Momentary Stressor Logging and Reflective Visualizations: Implications for Stress Management with Wearables
Abstract
Commercial wearables from Fitbit, Garmin, and Whoop have recently introduced real-time notifications based on detecting changes in physiological responses indicating potential stress. In this paper, we investigate how these new capabilities can be leveraged to improve stress management. We developed a smartwatch app, a smartphone app, and a cloud service, and conducted a 100-day field study with 122 participants who received prompts triggered by physiological responses several times a day. They were asked whether they were stressed, and if so, to log the most likely stressor. Each week, participants received new visualizations of their data to self-reflect on patterns and trends. Participants reported better awareness of their stressors, and self-initiating fourteen kinds of behavioral changes to reduce stress in their daily lives. Repeated self-reports over 14 weeks showed reductions in both stress intensity (in 26,521 momentary ratings) and stress frequency (in 1,057 weekly surveys).
Publication Title
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
Recommended Citation
Neupane, S., Saha, M., Ali, N., Hnat, T., Samiei, S., Nandugudi, A., Almeida, D., & Kumar, S. (2024). Momentary Stressor Logging and Reflective Visualizations: Implications for Stress Management with Wearables. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642662
