Heart Window
Bespoke health pacing tool, built with you, using heart rate data from your own wearable, to create a window into your personal patterns.
My story
My name is Anna Marie. I'm in my 50s and have lived with intermittent ME/CFS, POTS and other comorbidities since my 20s. Most of that time I was undiagnosed. Some years I could climb mountains and other years getting to the loo has been a problem. Many times I've thought I've found the answer and was "cured". And many times I've relapsed, most recently from Covid in 2025.
I've been lucky in that even in my worst periods, much of the time I've been able to think. I trained in architecture and moved sideways to work in renewable energy. Until recently I held down a job 10 hours per week, delivering online training in physics theory and CAD within the construction industry. Working from home, sometimes from bed.Wanting to work within health and follow my other passion besides spreadsheets, I began a 6 year part time training in medical herbalism in 2025.Menu
The problem
The unpredictable nature of this condition makes life hard, physically, emotionally, practically. I really want to know, before I get up, roughly what to expect. I want a way to visualise the crashes and improvements to help make sense of it and share it with others.Menu
What I've built
In 2016 I learned of pacing with a heart rate monitor and of POTS from the highly knowledgeable patient Facebook group pacing with a HR monitor . Since then I've tried many forms of pacing, (and not-pacing).
Beginnings of Heart WindowIn 2021 I started developing a spreadsheet based tracking tool based on how my actual daily energy fitted with data collected from my watch and elsewhere. I've found my personalised tool more useful than any other pacing tools that I tried as it's built around measures that have correlated most strongly with my actual health.For me this involves a safe stress test: HR after 90 seconds standing first thing after waking and drinking a pint of electrolytes in bed. With overnight heart measures, I then get a fairly accurate idea of what my day could look like. And I can muster emotional energy to face life with some numbers around me.See Heart Window Gallery for ideas and examples of possibilities.Menu
What I'm offering
I'd like to offer to others the opportunity to work with me to find what measurable data you might have that closely tracks your actual symptoms and could be used to loosely predict you health. Also, management tools that could be helpful, activity tracking using Garmin active calories, food decision making, long term trends. We can decide what other tools you would like to focus on. It needs building to work for your body.So what I'm offering is to work closely with you to develop a Heart Window tracking, pacing and management tool that works for you.What I think that looks like in practice is below. All to be adapted and discussed to suit health and other constraints.Menu
How it works
Stage 1: Onboarding90 minutes to discuss your needs, wishes, conditions, constraints, health aims.* I go away and create what's been discussed as a data gathering tool so we can find what patterns exist.
Stage 2: Data Gathering60 minutes introduction to data gathering tool.You gather 3 weeks data, more if needed as discussed.* I'm available for questions, suggestions, adaptions etc during this period.
Stage 3: Data Analysis90 minutes to decide how best to use data gathered: correlations, patterns. Planning what your Heart Window needs to contain, (see gallery for possibilities).* I work on creating this.
Stage 4: Handover60 minute handover of first version of Heart Window.* I'm available for follow up questions, edits, bug fixes, support.
In summary5 hours online sessions together, timed and split however health demands (yours and mine)10 hours creating your personalised Google sheets based Heart Window in between our sessions.5 hours of extra contact time (phone, email etc) for questions, niggles, edits.
Smaller Heart Window option
It might be that you just want one small element built not a full scale system. We can discuss your needs, budget etc in an initial free chat.
Practicalities
As neither of us is well, all this is open ended, no pressure, if I need to cancel a meeting I will give an hours notice minimum, you may cancel any time up to the meeting start.I will keep you updated on what I'm able to and have done with no up front fees, you only pay for what has been done.Data will be stored on a shared, private Google drive to be accessed anytime by either of us and noone else.I hope together we can create something truly useful for your daily health management.Menu
Fees
Free initial 30 minute chat or video call to discuss if this sounds right for you.
Heart WindowTotal 20 hours work
charged on a sliding scale
Struggling with money: £20/hour (total £400)
Feel OK about money: £60/hour (total £1,200)
Professional / comfortable: £100/hour (total £2,000)
Please choose a rate within this range that feels right for you, no need to justify it.
High rate subsidises people struggling with money.Fees invoiced at the end of each of the 4 stages or at any point requested if you want to pause or stop the work together. Work pauses until the invoice for that stage is settled.Medical DisclaimerHeart Window is a tracking and pacing tool, not medical advice.Menu
Gallery
Click image to display in sideshow
Daily scores on the the doors for POTS severity, ME scale fatigue estimate, past week fatigue average, nervous system state, PEM risk and other symptom severity
Energy budget using active calories from Garmin watch to pace throughout the day. Guide for time needed to rest if over budget
Day planner including predicted rate of energy use from previously logged activities, adjusted for today's resting and morning stress test heart rate scores.
Dashboard Tools section showing practices, hobbies, exercises etc that are within today's energy and symptom limits. Links to resources for use. If ticked, highlighted as plan to complete, if unticked, listed automatically in main HR calender database.
Yesterday's pacing results based on active calories used compared to budget estimated. Today's PEM risk estimated from previous few days results.
Using an external Garmin watchface, daily guideline limits for active calories and steps can be viewed. As the day goes by, energy and steps actually used shows against the guidelines limits, enabling you to rest or continue as needed.
Garmin heart rate data during a 90 second "stress test" (standing upright). My maximum heart rate has corellated closely enough with my daily energy to use to predict how much energy I'll have for the day.
Historical garmin active calories plotted against subjective wellness scores giving a loose but clear trend line for predicting daily active calories budget based on predicted wellness.
