It is time to face the truth and learn a few stress reduction techniques. Heart rate does not lie.
For stronger beating hearts here are two must-reads for you; “The Ultimate Guide to Low & Fluctuating Blood Pressure ” and a simplified nutrition primer”69 Pleasures“. The first one will teach you everything about blood pressure dips and spikes, the other one will teach you how to prepare meals for cardiovascular perfection.
Dr. D. You should look at the HELO. Much more robust than FitBit. I set it to check my BP, respirations and heart rate every 30 minutes. Does EKC/ECG too.
Short video at http://learn.theHeloStore.com
Thanks for the tip Cory. I am absolutely amazed on how technology changes and what it can do. Soon we will have body scanners that will pop out a diagnosis. I checked Helo. It is a great monitoring tool. The difference between Helo and Fitbit is timing. Fitbit mimics real-time, which is great for exercise and continuous monitoring. Helo checks the body every 30 minutes, which is fantastic for detecting periodic body dangers such as blood pressure spikes, or sending alarm about an approaching weirdo. Two very different devices. I guess we need to start growing longer limbs to use them all, lol. Thanks again. Great find. DrD
Cory-
I checked out the H.E.L.O. and it appears to be a MLM service.
I could not find any distributors (store front or EBay/Amazon sellers) who sell it.
I also do not know anyone who onws one or could find a review outside of the WOR(L)D sites which mentioned it and the MLM sales people youtube videos.
I would love to find out more about this device but it seems shrouded in secrecy, which has me casting doubts on the hardware.
If you know of a retailer that sells them, please let me know.
Thanks!