The Healthy Lifestyle Monitor is a stress measurement assessment tool, that has been specially developed by StressChecker to facilitate self-monitoring during periods of behavioral and circumstantial change.

Why use the Healthy Lifestyle Monitor?

You will probably already know from experience that it’s not so easy to improve your unhealthy lifestyle habits, despite the negative effect they have on your vitality and stress level. The same holds true for your social and professional circumstances, and for your preconditioned thinking.

To have any chance of success, you will need to be really motivated to make the desired change. Maintaining a clear view of yourself the whole time you are trying to turn things around will help you to keep going until you’ve accomplished your goal.

Self-monitoring or stress management assessments is particularly effective because of the motivational effect it has, as has been demonstrated in various scientific studies including by the well-known British health psychologist Susan Michie (UCL, UK).

How does the Healthy Lifestyle Monitor help?

1.    It helps you to register your daily stress level or (Stress Management Assessments), your living habits, and the social and work-related pressures you experience.

2.   It helps to visualize the patterns in your stress level and your stress factors as the input for deciding which stress factor(s) to tackle first.

3.    It helps you to evaluate whether your approach to tackling the selected stress factor(s) is actually improving your relaxation level and vitality.

How does the Healthy Lifestyle Monitor work?

1.    You measure your pulse and heart rate variability (HRV) with the heart rate monitor and answers questions about your living habits and circumstances on a daily basis.

2.   You evaluate the results of your approach on a weekly basis.

3.   You continue to adapt and change your stress factor(s) until you have achieved the maximum possible results.

Attention! The stress level measurement tool of the Healthy Lifestyle Monitor may show unreliable results in the case of people suffering from heart conditions, frequently occurring cardiac arrhythmia or with having a pacemaker, or people who are taking medication that influences the heart rhythm.

1. Dashboard

The dashboard visualizes trends based on Morning Readings and Self reflection.
These graphs can be used to explore whether there are clear links between your stress/relaxation level and the Stress factors and also between various Stress factors.

2. Morning Reading

The Morning Reading is conducted, preferably every day, just after getting up and before eating breakfast, before the everyday stimuli have really had time to affect your autonomous nervous system. The Morning Reading comprises two parts:

1.    A physical measurement of the heart rhythm. This stress level measurement tool provides information about the extent to which you have recovered from physical and/or mental stress on the previous day(s) and how well you are able to cope with new pressures/stress. A low score indicates stress, fatigue or illness.

2.   Information about your living habits and the social and work-related stress you experience.

3. Stress factors

The Stress factors shown have an important influence on your Relax Index. However, bear in mind that there may be other important factors influencing your Relax Index too, such as pain, illness, certain medication or internalized trauma.
That’s why you can add your own questions under Settings/Stress factor questions and you can also deactivate the pre-set questions.

Self-reflection

To change your lifestyle for the long haul, the motivation needs to come from within. During the change process, the Self-reflection function is intended to show you whether you:

1. still regard a certain change as important.
2. still believe in that change having a realistic chance of success.
3. you have done a lot or little effort to change your behaviour.
4. are satisfied with your results so far.

You can use the pre-set questions for this purpose, and in addition you can define questions of your own, just as for the Morning Reading. Here, too, you can set your own criteria for evaluating your approach and results.

5. Real-time Reading

The stress management assessment tool provide you a real-time reading that enables you to see the immediate effect on your stress level while using a particular relaxation technique – such as breathing deeply and calmly, thinking positive thoughts or listening to (relaxing) music.

You can save the results and add your own description. The real-time reading lasts as long as you like.

6. Experimental Reading

You can take an Experimental Reading following exposure to specific circumstances or after certain activities. This enables you to assess the effect of things like a walk in the woods, a business meeting and after a relaxing massage, for example. You can also save these results and add your own description.

7. Community Monitor

The Community Monitor displays the Morning measurement scores and compares them with those of other users (the Community).
The Community Monitor is recalculated after every morning stress measurement assessments of users.