Relax, dude: Mindset aims at controlling stress with wearables

Wearables have the ability to improve health and give us insights into our mental state — all we need are the apps that can analyze and quantify the data.

Missouri startup Mindset, created by engineering students at Washington University of St. Louis, has launched an app aimed at stress management. It uses wearable data to indicate rising stress levels and a mobile app to for users to lower stress levels and give feedback.

See Also: Richer, sicker seniors to drive medical wearables market growth

Mindset alerts the user with a smartphone ping, if they see rising stress levels. The main indicator will be from an increase in heart rate and from there users tell the mobile app what is bothering them.

Mindset gives you chill options

Different types of meditation and exercises are provided on the app. A message board is available for users to update with positive vibes reports; we’re not sure if moderators will remove negative status updates.

The developers believe that controlling emotions at critical times is the best way to lower stress. The goal is not to remove all stress at once, an impossible task for some, but to lower the amount of time stressed.

Multiple studies have shown that a stressful environment could knock a few years off your life, so it is very important that we have apps like Mindset available.

And since the workplace is one huge source of our stress, Mindset may find a ready market in the enterprise sector.

A recent report by market intelligence firm Tractica says wearables will be a big deal with enterprise users in the near future, perhaps to the point of replacing your gym membership with a Fitbit streaming back to your HR department…which may stress you out even further.

iOS and Android users can pick up Mindset today for free, but it does require a wearable to work properly. On the startup’s website, it recommends three wearables from Mio, but we assume Fitbit and other wearables support the app.