There are devices not only for tracking heart rate and counting steps, but also for measuring something more complicated and common—stress. They can alert you when you are stressed and can take note when you are relaxed and restored, putting it on a score from 0 to 100. There are devices that can notify you when your body shows signs of a possible stress response.
Can Wearables Really Measure Stress?
A watch or a ring can send several biological signals and turn something complicated into a clean graph for you to interpret. Which means stress can be quantified, but the big question is: does all this information lead to meaningful behaviour change? How do people feel about being monitored all day? Stressful? Helpful?
According to psychologists, it is possible to differentiate between the stressors we face and how our bodies respond. There can be stressful situations in life, and then there is perceived stress: whether you feel that the demand exceeds your ability to cope. Finally, there’s the physiological stress response: what your body does as it prepares to meet that demand.
These stress influences are interconnected, but they don’t always line up. A performance on stage can make your heart pound and your palms sweat, even though you are excited about the performance. Having said that, without showing the exact bodily pattern a device has learned to associate with stress, someone may feel overwhelmed.
The biological definition of stress includes a higher heart rate, lower heart rate variability, changes in breathing and increased sweating, to list a few. These are certain physiological changes researchers and algorithms have found to occur more often under stressful conditions.
Parts of this physiological response can be detected by wearables. But they cannot detect the psychological side, like how well you are handling it or dealing with it. That gap matters because feeling overwhelmed is usually what people mean when they say they’re stressed. A device may correctly detect that your body is more activated while still getting your feelings wrong.
Acute stress: Acute stress can be positive or negative and is short-term. Having a fight with your boyfriend, as well as the feeling you get when you’re riding on a rollercoaster, are the same, according to research. This is something you experience from time to time.
Episodic acute stress: The acute stress that you experience on a regular basis is called episodic acute stress. This is more intense as you don’t ever get the time you need to return to a calm, relaxed state. People working in certain professions, like healthcare providers, are frequently affected by episodic stress.
Chronic stress: Chronic stress goes on for weeks or months and is long-term stress. Those facing financial problems, issues at work and marriage troubles may experience chronic stress. This can lead to health issues if not managed the right way.
When an app reports greater physiological activation, it generally means that your body is showing signs of being more alert or ready for action.
Some devices add another signal: electrodermal activity (EDA). After collecting these signals, the software filters out unreliable data, extracts useful patterns and translates the results into a score or category. Some systems use a general model trained on data from many people, while others also compare your current readings with your own recent patterns.
Stress detection in a lab may look impressive because the stressful condition is created by researchers. But in real life, stress can be messier. The stress detected by devices may not be accurate, as they may also lose data because of movement, loose contact, cold skin or poor circulation. How one person reacts to a situation can be different from how another person reacts to the same situation. Context matters, and a wearable device can’t capture most of it on its own.
User experiences are mixed. It has been found that tracking helps some people recognise patterns or acknowledge strain they’ve been dismissing. Others find the readings confusing, unhelpful or stressful.
Research also shows that daytime stress graphs can remain stuck on “stressed”, even on days when people deliberately take it easy. When a reading repeatedly conflicts with their experience, it can become difficult to know what to trust.
Keep in mind that if an app uses the word “stress”, it should explain that the reading doesn’t necessarily mean someone feels overwhelmed.
—manuvipin@newindianexpress.com
@ManuVipin
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