Measuring the stress level via smart watch
Monitoring human stress is one of the most important goals which have been brought to big companies’ attention including Garmin, Apple, Fitbit, and Google.
We all encounter stress during our lives because of particular situations or just a hectic day at work.
But it can have a detrimental impact on our health and lives, which is why stress is becoming an important issue people want to deal with.
A few years ago, companies have measured stress levels based on sudden elevation in heart rate.
Since the heart rate can go up and down while doing any activity or workout, this technique was not very accurate.
Nowadays, to evaluate stress, most companies use Heart Rate Variability (HRV) technology in smartwatches.
HRV technology can measure the variation of time between each heartbeat.
As a matter of fact, the body’s autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulating our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion is responsible for controlling this variation.
That is to say that the HRV is very different from the heart rate (BPM). In fact, this difference is in the time interval between each heartbeat.
All the smartwatches equipped with the Stress Monitoring feature have a Breathing Exercise mode. This possibility helps users relax their bodies through long breathing sessions, and finally, it can bring about lower stress levels.
If your watch benefits from automatic stress monitoring, it is able to notify you automatically when you have a high-stress level.
These smartwatches have been programmed to present an instruction to relieve your stress by doing some breathing exercises.
In some watches, you are enabled to opt for the intensity, and duration of the breathing exercise.
So, when suffering from stress, you can do these simple breathing exercises in order to calm your body.
Heart rate variability measurements can be able to measure or track stress in two ways.
The first one is related to people’s mental well-being.
Many wearables provide a ‘stress score’ from 0-100 for users through this HRV data, which can propose a clear idea if you are suffering from stress in your day.
There are also options that smartwatches can present the guided breathing exercises based on onboard heart rate monitors and HRV in order to demonstrate when you’ve returned to a calmer state.
Users could take control of how they handle stress by mindful breathing, says Han Paik, a senior product manager at Garmin.
When we start breathing in a controlled manner, we gradually reduce our heart rate and raise the beat-to-beat variability.
When this happens, the heart sends a signal to the brain that is basically like saying ‘Relax, all things are okay! there are no worries.
In fact, when we start to breathe rapidly and shortly, our heart rate gets fast, and more inflexible. That is the exact time that the brain and the body get the opposite message which is known as stress.
The second one is related to fitness and exercise. Indeed, this is the concept of using the same heart rate variability measurements in order to indicate the strain and stresses put on the body after a workout.
Those heart rate variability measurements are used by companies like Whoop, Oura, and Fitbit in order to provide insights into how ready your body is ready to perform.
These measurements are useful when you want to know that you see when you are at your optimum to tackle a workout.
When your HRV is high, your body is in good shape, on the other hand, when your HRV is low, the results show that you are fatigued, dehydrated, stressed, or even unwell.
Are the Smartwatches reliable for Measuring Stress Levels
Technology has revolutionized our daily lives, as before stated, new stress measurement techniques like HRV and EDA have been implemented in smartwatches.
It should be noted that since EDA is expensive, HRV has been used in most budget smartwatches.
According to published reports, since detecting stress by HRV is approximately 90 percent, we can claim that smartwatches can be considered reliable to a fair extent.
The best smartwatches for stress tracking
We have prepared a list of the best smartwatches which offer better accuracy and sensors.
This list can help you opt for the best choice to monitor stress accurately.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 4
Samsung’s new Bioactive sensor is implemented in the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4.
This smartwatch can present reports about body composition like Body Fat, Body Water, Fat Mass, and so on.
It also recognizes stress levels continuously and sends a message when you need a break or breathing exercises.
Fitbit Sense Advanced Smartwatch
This smartwatch is one of the best choices to track your physical activity and mental stress.
It is able to detect electrodermal activity to demonstrate your body’s response to stress via Scan app.
It is also equipped with heart rate alerts for when it falls too low, or goes too high.
You are enabled to check your nightly blood oxygen levels.
This smartwatch benefits from a built-in skin temperature sensor logging each night, therefore, you can see when it varies.
Besides, this smartwatch has a possibility to track activities in swimming, cycling, running, lifting and more.
If you want to track your body, this watch from Fitbit is the right choice to pick up.
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Amazfit GTS2 Mini Smart Watch
This smartwatch can track your stress level. This smartwatch has a 1.55-inch AMOLED screen.
You can obtain vital information from its screen including heart rate, SpO2 levels, sports mode tracking, and so on.
This smartwatch can track more than 70 activities, workouts and sports including swimming, trekking, yoga, mountain biking, hiking, running, and so on.
This smartwatch benefits from stress and sleep monitoring sensors which help you track of body vitals during the night.
If you are loved sports, you enjoy the many tracking modes and sensors because they help you obtain more information about your workout sessions.
