0160 Sleep quality affects the heart rate signal when facing the different stress sources

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Stressful conditions can impact our judgement and increase the risk of adverse events such as workplace accidents, falls, and automobile collisions, among others. Sleep quality has also been shown to influence stress responses and heart rate variability (HRV) has proved to be a useful indicator of stress in a variety of scenarios. Therefore, wearable devices such as heart rate monitors may be able to reduce adverse events by measuring stress responses. Among subjects reporting different sleep quality, we measured heart rate variability (HRV) before and after different stressors to understand whether these stressful events could be detected by a wearable device. Methods Twenty-four subjects (male = 10; female = 14) with no known health conditions participated in this study. Subjects were divided into good sleep quality (N = 12) and bad sleep quality (N = 12) groups based on their Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) score. Each subject engaged in a physical stress and mental stress on separate days and HRV was assessed before and after each stress intervention. T-tests were used to assess the change in HRV from pre- to post stress condition for each group. Results In the good sleep quality group we found several statistically significant differences across several HRV frequency-domains before and after physical stress (Low frequency: p = 0.0292; High frequency: p = 0.0287; Low frequency/ High frequency ratio: p = 0.0245) and mental stress (Low frequency: p = 0.0394; High frequency: p = 0.0387; Low frequency/ High frequency ratio: p = 0.0373). Conclusion Our findings indicate that sleep quality may influence the HRV response to different stressors. This suggests that HRV measured via wearable device may be used to provide warning under stressful conditions that could help prevent accidents and other adverse events. Support (if any)