Kouris Kalligas, a long time participant and contributor at Quantified Self meetings, is the creator of the very easy to use data aggregation service AddApp. AddApp is an iPhone app that makes it simple to gain insights from data gathered on dozens of different devices. While running his startup, Kouris has also been doing ongoing self-tracking experiments….
Today’s guest post comes to us from our longtime friend and QS community member, Paul LaFontaine. Paul will be joining us at the QS15 Conference & Expo to share his expertise on tracking and making sense of heart rate variability. Read below, and then join us on June 18th through the 20th for three amazing…
Join us at our upcoming QS15 Global Conference and Exposition on June 18-20 in San Francisco to learn how heart rate variability can indicate how relaxed or stressed you feel when meeting with other people. We’re pleased to have a self described heart rate variability hacker and veteran QS’er Paul LaFontaine share how he uses heart rate variability…
Steve Zadig is the COO of Vital Connect, but when he’s not busy with his job he’s out racing high performance vehicles. In this talk, presented at our 2013 Global Conference, Steve explains how he uses data to help him achieve his racing goals. What did Steve do? Steve wanted to get more information about…
Paul LaFontaine has been tracking what he calls “upsets” to better understand himself, the way he works, and to see if he can improve his mental and physiological response and recovery.
Paul LaFontaine was interested in understanding his anxiety and negative emotional states. What was causing them? When were they happening? What could he do to combat them? Using TapLog, a simple Android-based tracking app (with easy data export), Paul tracked these mental events for six months as well as the triggers associated with each one….
Ajay Chandler wanted to understand the connection between his mindfulness and daily stress. Luckily he works at Fujitsu and was able to use their Sprout service to connect multiple data streams and analyze the results. Watch this short Ignite talks to learn about Ajay’s experience. We’ll be posting videos from our 2013 Global Conference during…
We’ve showcased a few great talks from Steven Jonas, from his exploration on learning to how he became interested in tracking stress. In this insightful talk Steven walk us through his process for tracking and responding to his stress in realtime while at work. Low-level, seemingly mild stress still drains my energy, and many of…
We are only four short weeks away from hosting our second Quantified Self European Conference and our excitement is building as we receive more previews of the talks and presentations we’ll be hosting. As you can probably guess, putting on a conference can be a stressful endeavor. Luckily stress tracking and management has been the…
In this short Ignite talk, Dave Marvit from Fujitsu Labs of America talks about a prototype system he is developing to track stress and monitoring stressful events in veterans with PTSD. The Sprout system brings in and syncs multiple data streams allowing researchers, clinicians, and individuals to develop a deeper insight into what’s really happening during…
This guest post comes to us from one of our wonderful QS Meetup organizers, Steven Jonas. If you’re a Meetup Organizer and want to post a recap of your meetup just let us know! Quantified Self Portland Show & Tell Meetup Recap – October 30, 2012 Puppet Labs opened up their space and generously hosted…
Catherine Kerr does brain science related to mindfulness at Brown University Medical School. She points out that mindfulness traditions ask practitioners to simply focus closely on body sensations in order to bring attention to the present moment. Why does this help with depression? In the video below, Catherine explains some of her magnetoencephalopathy (MEG) research to…
Steven Jonas discovered through an EEG assessment that he had a strong “freeze” response to stressful situations. This inspired him to use his emWave to monitor his stress levels, hack it to alert him whenever he got too stressed, and change his patterns at work. Check out Steven’s open, inspiring story in the video below, filmed at Quantified…
Ulrich Atz was curious about measuring his stress levels. He chose three methods to do this: experience sampling, day reconstruction method, and heart rate. In the video below, he helpfully describes how he went about designing his experiment, how the different methods work and the challenges of each one, and what he learned. He was…
John Sumser had a 7-year period of disasters after he quit smoking. He faced cancer twice, diabetes, asthma, divorce, family death, and more. Throughout this period, he was measuring himself. As he went back through his data, he found one central thing underlying all of his problems – stress. John tells his colorful story and…
Robin Barooah presented his new meditation tracker, called “Equanimity” at the recent QS Show&Tell hosted by MedHelp. A meditation practice is a powerful tool for increased well being and yet, for something so simple and cost-free, it surprisingly difficult to maintain. The problem of “resistance” in meditation is well known. Even people with long years…
The Stress Eraser has been around for more than a year now, garnering positive feedback attracting heavyweights to the advisory board [PDF] of its parent company, and advertising heavily. . In one sense, the Stress Eraser is a classic QS device, a geeky quantitative aid to self-improvement. I almost want one. But the very thing…
A team lead by Thomas Kamarck of the University of Pittsburgh, an expert on measuring [psychosocial processes](http://pmbcii.psy.cmu.edu/core_c/index.html), is working on the type of wearable computer that I most want: a wrist-worn device to track physiological change in real time. The emphasis in this study is on psychosocial stress, and the device will measure sound, motion,…
