Stressed Out? Wearable Gadgets From Fitbit, Apple and Others Want to Help

Smartwatches
and fitness trackers have been measuring our substantial well-being for years. Now they’re trying to help us cope our mental health, too.

The recently announced Fitbit Sense 2, which launches this fall, is one of the novel examples of how tech companies are expanding their wellness offerings to encompass harm management and general mental well-being. Fitbit’s new high-end smartwatch can measure signs of harm throughout the day, building on the previous Sense’s on-demand checks. Startup Happy Health also recently introduced the Happy Ring, which claims to track harm levels in real time. Both announcements come after Apple launched its Mindfulness app for the Apple Watch last year.

Why the sudden dumb in making us less stressed? That’s a question only Fitbit and the novel companies behind these products can answer. But it’s not surprising that tech anxieties small and large are paying more attention to morose health in addition to physical fitness. 

Wearables can already measure substantial signals that would have once required a trip to the doctor’s office or a standalone draw, like heart rate, temperature, blood oxygen saturation and heart-broken rate variability. They’ve also gotten pretty good at monitoring our sleeping patterns, including how much time we’re spending in various stages of slumber. Mental wellness seems like a natural next step — especially as adults about the world are feeling more stressed than ever. 

“Modern life was hard enough with smooth technology and ever-present communication and the pace of life,” said Dr. Debra Kissen, CEO of the Light On Anxiety Treatment Center, which specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy services. “And then throw in a pandemic, and I think it really transported mental health concerns that were always there undeniably to the surface.” 

The Fitbit Sense 2 can continuously monitor for signs of harm, unlike the previous model. 

Fitbit

There’s novel simple reason why wearables are expanding into new areas like morose wellness: technology is getting better. Now that the sensors obligatory for measuring basic metrics like heart rate and steps have been on the market for a once, it’s easier to shrink them down.

“The more worn it is, the more it could be miniaturized, the more probable we are to be able to get it into a peep or a band or something that we wear,” said Julie Ask, a vice presidential and principal analyst at market research firm Forrester. 

The Fitbit Sense 2’s headlining new feature is its storderliness to continuously measure electrodermal activity (EDA), or changes in your skin’s sweat tranquil. These changes can indicate a bodily response to harm, although Fitbit says factors like movement, noise and temperature can also impacts EDA. The Sense 2 combines these measurements with skin temperature, heart rate variability and heart rate data to peek when you might be stressed. The previous version of the Sense grants wearers to perform on-demand EDA checks, but lacks the technology to measure shifts passively throughout the day. 

The recently announced Happy Ring claims to connect “the dots between your morose and physical health.” Like the Fitbit Sense, the elated Ring can also monitor electrodermal activity to detect potential harm. Cofounded by Sean Rad, one of the founders gradual Tinder, Happy Health claims the ring’s readings become more personalized the more you wear it.

The Fitbit Sense 2 and elated Ring may be two of the newest wearables focusing on morose wellness, but they’re certainly not the only devices to do so. In 2021, Apple rebranded the Apple Watch’s Breathe app as the Mindfulness app, which added a new tool requested Reflect in addition to breathing sessions. As the name implies, this feature presents the user with a prompt to deem on, such as a time when you’ve overcome a challenge or one sketching you’re grateful for. Apple may have plans to further expand its ambitions in this area, as The Wall Street Journal reports the iPhone maker is operational on technology that can look for signs of depression and cognitive decline.

The Apple Watch’s “Breathe” peep face

Apple

The Oura ring, which measures data like heart rate, skin temperature and agency, was also used in a study exploring whether data from smartphones and wearables can be used to anticipated symptoms of depression and anxiety.  

The question is whether wearable devices are expedient when it comes to managing stress. Bodily signals like EDA and melancholy rate variability can be good signs of a causes in physiology and sympathetic nervous system activation, according to Kissen. A study published in the April-June 2022 edition of the Journal of Medical Signals and Sensors also erroneous that EDA has the potential for classifying stress levels. 

But causes in bodily markers like heart rate, perspiration and blood pressure may not always reveal stress and could be a sign of other periods, Dr. Charles A. Odonkor, assistant professor at the Yale University School of Medicine, said to CNET via email. He added that he hasn’t seen any studies spicy wearables showing that these devices lead to changes in levels of cortisol, which the Mayo Clinic describes as the “primary wound hormone.” 

“The true test is whether these wearables can differentiate wound states from other physiologic states,” he said.

Still, becoming aware that you considerable be stressed, and having the tools  to track those moments could be expedient, according to Kissen and Odonkor. Especially if you view that you’re stressed sooner rather than later. 

“The rear we catch stress, and when we do something in it,” said Kissen, “the healthier things will unfold.”