I've read numerous articles on both Garmin's website and elsewhere as to HOW stress is calculated (HRV basically) but am perhaps stressing myself (ho ho) about the levels my Vivosmart 4 reports. Basically, if I am awake (and not exercising) then I am shown as being stressed to some degree or other. This is concerning me a little, perhaps unnecessarily.
In the articles I have read, they sometimes talk about high and medium stress levels without saying whether that's a daily average or a reading at that instant. My daily average (sleep included obviously, which is measured as 'at rest' throughout thankfully) is always well under 50, usually around 30 - 35 and sometimes in the 20s. That strikes me as pretty darned good. Yet, I will have scores throughout the day of well over 75. Indeed, I can have hours of high stress reported during the day when I've been doing nothing more stressful than, say, typing this post. It doesn't seem to square for me. Maybe I am an overly anxious person when mentally engaged, stress not being so much a 'thing' as a process or modus operandi for me.
Perhaps we need another word, or words, to distinguish between the different levels of stress ('stress' in itself being seen as something to avoid in popular language usage) AND also to demarcate between stress as a process and as a thing we feel. That is to say, you might not be stressed about any particular thing (money, job, relationship are all the typically cited things) but your way of thinking is, in itself, measured as stress.
In short; to see on Connect my stress levels shown as blue as I sleep and orange when I am awake is kind of alarming.
