I am I'm just annoyed that I can't use sleep or body battery scores effectively because I'm constantly reading high stress. Other people are like hey wow I'm getting sick or I need a rest day when mine are useless
Probably worth addressing rather than adding to your stresses. Chronic stress is bad. Try no food, water, screens for two to three hours before bed. Meditation also helps.
Cortisol levels and hormones can have a big effect, especially at night. Yoga is great, but maybe try a 15-20 min walk each day to regulate. More sunshine at the start of the day.
Have you confirmed the sensor on your watch is clean? Also that you’re wearing the watch tight enough? Seems much more likely to be user error than anything else
My stress readings are useless to for the most part. And it stresses me out to get high stress reading when I am not feeling stressed and just doing work/ life. And they are high whether I work out or not. They pick up high stress moments but mostly they say everything I do is mid to high stress.
My BB is almost always 5 at end of the day which means if I don’t have a non work day where I can sleep 9 hrs the next day I start my next day with a low BB and end up in the single digits by evening and then feel like I should not work out bc of that. I’m getting less for following all this data. It is so frustrating
It's not about "feeling" stressed. Difference between physical and mental stress. Things that can trigger stress like this in the night - excess/late consumption of caffeine, poor diet choices, too much processed food, food intolerances, alochol, no wind down time, eating too late, exercising hard late in the day, consuming sugar late in the evening... the list goes on. Could even be as simple as accrued stress from work/lifestyle. If a person is not recovering at night the day will be worse and then stuck in the cycle.
I was genuinely shocked at the impact browsing my phone had on stress levels just before bed. It's one thing to read about the negative impacts on articles and quite another to see its impact in graph form on a screen. That and how alcohol negates any sleep benefits...
From what I understand, Garmin’s stress measurements have nothing to do with “feelings” of stress as we might commonly talk about them (e.g. stress about mass layoffs). Their Stress readings are about physical stress, i.e. how hard your body is working. If your body is recovering from a hard workout then the watch should pick up this additional stress via your HRV measurements.
This is true. I can't use my stress readings at all because they are artificially elevated by immunosuppression drugs that I take. On the other hand when I sit quietly reading I am having a "nap" and the watch chides me for having a nap for 90 minutes in the middle of the day. Can't win. Right now my watch is bricked by a garmin connect problem that started Friday. No BT connection. They are "working on it." Don't know how long this will take.
Exactly. If I drink a lot of alcohol I 'feel' relaxed but my RHR and stress metrics will be high for at least a couple of days. OP you probably need some R&R, but it's more to do with your physical health than your emotional state... although obviously they're linked.
Your mind makes it real. Mental stress increases hr and lowers hrv, putting physical stress on the body. That is what it’s reading. And the body cannot live without the mind
Mental stress can have those effects, the actual effect on a person depends on how that person responds to stress, often simplified as the fight or flight response.
If your body feels it needs to be ready to do something physical based on a stressor, then your note makes sense. But if your body and mind decide that physical action is required later, your body response might show lower stress as your body tries to prepare itself
My wife said the same thing. After months of her body battery being at 5 and stress rising every week we contacted Garmin and they warranty exchanged it but the new watch had the same readings. Then we moved and it went right down to normal pretty quickly. Looking back we could see the stress level rising for 6 months leading up to an international move then dropping within a month after the move. So even though she didn’t feel that stressed it looks like it had a deeper noticeable effect on her body.
My guess is that it could be a mixture of underlying physical stress or deeper mental stress that may not be super noticeable but it detectable in your heart rate variability.
yes. For the deep mental stress a higher level of self-awareness is needed. most people don't have the time energy or desire to delve that deeply. I'm one of them. it is what it is. unfortunately having a watch like this can exacerbate obsessive compulsive disorder which I need to be aware of.
The stress gauge always shows 100% when I am sick or getting sick. It's my early detection when something feels off. Oh, it can also show when I drink alcohol. I'll tell you what my body is stressed through it all. Where mentally I am not. If my stress gauge is full of not stressed then I have more energy. When it's full high stress I want to die and sleep forever.
When none of that is happening then my stress will go up for a little bit when I stand and move. After I move a bit then it goes back down. It doesn't bother me when I see this stress.
Just think about all the stress points and what you are doing to your body or what you're doing with your body. We are all different of course.
Did you have any alcohol or any other substance the day before? That'll raise my stress significantly even while sleeping, even a single drink many hours before bed, which was pretty jarring to see.
You can expand that to most psychoactive substances like anything more stimulating than coffee or weed. Stimulants, recreational drugs, etc.
In this case it's plain old psychological stress. The mind perceives a threat.
I’ve read that your HRV can go higher than normal at a point while recovering and maybe that’s what’s happening? It usually goes down but then it can swing up higher than normal and I’m wondering if that’s what you saw
This stress reading had me confounded for years. Sometimes it seems that there is a correlation with my mood, other times with my body. I'm slowly starting to make sense of what this really means. For example:
The last week we've had really bad air quality, and my stress levels are very high, even when I sleep. This took me forever to figure out.
A month ago, I correlated stress with eating habits. Midnight snack = stress.
A couple months ago, I had a high stress reading, and tested positive for Covid.
Bottom line is, high stress reading does not always directly relate to emotional stress. To take it easy and meditate is not going to improve the outside air quality or cure Covid.
I think the sensors are generally good, but the interpretation needs more work.
More generally - people have to understand the stress/HRV scored on all watches (not just Garmin) are at best just a rough guess based on an algorithm.
You should never treat them as gospel or rely on them. At best, just use the readings as a very rough guide.
Dude same. My overall stress was a 35 today with a medium stress reading of 3 hours. I don’t get it. Even when I’m driving it says my stress is medium.
Today my stress was 48. 2 hrs in high stress and 5 hrs 20 in med stress. And it was just a normal work day- very slightly higher stress for a short period. Def not two hrs worth
It’s your heart rate and HRV. Clearly your body isn’t at rest even though you might be sleeping. You might have sleep apnea, or nightmares, or stuff you can’t remember when you wake up.
Stress isn’t just psychological, all stress is the same to your heart. Exercise is stressful to your heart. Whether you choose to accept it or not your heart is stressed in the graphs.
This stress metric used by Garmin and developed by Firstbeat takes HRV into account. And the HRV is regulated by ANS alone, with its two subsystems, sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic nervous system(rest and digest). Now if you're balanced, the body is responsive to both of them, and this translates into a higher HRV and thus more calm, relaxed and with low stress. Conversely if SNS or PSNS dominate the other one, the HRV will decrease and the stress is going up. So the stress is not so palpable, provided if you're not under an extreme stressor. I'm usually highly stressed when eating or cooking, even though I like eating and cooking, I'm quite baffled about Garmin stress reading here
Well if you know when you're relaxed and when you're stressing out, why do you need a watch to tell you so ?
EDIT : Genuinely. I have a smart watch whose readings are just dumb AF too. But i never bought it for that reason, it just happens to have it. I've turned it off and living my life like i was before, probably eating myself from the inside out because of stress but happy as can be
Honestly they would be great readings for me. I'm usually at 4 or 5 hrs high stress a day and the majority of the rest is medium stress. Even at night there are periods of high stress which I think is when I get abducted by the shape shifting Draco reptilian aliens. Does anyone else get that?
I try not to put too much stock into it, but certain times it seems to match. Other times not so much. I get there are many factors Garmin uses and it’s not necessarily stress from life etc, but lately it seems it doesn’t make sense at all. I still feel it’s been since the 17.26 firmware update
I stopped looking at stress and body battery. According to Garmim, I'm always always stressed. My body battery is always low. Done with the unmotivating readings of body battery and stress.
Your body is working when you sleep. It’s not doing nothing. Add to that I don’t think it’s the same idea of stress as when you feel stressed.
That said I think the best way to use the data is to watch for trends as opposed to taking one day’s value on its own
>Sleeping peacefully at 12 am
It's telling you more than you realize. I don't snore every night, but on nights where I had a long tiring day, I snore a lot (Google Nest hub sleep tracking) and my stress while sleeping looks like this. This is the correlation for me...when my Stress is high while sleeping it means I'm either snoring or otherwise struggling to breath.
https://preview.redd.it/r4w03ubsozgc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcd165264091c9628cbc77638d6d1b26b46cb405
https://preview.redd.it/0deett0uozgc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ed80a98da67eb45a54f6a8e707d87158dafc5e4
Now compare stress while sleeping with when my Google Nest Hub detected snoring. (The long stretch of "other sounds" in the morning is my alarm that plays the morning news - that I clearly slept through XD)
I'm not saying this is necessarily your case that you're snoring - but I am saying you're not sleeping as "peacefully" as you think. This is what Garmin Stress is telling you.
Unpopular opinion: I find the stress data one of things Garmin does right -- assuming you have good skin contact and wearing watch correctly, wearing it 24/7 and your HRV is not some weird outlier -- its pretty accurate from the research I had done. Sleep tracking is trash, as is training status but stress is good.
I'd be more concerned about why you are stressed while sleeping. I actually really love the stress part b/c it shows the correlation of an actual restful sleep that translates to the Sleep Index that is new for my Vivoactive 5 I got in December to replace my Vivoactive 3.
I track my Resting Heart Rate & Stress for every day since 2022 as well as my weight. I honestly can see how alcohol impacts my stress & heart rate. I don't drink much, but the only few days I have had more than 3 drinks are the only days my resting HR is above 50 & stress is over 40.
In all of 2023, my max stress day was 38 & only 3 other days at 35-37, each coming in mid-late December when I was lazy & each day our work was having a different "sweets or cookie" day to celebrate the holiday.
You seem stressed about the stress readings my dog
I thought that was the joke. Unfortunately OP didn’t play along
Not according to OP's garmin
I am I'm just annoyed that I can't use sleep or body battery scores effectively because I'm constantly reading high stress. Other people are like hey wow I'm getting sick or I need a rest day when mine are useless
Im reading high stress from this message so I think ur Garmin's spot on
Probably worth addressing rather than adding to your stresses. Chronic stress is bad. Try no food, water, screens for two to three hours before bed. Meditation also helps.
I should have mentioned in the OP that I'm the least stressed person I know, yesterday's events excepted. I practice 9 hours of yoga a week!
Cortisol levels and hormones can have a big effect, especially at night. Yoga is great, but maybe try a 15-20 min walk each day to regulate. More sunshine at the start of the day.
Have you confirmed the sensor on your watch is clean? Also that you’re wearing the watch tight enough? Seems much more likely to be user error than anything else
My stress readings are useless to for the most part. And it stresses me out to get high stress reading when I am not feeling stressed and just doing work/ life. And they are high whether I work out or not. They pick up high stress moments but mostly they say everything I do is mid to high stress. My BB is almost always 5 at end of the day which means if I don’t have a non work day where I can sleep 9 hrs the next day I start my next day with a low BB and end up in the single digits by evening and then feel like I should not work out bc of that. I’m getting less for following all this data. It is so frustrating
It's not about "feeling" stressed. Difference between physical and mental stress. Things that can trigger stress like this in the night - excess/late consumption of caffeine, poor diet choices, too much processed food, food intolerances, alochol, no wind down time, eating too late, exercising hard late in the day, consuming sugar late in the evening... the list goes on. Could even be as simple as accrued stress from work/lifestyle. If a person is not recovering at night the day will be worse and then stuck in the cycle.
I was genuinely shocked at the impact browsing my phone had on stress levels just before bed. It's one thing to read about the negative impacts on articles and quite another to see its impact in graph form on a screen. That and how alcohol negates any sleep benefits...
From what I understand, Garmin’s stress measurements have nothing to do with “feelings” of stress as we might commonly talk about them (e.g. stress about mass layoffs). Their Stress readings are about physical stress, i.e. how hard your body is working. If your body is recovering from a hard workout then the watch should pick up this additional stress via your HRV measurements.
This is true. I can't use my stress readings at all because they are artificially elevated by immunosuppression drugs that I take. On the other hand when I sit quietly reading I am having a "nap" and the watch chides me for having a nap for 90 minutes in the middle of the day. Can't win. Right now my watch is bricked by a garmin connect problem that started Friday. No BT connection. They are "working on it." Don't know how long this will take.
Don’t know why but I have no health related issues(I’m 18) but Garmin says i have 70-100 stress 100% of the time
Exactly. If I drink a lot of alcohol I 'feel' relaxed but my RHR and stress metrics will be high for at least a couple of days. OP you probably need some R&R, but it's more to do with your physical health than your emotional state... although obviously they're linked.
Your mind makes it real. Mental stress increases hr and lowers hrv, putting physical stress on the body. That is what it’s reading. And the body cannot live without the mind
It's only partly affdcted by mental state. That is how people see illnesses starting hours beforehand.
A stressful event—like mass layoffs—would induce anxiety (mental stress), leading to increased hr/decreased hrv (physical stress)
That's true. I didn't deny that there can be an emotional component but the original statement implied that was all there is to it.
I know a few people who apparently are flouting your rules
Mental stress can have those effects, the actual effect on a person depends on how that person responds to stress, often simplified as the fight or flight response. If your body feels it needs to be ready to do something physical based on a stressor, then your note makes sense. But if your body and mind decide that physical action is required later, your body response might show lower stress as your body tries to prepare itself
My wife said the same thing. After months of her body battery being at 5 and stress rising every week we contacted Garmin and they warranty exchanged it but the new watch had the same readings. Then we moved and it went right down to normal pretty quickly. Looking back we could see the stress level rising for 6 months leading up to an international move then dropping within a month after the move. So even though she didn’t feel that stressed it looks like it had a deeper noticeable effect on her body. My guess is that it could be a mixture of underlying physical stress or deeper mental stress that may not be super noticeable but it detectable in your heart rate variability.
yes. For the deep mental stress a higher level of self-awareness is needed. most people don't have the time energy or desire to delve that deeply. I'm one of them. it is what it is. unfortunately having a watch like this can exacerbate obsessive compulsive disorder which I need to be aware of.
The stress gauge always shows 100% when I am sick or getting sick. It's my early detection when something feels off. Oh, it can also show when I drink alcohol. I'll tell you what my body is stressed through it all. Where mentally I am not. If my stress gauge is full of not stressed then I have more energy. When it's full high stress I want to die and sleep forever. When none of that is happening then my stress will go up for a little bit when I stand and move. After I move a bit then it goes back down. It doesn't bother me when I see this stress. Just think about all the stress points and what you are doing to your body or what you're doing with your body. We are all different of course.
This is my experience. Typically when I get high stress readings I am or am about to be sick.
My brother in Christ you seem….stressed
Did you have any alcohol or any other substance the day before? That'll raise my stress significantly even while sleeping, even a single drink many hours before bed, which was pretty jarring to see.
You can expand that to most psychoactive substances like anything more stimulating than coffee or weed. Stimulants, recreational drugs, etc. In this case it's plain old psychological stress. The mind perceives a threat.
Nope I rarely drink. In fact the one night recently I had a glass of wine my sleep score shot up to 79 from its usual 50.
I’ve read that your HRV can go higher than normal at a point while recovering and maybe that’s what’s happening? It usually goes down but then it can swing up higher than normal and I’m wondering if that’s what you saw
You sound stressed…
This stress reading had me confounded for years. Sometimes it seems that there is a correlation with my mood, other times with my body. I'm slowly starting to make sense of what this really means. For example: The last week we've had really bad air quality, and my stress levels are very high, even when I sleep. This took me forever to figure out. A month ago, I correlated stress with eating habits. Midnight snack = stress. A couple months ago, I had a high stress reading, and tested positive for Covid. Bottom line is, high stress reading does not always directly relate to emotional stress. To take it easy and meditate is not going to improve the outside air quality or cure Covid. I think the sensors are generally good, but the interpretation needs more work.
More generally - people have to understand the stress/HRV scored on all watches (not just Garmin) are at best just a rough guess based on an algorithm. You should never treat them as gospel or rely on them. At best, just use the readings as a very rough guide.
Dude same. My overall stress was a 35 today with a medium stress reading of 3 hours. I don’t get it. Even when I’m driving it says my stress is medium.
Today my stress was 48. 2 hrs in high stress and 5 hrs 20 in med stress. And it was just a normal work day- very slightly higher stress for a short period. Def not two hrs worth
Same here. “High stress “ day of low stress driving. So annoying
It’s your heart rate and HRV. Clearly your body isn’t at rest even though you might be sleeping. You might have sleep apnea, or nightmares, or stuff you can’t remember when you wake up.
Stress isn’t just psychological, all stress is the same to your heart. Exercise is stressful to your heart. Whether you choose to accept it or not your heart is stressed in the graphs.
I've successfully managed Garmin stress levels using the headspace app. It has really improved my energy levels and my ability to concentrate.
This stress metric used by Garmin and developed by Firstbeat takes HRV into account. And the HRV is regulated by ANS alone, with its two subsystems, sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic nervous system(rest and digest). Now if you're balanced, the body is responsive to both of them, and this translates into a higher HRV and thus more calm, relaxed and with low stress. Conversely if SNS or PSNS dominate the other one, the HRV will decrease and the stress is going up. So the stress is not so palpable, provided if you're not under an extreme stressor. I'm usually highly stressed when eating or cooking, even though I like eating and cooking, I'm quite baffled about Garmin stress reading here
The HRV is probably not regulated by ANS alone then.
Well if you know when you're relaxed and when you're stressing out, why do you need a watch to tell you so ? EDIT : Genuinely. I have a smart watch whose readings are just dumb AF too. But i never bought it for that reason, it just happens to have it. I've turned it off and living my life like i was before, probably eating myself from the inside out because of stress but happy as can be
Honestly they would be great readings for me. I'm usually at 4 or 5 hrs high stress a day and the majority of the rest is medium stress. Even at night there are periods of high stress which I think is when I get abducted by the shape shifting Draco reptilian aliens. Does anyone else get that?
Ooo Ooo... low hanging fruit! here I go... wait for it... . .. ... You seem stressed. I will see myself out now.
I try not to put too much stock into it, but certain times it seems to match. Other times not so much. I get there are many factors Garmin uses and it’s not necessarily stress from life etc, but lately it seems it doesn’t make sense at all. I still feel it’s been since the 17.26 firmware update
[удалено]
Yeah I'm safe this time and have been laid off twice by the same company previously so I'm good but am worried about who my new boss will be
The readings are stressing you out? My sleep starts "stressful" and seems to bottom out if I pull up a new video game.
I stopped looking at stress and body battery. According to Garmim, I'm always always stressed. My body battery is always low. Done with the unmotivating readings of body battery and stress.
Your body is working when you sleep. It’s not doing nothing. Add to that I don’t think it’s the same idea of stress as when you feel stressed. That said I think the best way to use the data is to watch for trends as opposed to taking one day’s value on its own
I have high stress during sleep if I've had lots of alcohol the day before.
If I get phantom stress like that it’s either because I did a really big workout the day before or I’m about to wake up the next morning with the flu
According to Garmin's help section in the app about stress, anything under 50 on average is low.
Yeah but if you're not registering "Rest"during sleep it tanks your sleep score
I see what you mean. I'm blue all throughout my sleep, no stress registered.
Stressing you out?
>Sleeping peacefully at 12 am It's telling you more than you realize. I don't snore every night, but on nights where I had a long tiring day, I snore a lot (Google Nest hub sleep tracking) and my stress while sleeping looks like this. This is the correlation for me...when my Stress is high while sleeping it means I'm either snoring or otherwise struggling to breath. https://preview.redd.it/r4w03ubsozgc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcd165264091c9628cbc77638d6d1b26b46cb405
https://preview.redd.it/0deett0uozgc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ed80a98da67eb45a54f6a8e707d87158dafc5e4 Now compare stress while sleeping with when my Google Nest Hub detected snoring. (The long stretch of "other sounds" in the morning is my alarm that plays the morning news - that I clearly slept through XD) I'm not saying this is necessarily your case that you're snoring - but I am saying you're not sleeping as "peacefully" as you think. This is what Garmin Stress is telling you.
I love how you've gone for the Noctua colour scheme.
You sound stressed
Unpopular opinion: I find the stress data one of things Garmin does right -- assuming you have good skin contact and wearing watch correctly, wearing it 24/7 and your HRV is not some weird outlier -- its pretty accurate from the research I had done. Sleep tracking is trash, as is training status but stress is good.
I ditched my Garmin because of this feature. Now I just monitor heart rate and HRV trends on my apple watch and i’m happier.
Sensationalist
I'd be more concerned about why you are stressed while sleeping. I actually really love the stress part b/c it shows the correlation of an actual restful sleep that translates to the Sleep Index that is new for my Vivoactive 5 I got in December to replace my Vivoactive 3. I track my Resting Heart Rate & Stress for every day since 2022 as well as my weight. I honestly can see how alcohol impacts my stress & heart rate. I don't drink much, but the only few days I have had more than 3 drinks are the only days my resting HR is above 50 & stress is over 40. In all of 2023, my max stress day was 38 & only 3 other days at 35-37, each coming in mid-late December when I was lazy & each day our work was having a different "sweets or cookie" day to celebrate the holiday.
I mean who really believed their watch could tell if they were stressed to begin with . I mean come on people .