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CardioGem ICC sessions examples
The following examples will be discussed, covering the various aspects of Internal Cardiac Coherence training:
- Monotonic breathing example
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- Excellent session with healthy HRV and good coherence
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- Patient using beta blocker causing unusual response
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- Unusual HRV spectrum, possibly dealing with dissociation
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Below examples are all available as life recordings in the CardioGem Demo and Full versions.
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Monotonic breathing
Simply seeing your heart's harmonics on a screen can be encouraging and mind expanding. It helps a person to appreciate the concept of seeing their psycho-physiological state on a screen. The effect of the breathing cycle on the heart rate is called Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, or RSA.
A simple monotonic breathing exersize will not only have a relaxing effect, but also makes the RSA easily recognizable in the heart rate (tacho) sine-wave like curve (red) in the history screen. While in the CardioGem diagnostic screen, the screen update every second can be used as a simple counter. For example, they breathe in 4 seconds, out 6 seconds, so one complete breathing cycle is cycle is 10 seconds. No need to breathe extra deep. Do that for about 4.5 minutes.
If it is done a little well, and the general HRV is healthy, after about 4.5 min. the breathing pace shows up as a single peak in the HRV spectrum. In this case, at precisely 0.1 Herz (cycles per second). Click on the graph to view the full CardioGem diagnostic screen.
You can do a Quick Scan to evaluate the ICC during monotonic breathing. However the ICC result will always be low, because monotonic breathing does not create Harmonic Inclusiveness in the HRV spectrum. It can however increase the HRV power a bit, which is good.
Click to see full CardioGem diagnostic screen
Discussion: This person sure has a healthy HRV with is seen in the dynamic RSA response (tacho). It's interesting to see how sometimes the ICC sort of follows the tacho, but not all the time. This also suggest a complex, dynamic and hence vital (non-trivial) interaction between the HRV and the ICC. During monotonic breathing, the average ICC level however is low. As a result the, histogram is poised to the left, causing a low Dynamic Index.
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Excellent session with healthy HRV and good coherence
This is a person (F, 26) with healthy HRV and also good coherence.
The blue curve in the history screen shows transient ICC states or -peaks (blue curve). In this healthy-HRV situation, the amount of ICC cannot readily be read from the HRV, in other words, this is a more complex and therefore content rich balance.
Click to see full CardioGem diagnostic screen
Discussion: This is almost an ideal example. The testperson is a healthy lady, a PhD student who is also a regular yoga practitioner. The heart rate is somewhat high, and the HRV is real good, but this not at all affect the Internal Cardiac Coherence. The ICC histogram shows a near perfect distribution of the ICC samples, which is rewarded with a high Dynamic Index. This suggest that she has some excellency in her life style. Unlike with other ICC mesurements, the ICC transient states as such do not stand out much, but this is not at all critical.
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Very low HRV condition
This is an old person (M, 90+) with an actual heart condition and very low HRV. The general ICC level is very high, but this is purely the result of the low HRV. There is no question of harmonic inclusiveness in the HRV spectrum, and hence no internal coherence in the true sense.
Click to see full CardioGem diagnostic screen
Discussion: As this is a more than 90 year old person with a known heart condition, this result is no cause for alarm. But for a younger person it would have been rightout dramatic and would absolutely have promted intervention. It is a popular misconception that a regular heart beat is "healthy" but nothing could be farther from the truth. It is the dynamism of the heart rate, that is, the HRV power, which is the potential cause for spiritedness, and when the HRV gets actually harmonic, this is biology's wave formula for attracting spirit itself. Elderly persons tend to turn inward and get a more rigid character, as opposed to adolescents. This is reflected in lower HRV, and consequently, seemingly high coherence, but not of the proper kind. This person however does show a very dynamic ICC curve, which to some extend suggest a still healthy and dynamic mind. Just his physical heart is not responsive anymore.
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Very high HRV
This is an interesting example of high HRV (F, 21). The average ICC as well as the Dynamic Index are quite low, which is typical in a high HRV situation.
Click to see full CardioGem diagnostic screen
Discussion: This young lady nicely shows the typically high HRV, lower ICC of young adolescents and young adults. It's all good - that's how they should be, having an experimental life style. This recording is interesting as it shows very distinct transient ICC peaks. These short events increase the quality of the allover ICC record, however the final result remains rather low. Other than that, there is not so much dynamism in the ICC curve. She may be a little on the impulsive side.
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Patient using betablocker
This is an elderly patient (F, 72), however otherwise quite healthy. If a doctor prescribes a beta-blocker against tachycardia, he usually doesn't tell that not only the heart rate, but also the HRV is suppressed. This recording is interesting, because in spite of the real low HRV it still shows good, i.e. not exceptionally high ICC. Also the Dynamic Index is good. Because of this unusual effect the person was asked what it could mean, and only then she mentioned her use of a beta blocker.
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Unusual HRV spectrum
Allthough the concept of transient ICC states refers to harmonic inclusiveness in the HRV spectrum, the actual ICC data is taken from the ECG spectrum. The HRV spectrum's Harmonic Inclusiveness signature is Golden Mean / Fibonacci based, however is usually not directly detectible. The HRV spectrum from this person however shows another interesting pattern, an arithemetic (regular) series.
Click to see full CardioGem diagnostic screen
Discussion: The test person, male, 40+, is intelligent and very active but unemployed. The rare, arithmetic HRV spectrum theoretically suggests that the heart rate (tacho) looks rather spiky, i.e. similar a raw ECG signal, allthough this is not very obvious from the actual curve. It could be interpreted either that a person has very short, contained emotional burst, or that he alternates between being in a purely individually focused state of mind, and being completely open and sharing. Either way, it seems like an unusual state in terms of the heart's psycho-physiology, which he mentally controls in some way. After being asked about it, he said that he was actually diagnosed with a form of dissociative disorder. This sort of alternating beween emotional states could help to avoid that he completely looses himself in the flow of communication, and yet deal effectively. In other words, it is a mental way to avoid an truly open channel with others, and yet functioning quite normally. One might argue that this is a rather exotic form of internal coherence, by chopping your autonomic outflow in managable bits. Like with digital music, there is no risk of disturbance. From the Dynamic Index final result one can tell that it works for him.
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