Peter Gamma (Physiologist & Director) Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS)

We want to study the effect of practicing meditation on heart rate, and we want to wear a HRM 24 * 7 for this purpose. Which heart rate monitors are available, which papers can we cite, and which are the most accurate devices?

Last Updated on January 6, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

A. We can wear for instance two Polar OH1 sensors alternatively

  • cite a Paper in PLOS ONE which was tested the Polar OH1 against a g.Nautilus multipurpose device, as well as two other papers which tested the Polar OH1 against a Polar H10 chest strap:

B. We can wear two Apple watch 1, 3 or 6 watches alternatively.

1. We can cite a paper in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, a journal about sports science which tests the Apple watch 1 by the group of cardiologist Dr. Milind Desai from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

2. We can cite a paper in Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy which uses the Apple watch 3 which was written by the group of the cardiologist Dr. Milind Desai from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy is a paper read by cardiologists which is peer-reviewed by other cardiologists.

3. We can cite a paper which tests the Apple watch 6 with a Polar H10 reference chest strap:

4. We can find many papers on Google Scholar which use Apple watches:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=apple+watch&btnG=

C. We can wear a Polar H10 chest strap 24 * 7

1.

and cite the paper which tested the Polar H10, Rahel Gilgen-Ammann, Theresa Schweizer, Thomas Wyss, Eur J Appl Physiol. 2019 Jul;119(7):1525-1532., RR interval signal quality of a heart rate monitor and an ECG Holter at rest and during exercise:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219/

2. We can wear a Polar H7 chest strap 24 * 7 and cite two papers written by the group of the cardiologist Dr. Milind Desai from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio:

D. We can use an iWorx IX-TA-220

  • with the iWorx ECG toolbox or a Matlab ECG toolbox and carry around a Laptop and the iWork recoder with us 24 *7, and cite the papers about the iWorx IX-TA-220:

We are convinced that we will suffer if we wear the devices discussed in C. and D. 24*7, since they are not very comfortable to wear for such a long time. Are optical heart rate monitors not made to replace chest straps and eventually high quality ECG devices?

  • Are optical heart rate monitors not made to replace chest straps and eventually high quality ECG devices?
  • We can wear Polar OH1 sensors for this purpose, and we can hope that there will be validation papers for Polar optical heart rate sensors in higher quality journals than PLOS ONE.
  • We can wear Apple watches and cite the papers listed here:
  • two of the papers where written by the group of the cardiologist Dr. Milind Desai from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

E. We are convinced that there will be new papers which test the latest Apple watches in high-quality journals, since according to Rob ter Horst, the latest Apple watches are the most accurate ones, and Apple watches are very popular. But this is not enough. We need a validation of our HRM for the study we want to perform, to be able to publish it in a journal of our choice.