World Cup 2018: England fans warned by Apple Watch that their heart rate could be reaching dangerous levels during tense penalty shootout victory
Such activity is usually associated with irregular heartbeats and can be a warning of heart attacks
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.If you feel like watching England in a penalty shootout could give you a heart attack, you might be on to something. At least if data from fitness trackers is to be believed.
The stress of watching the Colombia game on Tuesday sent pulses rocketing. And some fans wearing Apple Watches were sent messages of concern: ”Apple Watch detected a heart rate that rose above 120 while you appeared to be inactive during the 10-minute period”.
Some found that their heart appeared to be beating more than twice as fast as expected. Charts taken from fitness trackers show heart rates rapidly surging around 9pm, when it became clear the team would have to play through extra time and then penalties.
Some fitness trackers include a special mode that checks for when heart rates spike more than they’d be expected, when their wearers are not apparently doing exercise. Such data can be an early warning of heart trouble, and has been credited with potentially saving the lives of people who were able to spot that they could be having heart attacks.
But the same warnings were triggered during the football match, as the stress of watching England during penalties forced people’s hearts to beat in a way that suggested something was potentially very wrong.
On an iPhone with an Apple Watch, the data can be found inside the Health app, which stores all the information collected from the Apple Watch. To find it, head into the App, click on "Health Data" and choose the "Heart Rate" option, which will show the graph broken down by hours.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments