The Measured Life

N a quiet Wednesday night in April, an unusual group has assembled in a garage turned hacker studio nestled in a student-dominated neighborhood outside Boston. Those gathered here—mostly in their 20s or 30s and mostly male—are united by a deep interest in themselves. They have come to share the results of their latest self-experiments: monthlong tests of the Zeo, a consumer device designed to analyze sleep.

The group is part of a rapidly growing movement of fitness buffs, techno-geeks, and patients with chronic conditions who obsessively monitor various personal metrics. At the center of the movement is a loosely organized group known as the Quantified Self , whose members are driven by the idea that collecting detailed data can help them make better choices about their health and behavior. In meetings held all over the world, self-trackers discuss how they use a combination of traditional spreadsheets, an expanding selection of smart-phone apps, and various consumer and custom-built devices to monitor patterns of food intake, sleep, fatigue, mood, and heart rate.

Of course, self-tracking is not new. Many athletes have been meticulously monitoring personal metrics for decades. And some people with chronic conditions such as migraines, diabetes, and allergies have done the same in an effort to shed light on how daily habits may influence their symptoms. But new consumer tools have made self-tracking both simpler and more rigorous, generating reams of data that can be scrutinized for patterns and clues. The new devices, along with the increasing ease of sharing data with other users through social-networking sites, mean that more and more people are finding it useful to quantify their lives. The Zeo, a $199 device based on technology that until recently required the services of a trained technician, makes it easy for users to track their sleep cycles. The device consists of a soft headband with a fabric sensor that wirelessly transmits EEG data to a bedside monitor. A programmable alarm clock wakes the wearer at the optimal phase of sleep. And each night's data can be uploaded to a computer, where users can study how their sleep is affected by environmental factors such as weather, light, and more.

Sanjiv Shah, a longtime insomniac who participates in the Boston group, believes that wearing orange-tinted glasses for several hours before bed makes it easier for him to fall asleep. (The theory is that the orange tint blocks blue light, which has been shown in both human and animal studies to influence circadian rhythms.) To quantify the effects, he used not only the Zeo but also a thumb-size device called the Fitbit, which incorporates an accelerometer that measures movement, and a camera trained on his bed to record his sleep for a month. His results: without the glasses, he took an average of 28 minutes to fall asleep, but with them he took only four.

Calculate your Target Heart Rate

What is a target heart rate?

Target heart rate is an optimal heart rate used by gym users or fitness enthusiasts that enables people to achieve optimal workout results.

Heart rate changes during physical exercise and the more intensive the exercise, the faster the heart rate. Due to a change of heart rate, the supply of blood and oxygen to the body cells also changes. Target heart rate is that optimal state where the body functions most efficiently , can adapt well to changes of physical intensity during an exercise, and is a measure of improved physical fitness.

The target heart rate range differs for men and women and also depends on the person’s current physical condition and past training.

Benefits of calculating target heart rate:

Target heart rate is a good workout tool as it helps to measure the progress of one’s fitness regimen. It can also be very beneficial for people trying to lose weight by aerobic exercise or just fitness practitioners working towards physical well-being. Blood pressure is an important indicator for a healthy heart rate and target heart rate is used to lower blood pressure in some people. It can also help in keeping the heart and body healthy. Calculating the target heart rate is necessary for a safe and efficient workout. The intensity of the workout can vary from slow-paced to vigorous; exercising at the right pace is necessary to get the full benefit of a workout as a sudden increase in intensity may be harmful or very light exercise may not be that beneficial.

Calculating your target heart rate

One of the methods used to calculate target heart rate is ‘Karvonen’s formula’.

Target heart rate = Exercise intensity level (percentage) x (Maximum heart rate – Minimum heart rate) + Minimum heart rate.