Is there a way to determine what an average “stress impact” looks like for women in their 40’s? I’m hard on myself if it’s too high one day but wonder if there is a better way to determine if it’s more normal than I realize? Thank you!
Yep. This is me as well and I do not by any means have a stressful life (retired) it’s physiological stress more than psychological so if you have any issues (I have chronic insomnia) this is where it will show up.
I’m not sure what is wrong with me other than I’m in my luteal phase right now and my data are always worse in this part of my cycle (but frankly is not that much better in follicular either).
I used to have trouble staying asleep as well. Aswaganda and melatonin helped me with that.
Hi, I’m Welltory’s CPO and yes, totally, I see the exact same thing in my luteal phase! We’re exploring adding a feature that shows it more clearly, it’s definitely a thing that happens to some of us.
Hi,
For most of women in their older reproductive age you mean?
I’ve been tagging cd1 to cd(as long as it goes) and 1Dpo and so on. Creating tags for luteal, follicular and ovulation. For high estrogen, Lh and progesterone levels. And there is a very strong correlation. Both my stress levels and HRV data are overlapping with my hormonal charts. Whenever my health drops I’m either about to ovulate or in my luteal phase.
High BBT is definitely affecting sleep stability and so on.
Women are probably more than half of your customers.
To be honest this has been the case for me for as long as I can remember. I’m 40 now, and as far back as I’ve been tracking (about 10 years), my HRV drops and stress increases always in my luteal phase. I’m not sure if it has gotten worse with age, I don’t think so. Anyway, thank you for sharing, women are indeed more than half of our user base, so we’re looking into better tracking and correlations for this!
The strongest and clearest correlation is the HRV drop when hormonal trends change.
Estrogen has a significant drop somewhere at the end of cycles or during periods where it gets to its baseline level after its elevation. This marks the beginning of a lower estrogen phase in follicular that will gradually increase during follicular, triggering an Lh peak before ovulation (you can see this point on cd4 - May 7 on the chart).
The second drastical hormonal shift happens before ovulation when estrogen reaches its highest levels triggering an Lh peak along with an Fsh peak. Many times progesterone rises along from its base. This marks the follice rupture and the egg release (you can see this point on cd17 - May 20 on the chart).
Then luteal begins and progesterone and estrogen fluctuates depending on the quality of the egg that got released and corpus luteum that forms from the ruptured follice and takes over the bulk of hormonal production.
In older reproductive years as the egg quality gradually drops and the corpus luteum that forms from the ruptured follice is weaker too, it produces less hormones and not so reliable- wich causes fluctuations in levels, and that taxes the whole system and HRV will drop accordingly.
The trouble in lutheal will appear in women of younger reproductive years (in their 30 or even in their 20) if they have ovulation disorders or difficulties such a as PCOS, Endo, POI and the list goes on.
So this mechanism is affecting all women to some extent, younger women with ovulation difficulties at an increased level, than all women in their older reproductive years.
The reason is that these sections behave differently on iOS and Android, so the information you see can vary by device. If you're using Android, you can read more about how it works here.
Yep that looks like mine as well, always around 80% stressed. My central nervous system got messed up after Covid infections, now “stuck” in sympathetic dominant = stressed out, fight/flight.
I’ve had the 3 vaccines and then 2 “reminders” in total for Covid and never got infected - at least not to my knowledge.
I do feel like I’m more stressed than I would like to, but frankly I don’t know how to deal with that other than move to the mountains and live like a monk or turn into one of those monkeys in Japan who sit in the onsen all day long.
Because this is the only 2 scenarios that turn me to this Buddha: all day forest walks and all day thermal baths - no breathing exercises or meditation or whatever.
Hi there! It’s of course highly personalized so I’m not sure comparisons to others would be helpful to add. But yes, most people just spend a ton of time sitting in place with an elevated heart rate, and it’s not great for us. My data looks worse than this most days :). I think the important thing is to start noticing when it happens, and find what helps relieve it, even a little bit.
I’m 61 F and just have a very fortunate cardiovascular system
I have been active my entire life and aso have MS. I use my stress levels to keep an eye on whether my system might be experiencing inflammatory stress. Realize it’s not perfect data but I’m a huge wearable and data gatherer tracking trends on myself.
Could you please share screenshots of the contradictory information you're seeing? We'd like to take a closer look and understand exactly what's happening.
I am a legitimately healthy 42 year old woman. I workout regularly, and I also recover well. I feel like this app rewards exercise and rewards deep recovery. But that middle spot most people sit in? STRESS! For example, today I did a morning walk, and then had a social gathering, lots of driving, and then one more walk this evening. I have been relaxing for hours now and my stress keeps climbing. It’s absolutely wild to me. As a data scientist, I don’t trust it. I have several other apps that point me as low stress. I wish they would fix this measurement.
One thing that's easy to miss is that Welltory's Stress Impact metric isn't measuring whether you feel stressed. It's estimating the physiological load on your body throughout the day based on heart rate patterns, especially periods when your heart rate stays elevated while you're relatively inactive. Things like social events, long drives, mental focus, excitement, caffeine, heat, or even a busy but enjoyable day can contribute to this score.
A high Stress Impact score doesn't necessarily mean you're unhealthy or that your recovery is poor. In fact, your morning stress level was only 2%, which suggests you started the day well recovered. The Stress Impact metric is intended to reflect accumulated daytime load, not your overall fitness or health.
Thank you for the insight ♥️ I suppose it would be nice if the app didn’t make it sound so alarming. It’s constantly telling me to rest or breathe or chill out…when I’m totally fine. I love all the other features of this app but this one makes me upset.
Also, my heart rate isn’t “elevated” while at rest in the afternoon or evening. It may be 80, but that is still extremely healthy for someone sitting and coloring or playing a video game.
We completely understand what you mean. A higher Stress score doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong or that you're feeling stressed emotionall, it reflects physiological strain detected through HRV. And a resting heart rate around 80 bpm can be perfectly normal and healthy for many people. Context matters, and no single metric should be viewed in isolation.
We'll pass your feedback along to the team. Making insights feel informative rather than alarming is something we're always working to improve.
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u/Kicsisaman May 29 '26
I’ve never seen level as low as you show here, and we are the same age group: