Fitness tracker to monitor stress and being run down

i have never posted anything on any forum before so I hope I am doing it right. 

I have been using a wrist fitness tracker that monitors my heart rate, heart rate variability and sleep. The bit that interests me most is the “body battery” and “stress” measures. I was pretty sceptical to start with but I have found that I cope much better with stressful situations when my “body battery” is high. When it is low I am best to have some quiet time.  It has also been useful to look back and see when I have been most stressed. 

I am on the autistic spectrum myself and work with adults with intellectual disability and autism. I am thinking that this has potential to be be really useful. 

Has anyone else found a fitness tracker useful for monitoring how stressed or how run down they are?

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  • How does that work? I'm stressed to bursting right now but my heart rate is normal? I also have CFS so I sleep lots but never feel recharged. I also can accidentally/be forced to push though and use too much energy so I sleep for days after - how can this be measured on the go without blood tests or other lab tests?

  • The “body battery” measure seems to be based mainly on something called heart rate variability. When there is lots of adrenaline in the body the heart beats very regularly like clockwork. When there isn’t so much adrenaline there is more variation between each beat as it reacts to changes in the body like breathing in and out. 

    So it’s not about the heart speeding up when you are stressed or slowing when you are resting.

    i find that my heart often does go faster when I am really stressed but this doesn’t seem to be what the “body battery” measure is about. 

    I am really not sure if this is just a gimmick that helps them sell fitness trackers, but I have found it helpful and wondered if anyone else had any experience with using it. 

  • I'm not very convinced - sounds like a sales gimmick to me - very difficult to prove if it's working because the buyers of these things seem to want to believe.

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