Key result
Smartwatch-tracked HR and HRV changes predict daily well-being but not momentary well-being.
Why the study?
Consumer-grade body sensors on smartwatches enable continuous and unobtrusive well-being measurement, motivating a framework to collect and analyze physiological data outside controlled laboratory settings.
Do changes in heart rate and heart rate variability measured by smartwatches predict well-being?
Observational
Do changes in heart rate and heart rate variability measured by smartwatches predict well-being?
Smartwatch-derived heart rate and heart rate variability can predict daily well-being, challenging the idea that they predict momentary well-being.
May support daily well-being tracking with wearables; hypothesis-generating and should not yet change practice.
Human physiology is a window to our physical, mental, and emotional states; our well-being. Today, a new wave of objective data derived from consumer grade body sensors - like those equipped by smartwatches - paves the way toward a new approach in how well-being is being measured, continuously and unobtrusively. Here, we developed a framework for collecting and analyzing physiological data using smartwatches in-the-wild, and demonstrated its robustness in data obtained away from controlled laboratory settings. We found that changes in people's heart rate and heart rate variability are predictive not of momentary well-being (a scientific idea that continues to live on in the absence of in-the-wild evidence, aka, zombie theory) but of daily well-being.
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Park et al. (2020) conducted an observational in Well-being. Smartwatch-derived heart rate and heart rate variability was evaluated on Daily well-being. Changes in heart rate and heart rate variability measured via smartwatches in-the-wild were predictive of daily well-being, but not momentary well-being.
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