Tutorial - How to Use the emWave PC

The key to transforming stress lies in your power to regulate
your emotions and perceptions. That power comes from your heart.

This section will give you further understanding of the functions in the Heart Rhythm Display, how to personalize emWave® PC and other important tasks.

I. Heart Rhythm Display

The Heart Rhythm Display Screen is where you will be able to see your heart rhythms in real-time and run your first session. To go to the Heart Rhythm Display from the Home Screen:

Click the Run Session button in the Activities section.

Or, select Go > Run HRV Session from the Menu.

In the Heart Rhythm Display, notice the Toolbar. These buttons help you perform key functions and give you alternative viewing screens with a simple click.

The buttons in order left to right:

∙ Return to Home Screen – Goes back to default Homepage.
∙ Start Recording – Starts the sensor calibration and begins a session.
∙ Stop Recording – Stops a session.
∙ View Pulse Wave – View your heart rhythms and your Pulse Wave graph.
∙ View Coherence Ratios - View your heart rhythms, Coherence Ratio and Accumulated Coherence Score
∙ View Full Screen – Expand emWave to the size of your monitor.
∙ View HRV Power Spectrum – View your heart rhythms and your Power Spectrum.
∙ View Coherence Scores – View your heart rhythms and your Accumulated Coherence Score.
∙ Review a Past Session – Select from a list of saved sessions to review.
∙ View Progress – View progress reports of saved sessions for the current user.
∙ Open User – Change the current user.
∙ Edit Sound – Enable, disable and import new sounds.
∙ Help – Activates the context help arrow.

Running a Session

(Read the Quick Start Guide before going through the rest of this section)

Once recording has started the Heart Rhythm Graph begins to scroll displaying your heart rhythms as they speed up and slow down.

Adjusting the Heart Rate Screen

Clicking the Time Axis scale controls the zoom on the heart rhythm pattern showing less or more time on the screen. Choosing a larger number has the affect of zooming out - showing more time on the screen. Choosing a smaller number has the affect of zooming in- showing less time on the screen.

The Heart Rate Axis controls the viewing range of your heart rhythms. Choosing a larger number will display a larger range on the heart rate axis. Choosing a smaller number zooms in and displays a smaller range.

The Auto Center button, just to the right of the screen above the heart rate axis numbers, centers the graph on your heart rhythms. You can also manually adjust the position of your heart rhythm trace anywhere on the screen using the scroll bar.

Understanding your Coherence Ratios

During a session, the Coherence Ratio Bar Chart will continuously display an updated view of your physiological coherence ratio. The information will be updated and displayed every five seconds throughout your session.

The Coherence Ratio screen can be viewed from the main Heart Rhythm Display below the Heart Rhythm screen to the right of the Accumulated Coherence Score screen.

The Coherence Ratio Bar Chart is divided into three coherence levels: low, medium and high. The total of all three levels will always equal 100%. The Coherence Ratio Bar Chart displays what percentage of the time you have spent during a session in low, medium and high coherence.

For example, in the image below the person was in:

- Low Coherence 36% of the time
- Medium Coherence 13% of the time.
- High Coherence 63% of the time.

Your goal is to increase the amount of time you spend in high coherence. This is done through practice. Your results will vary depending on the challenge level you select.

Accumulated Coherence Score

The screen to the left of the Coherence Ratio screen is the Accumulated Coherence (AC) Score. It is a linear view of the AC Score. With this score you can measure your progress over an individual session and compare between separate sessions. The AC Score can be viewed from the main Heart Rhythm Display. It can also be displayed on a larger screen by clicking the View Coherence Score button.

When you are in low coherence, the slope of the line goes down. When you are in medium or high coherence the line goes up. The numbers on the right side of the screen represent points. For every five seconds that you are in medium coherence you receive 1 point (+1). For every five seconds you are in high coherence you receive 2 points (+2). For every five seconds that you are in low coherence you lose a point (-1).

Increases and decreases in points are reflected in the upward and downward movement of the blue line. After about one minute you will see two lines on the graph sloping at a downward angle from right to left.

These lines represent a target area called The Zone. Your goal is to accumulate points by staying in medium or high coherence, which will cause the blue line to move upward between the sloping lines into The Zone. Using the Accumulated Coherence Score screen to view your relationship to The Zone can help you achieve and maintain higher levels of coherence.

The Power Spectrum

To view the Power Spectrum click the View HRV Power Spectrum button.
The Power Spectrum can beviewed as a window into your Autonomous Nervous System (ANS). The reddish brown, very low frequency (VLF), region on the left shows sympathetic, “flight or fight” response, activity of the ANS. The purple, high frequency (HF), region on the right indicates parasympathetic, “rest and digest”, activity of the ANS. As you shift towards high coherence, the bars will focus around 0.1 Hz in the yellow, low frequency (LF), region in the middle. High Coherence, bars focused in the yellow region, indicates a synchronization of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic branches of the ANS. This synchronization of the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the ANS can act as an aid in creating balance within the body. Initially, most people will have a large peak in the VLF region due to sympathetic activity. A peak around .2 Hz in the HF region due to parasympathetic activity can appear when the user is in relaxation mode.

Saving your Data

The Save Session feature is designed to make it possible for multiple users to save their data to their personal file. emWave PC has no limit to the number of sessions that can be saved; the amount of hard drive space on your computer determines this.

To save your data after running a session click the Save Session button.

The Save Session dialog box appears.

If you attempt to exit a session without saving it, the Save Session dialog box will appear. If you want to turn this feature off, or save sessions automatically, go to the Help menu for instructions.

To save session data to the current user without entering comments, click OK. The current default user is displayed above the Menu next to emWave PC page title.

To save session data to current (default) user and enter comments with the session, select the ‘Enter and save comments with this session’ checkbox. A Session Comment window will appear. Enter a title and any comments that correspond to the session.

To create a new user, if this is your first session on this computer, click the New User button. The Personal Information dialog box will appear. Enter your personal information and click OK.

If you already have a User Name and are not the current (default) user, you can save the session under your existing User Name by de-selecting the ‘Save session data to current (default) user’ checkbox. You can now find your User Name in the drop down menu.

If you decide not to save the session, click the No button.

Reviewing Saved Sessions

To review a session click the Review Session button you will open a dialog box. The time and date and comment title will appear in the upper section. The user name appears in the lower section. Click on the arrow in the User Name window, and select the appropriate user from the list. Choose the session you’d like to see and double click on it.

You’ll see the data from this particular session. You can now click on the buttons on the tool bar to see any view of this session. To exit this review mode just click on the Main window button.

Progress Reports

To view your Progress Report click the Progress Report button. The screen will show the results for the default user.

The top graph shows the average heart rate of each saved session. Each dot represents the recorded average heart rate of a session. The numbers on the right side of this chart show the beats per minute.

The lower half of the screen uses bar graphs to give you a visual picture of the coherence ratios you had during each session. Just like in the Coherence Ratio Bar Chart - red means low coherence, blue medium coherence and green high coherence. In this mode you can easily review and compare your coherence ratios over time. The challenge level is listed as well as the date of the recording.

II. The Options Menu and Sound Control

Changing Options settings in your emWave PC to suit your needs is easy. Select Settings > Options from the Menu.

The Option Box will appear as shown below.

General Tab: Settings on Start: This refers to when you start up the emWave PC system. You can either choose to have your settings (sound, session length, etc.) saved if you change them or have them revert back to the default settings upon starting the emWave PC system.

Demo Mode: When simulator is selected, only pre-recorded data can be played on the screen. This allows the emWave PC system to operate very much like a player-piano. It is important to switch back to the pulse sensor before recording a live session.

Session Length:You can change the maximum recording length of a session (the default value is 20 minutes), enable or disable artifact detection and the HRT Filter. To get detailed descriptions of these features, click on the Help button in the lower right corner of the Options box.

Pulse Sensor Tab

USB Sensor: When the USB Sensor option is selected the program accesses the USB sensor attached to the USB port. Your real time pulse data will appear on screen.

Serial Port Sensor: When the Serial Port Sensor option is selected the program accesses the Serial Port Sensor attached to a serial port. Your real time pulse data will appear on screen. If you switch between the Serial Port Sensor and the USB Sensor, you will be asked to exit the program and restart the emWave PC in order for the change to take effect.

USB Sensor Options - Automatic Gain Control On/Off: The USB sensor has the capability to automatically adjust itself to different conditions. For example, if the user has cold hands the sensor will automatically increase its sensitivity at the start of a session to get a better signal, thereby reducing artifacts and in some cases making data collection possible where it previously was not. We do not recommend turning this option off. However, setting automatic gain will delay the beginning of the session by a few seconds. While the Automatic Gain Control is calibrating, you will see the following progress bar, unless you are playing a game.

Manual Gain Level: If Automatic Gain Control is set to "Off", you can force the sensor into one of its three gain modes, Low, Medium, or High. Medium gain is the default setting. Low gain would be used if the sensor is receiving too much signal to process correctly. High gain would be used if the sensor is not getting enough signal with the other settings.

The ear sensor should only be used with the Low and Medium settings. As a guide, "Last AGC" will indicate the last Automatic gain setting used by the system.

Serial Sensor Options: When the Serial Port Sensor option is selected the program searches the computer's serial ports starting at Port 1. This AUTO setting can be changed to start the search at a higher port number up to Port 8. Sometimes, any existing devices such as a Touchpad might be mistakenly identified as a pulse sensor. Setting the search to start at the real location of the pulse sensor will avoid this issue. It will also accelerate application startup.

User Interface Tab

Manual Language Selection: If other languages are installed, this will allow you to override the automatic choices emWave PC makes based on the current System User Interface installed or selected by the user. The option will be ignored, if the matching language support has not been installed.

Ask before connecting to there Internet: emWave PC will ask, whether you want to connect to the Internet, when choosing a function that connects to the Internet such as browsing the Online Support or Store. This option is enabled by default. Unchecking this box will eliminate the dialog box.

Show Content Page instead of HRV Screen on Start: By unchecking this box the Heart Rhythm Display is now your default home page. This gives you quick access to running a regular session.

Enable simple interface: By unchecking this box you have access to Data Logging features and access to Sound features from the Options panel. The image below shows the two new tabs, however, the Options panel has to be closed and then reopened for them to appear.

Automatically Save Session Data: When you stop a session the data will automatically be stored under that user information.

Sound Control

Sounds are used to give you feedback when you are running a session, playing a game, using the Coherence Coach and running the Emotion Visualizer . The Sound Control panel gives you the ability to control the audio feedback.

To access the Sound Control panel: Select Settings > Sound from the Menu.

Or, click the Edit Sound button on the Toolbar.

After using one of the above methods the Sound Control panel will appear.

Sound Control - Audio Feedback

The Audio Feedback section contains four sound triggers:

Low Score Sound - By default this sound is disabled.
Medium Score Sound - Plays when you reach Medium Coherence.
High Score Sound - Plays when you reach High Coherence.
100 Point Sound - Plays when your Accumulated Coherence Score reaches 100 points.

You can disable these sounds by unchecking the Enabled box located to the right of each sound trigger. You can also change the sound that corresponds to each trigger, however, you must have a .wav sound file stored on your computer to replace the default sounds. To change these sounds simply click on one of the boxes to the right of each description. Locate and select your sound file on your computer.

Sound Control - Sound Track

The Soundtrack plays in the background while you are running a session, a game, the Coherence Coach, and the Emotion Visualizer. You can change this sound file the same way as shown above in the audio feedback section. The difference between this default sound file and the sound files in the audio feedback section is that this sound file is a full song. So when selecting a new audio file for the soundtrack make sure it is a song and not just a short sound clip.

Volume - Allows you to set the internal volume of the soundtrack using a slider. Moving the slider all the way to the left will turn the volume all the way off. Moving the slider all the way to the right will turn the volume all the way up.

You can also disable the soundtrack entirely or just while the applets (Coherence Coach, Emotion Visualizer, etc.) are running by unchecking the Enabled box to the right of the soundtrack.

III. Adding/Deleting a User Profile

Adding: To add a new user to emWave PC select File > New User. Fill out the information in the box seen below and the new user can start running and saving sessions.

Deleting: To delete a user select File > Delete User. A box prompting you select a user will appear. Select the user you want to delete and hit ok. A second prompt will open, letting you know that all information about that user will be deleted. If you are sure
you want to perform this function, hit ok. Records of the user will be completely erased from emWave PC.

IV. Changing the Challenge Level

The Challenge Level Menu on the emWave PC system allows you to pick from four different challenge levels. The default challenge level is level 2 or Normal. The higher the challenge level the more difficult it is to get a medium or high coherence score.

Here’s why this function is useful. Suppose after practicing with emWave PCfor a while you find that you can get to high coherence and sustain it most of the time. Your interest in using the emWave PC system could diminish because it’s not challenging anymore. If that becomes the case then select a higher challenge level. Then, your heart rhythm patterns will have to be even smoother and more regular in order to reach high coherence. This will help to sharpen your skill at becoming even more coherent.

On the other hand, it may be difficult for some people to get any medium or high coherence when they first start to use emWave PC system. That’s okay. If this is the case, you can select Low, challenge level one, and use this setting until you get a feel for how to shift into a coherent state. Once you have mastered level one then just keep increasing the challenge level as you build your skill at becoming more and more coherent.

V. Getting Help

Your emWave PC software provides an extensive help function. Notice that two help functions exist, Context Help and Help Topics.

Context Help: This allows you to access the Help Topics from the emWave PC screens. While in any of the screens, from the menu select Help > Context Help.

Or, click the Help button on the Toolbar.

A question mark will appear next to the cursor. Click on any item within emWave PC that you would like help with. After clicking on the item, the Help Topics will open to that particular item in the files.

Help Topics: This is your help index, where you can search, select an item from the index or click through the contents you want to learn more about.

Your help menu is a valuable resource that can give you an education on a variety of important subjects.

Enjoy!

Return to the Mind Modulations main emWave PC page.