Manage stress and mindfulness in Google Health

The Google Health app provides a connected wellbeing ecosystem focused on your capacity and resilience. By combining your body's signals such as your heart rate with your logged moods, the app provides personalised guidance for your fitness, sleep and recovery.

Why should I track my response to stress?

Stress is how your body responds to the demands of everyday life. The source of stress can be positive, like a promotion or new baby, or negative, like an overwhelming workload or traumatic life event. In response to stress, the autonomic nervous system releases hormones, which provide the body with a burst of energy (known as the 'fight or flight' response). This process can raise your heart rate, change your skin's sweat level, and make you more alert or tense.

Small bursts of stress can motivate you to meet a deadline or goal, but an elevated stress level for an extended period of time can negatively affect your health and wellbeing. Continued strain on your body from unmanaged stress could lead to health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, depression or anxiety.

Check your mental wellbeing

The mental wellbeing section in the Google Health app includes mindfulness sessions and can help you track and understand the effects of your mindfulness practice.

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing .

From here, you can control and follow your metrics such as:

• Mindfulness: A few minutes of mindfulness a day can help you reduce stress, sleep better and improve your mood. Keep tabs on your mindfulness sessions. Learn how to track your mindfulness.
• Body responses: Get detailed updates on your body's trends and reactions. Learn how to understand body responses.
• Resilience: Check your tolerance to stress. Learn how to manage your Resilience score.

Track your mindfulness

The Google Health app helps you track your dedication to your mental wellbeing. It measures your mindfulness minutes and active mindful days. To help build a consistent habit, you can set daily mindfulness goals for the week.

Review your mindfulness data

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing Mindfulness.
3. Navigate through the different time views or change between days and minutes to view your trends over time.

   If you have Google Health Premium, you can browse and practise mindfulness from a content library curated by experts. These include videos on themes like:

   • Calm your worries
   • Don't take on others' stress
   • Ready and resilient meditation

Any session that you log automatically counts towards your target goal. This includes practice on your device, the Google Health app, or synced third-party services. For more information, refer to Sync third-party apps.

Set and edit your mindful days goal

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing Mindfulness.
3. Tap More Mental wellbeing settings.
4. Under 'Goals', tap Mindful days.
5. Adjust your goal.
6. Tap Save.

Learn about EDA responses

Electrodermal activity (EDA) responses are tiny changes in the sweat level of your skin. These changes may be due to stress or other factors such as movement, noise, or temperature variations. For example, you might notice that your hands feel sweaty before you speak in front of a group of people.

While your EDA response may vary, you should typically expect fewer EDA responses the calmer you are.

Spot check EDA (sEDA)

You can take EDA scans on your wearable, but the information stays on the device. This data will no longer be sent or saved to the phone app for the Charge 5, Charge 6 or Sense.

View your progress

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing Mindfulness.
3. At the top, use time frame selections to view your progress in Day, Week and Month views.

Start a guided breathing session

You can practise mindfulness at any time. For the Pixel Watch series and certain Fitbit devices, you can use the Relax app to start a mindfulness session.

Google Health Premium

Premium subscribers can also access additional guided meditations in the Google Health app. To access:

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing Body responses.
3. Scroll down to find mindfulness meditations.

Start a session with the Relax app

The Relax app can help you find moments of calm throughout the day with personalised, deep breathing sessions.

Blaze

1. On your device, navigate to the Relax screen.
2. The two-minute session is the first option, but you can swipe to choose the five-minute session.
3. Tap the screen Play at the bottom right to start the session.
4. Remain still and breathe deeply during the calibration period, which lasts 30 to 40 seconds. The phrase 'sensing your breathing' will appear on your screen.
5. When prompted, follow the guide, which is the circle on your screen, and breathe deeply.
   • You can close your eyes because your watch will vibrate when it's time to inhale and exhale.
   • Tap Settings on the Relax screen if you want to turn the vibration off.
6. After you've completed the exercise, press the back button to return to the menu.

You can't pause the session, but you can quit at any time. To exit, press the back button on your watch.

Charge 2

1. On your tracker, navigate to the Relax screen.
2. The two-minute session is the first option, but you can tap to choose the five-minute session.
3. Press and hold the button to start the session.
4. Remain still and breathe deeply during the calibration period, which lasts 30 to 40 seconds. The phrase 'sensing your breathing' will appear on your tracker's screen.
5. When prompted, follow the guide, which is the circle on your screen, and breathe deeply. You can close your eyes because your tracker will vibrate when it's time to inhale and exhale.
6. After you've completed the exercise, press the button to return to the menu.

You can't pause the session, but you can quit at any time. To exit, press and hold the button on your tracker.

Charge 3 and Charge 4

1. On your device, tap the Relax app .
2. The two-minute session is the first option. To choose the five-minute session:
   • Charge 3 and Charge 4: Swipe left.
   • Versa series: Tap Settings , then press the back button to return to the Relax screen.
3. Tap Play to start the session.
4. Remain still and breathe deeply during the calibration period, which lasts 30 to 40 seconds. The phrase 'sensing your breathing' appears on your screen.
5. When prompted, follow the on-screen guide which is the circle on your screen, and breathe deeply. You can close your eyes because your device vibrates when it's time to inhale and exhale.
6. After the session, you'll find a summary that shows your alignment of how closely you followed the breathing prompt, your heart rate at the start and end of the session, and how many days you completed a guided breathing session this week.

You can't pause the session, but you can quit at any time by pressing the back button.

Inspire HR and Inspire 2

1. On your device, open the Relax app .
   • The two-minute session is the first option.
   • Swipe to choose the five-minute session.
2. Tap Play to start the session.
3. Remain still and breathe deeply during the calibration period, which lasts 30 to 40 seconds. The phrase 'sensing your breathing' will appear on your screen.
4. When prompted, follow the on-screen guide which is the circle on your screen, and breathe deeply. Your device vibrates when it's time to inhale and exhale.
5. After the session, you'll find a summary that shows your alignment of how closely you followed the breathing prompt, your heart rate at the start and end of the session, and how many days you completed a guided breathing session this week.

You can't pause the session, but you can quit at any time by pressing the button or buttons on the Inspire 2.

Google Pixel Watch 2, 3 and 4

Important: These notifications are turned off by default. You can turn on notifications in the Google Health app.

1. If your device senses signs of stress or worry, it will send you a notification to reflect on your mood.
2. Tap Log mood.
3. After logging your mood, you can take additional actions like a Relax app session to manage stress.
   • Tap the Relax app ; the two-minute session is the first option.
   • Scroll for more options.
4. Tap Play to start the session.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions.
6. When you're done, check your summary for the week.

Inspire 3 and Luxe

1. On your device, swipe o the Relax app .
2. Tap to open it.
3. To begin a session the same length as your previous session, tap Start.

   To set a custom length of time for the session, swipe, then tap Custom.

4. Swipe to choose the number of minutes.
5. Tap to set the minutes.
6. Tap Start.
7. Follow the on-screen instructions. When you're done, view your summary.
8. Tap Done to close the app.

Sense series and Versa series

1. On your device, tap the Relax app .
2. The two-minute session is the first option. To choose the longer session:
   • Versa, Versa 2 and Versa Lite Edition:
     1. Tap Settings .
     2. Press the back button to return to the Relax screen.
     3. Tap Play to start the session.
   • Sense and Versa 3:
     1. Tap Edit to access the time.
     2. Swipe, then set the duration.
     3. Tap the duration.
     4. Swipe, then tap Start.
   • Sense 2 and Versa 4:
     1. Tap the time.
     2. Swipe, then set the duration.
     3. Tap the duration to start the session.
3. Remain still and breathe deeply while the phrase 'sensing your breathing' appears on your screen during the calibration period.
4. When prompted, follow the on-screen guide which is the circle on your screen, and breathe deeply.

   Your device vibrates when it's time to inhale and exhale.

5. On the Sense series, Versa 3 and Versa 4, choose to log your reflection after the session or tap Skip.
6. Check the summary of your session and how many days of mindfulness you completed this week.

Health risks associated with doing a guided breathing session

During the deep breathing session, you should feel comfortable and relaxed. If you feel like you're unable to complete the full session, you can quit at any time. If you start to feel dizzy, faint, weak, or experience any other discomfort, stop the session immediately and return to breathing normally.

If the feeling persists, lie down until you feel better, and consider seeking medical attention if symptoms persist. Use caution or consult your doctor before use if you have any pre-existing cardiac or respiratory conditions.

Understand Body responses

Body responses are generated when your physiological signals indicate a sudden and rapid increase in autonomic nervous system activity. This could be from a stressful event, such as public speaking, or from situations such as standing up quickly, brief walks, eating, caffeine or the onset of illness. Body responses do not track overall perceived stress levels, just sudden and rapid increases in your 'fight or flight' system.

If you have a compatible Pixel Watch or Fitbit device, Google Health uses continuous sensors to identify physiological patterns. Here's how it works:

• Detection: Your device identifies unique physical signals in real time.
• Notification: You'll receive an alert roughly 10 minutes later prompting you to reflect on your current state.

These devices include:

• Google Pixel Watch 2 and later
• Fitbit Sense series

Review your body response data

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing Body responses.
3. Explore the day and week views to track your body response and moods over time.

You can quickly log your mood from the notification, start a guided breathing exercise, or go for a walk. To help you visualise, the app plots physical responses on your daily timeline alongside moods, to help you spot triggers.

Log your mood to connect the dots

Log your mood directly within the body response flow. This helps you understand the relationship between physical signals and emotional state.

On your Fitbit device or Google Pixel Watch

When you receive a body response alert, tap the notification on your Fitbit or Google Pixel Watch to quickly log how you feel.

On your phone

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing Body responses.
3. Tap Log mood .
4. Choose one or more moods to log.
5. Tap Save.

Get your daily timeline

Track how your day affects your wellbeing in one place. Your daily timeline overlays your physical body responses, logged moods and reflections.

You can get to your daily timeline when you:

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing Mindfulness, Body responses or Resilience.
3. To view your trends over time, tap to change between:
   • D: Your timeline overview within this day.
   • W: Your timeline overview within this week.
   • M: Your timeline overview within this month.
   • 3M: Your timeline overview within three months.
   • Y: Your timeline overview within this year.

Manage your Resilience score

Your daily Resilience score measures your capacity for the day ahead. It measures your body's ability to absorb and bounce back from physical and mental strain.

While Readiness gauges your body's overall preparedness for daily activities based on recovery, Resilience specifically measures your capacity to handle and recover from physical and mental strain.

Your Resilience score uses a qualitative rating. Under the Mental wellbeing section, you'll get your daily status as:

• Optimal
• Balanced
• Low

To receive a Resilience score, ensure you are using a Google Pixel Watch or Fitbit device that sends heart rate data to the Google Health app. This feature is compatible with the following devices:

• Fitbit Charge 4, Fitbit Charge 5, Fitbit Charge 6
• Fitbit Inspire 2, Fitbit Inspire 3
• Fitbit Luxe
• Fitbit Sense series
• Fitbit Versa 2, Fitbit Versa 3, and Fitbit Versa 4
• Google Pixel Watch 2 and later
• Google Fitbit Air

Review your resilience data

1. Open the Google Health app  and tap the Health tab .
2. Under 'Focus areas', tap Mental wellbeing Resilience.
3. Explore the different time period views to check your resilience trends over time.

Learn how your Resilience score is calculated in the Google Health app

A higher score indicates that your body is better prepared to handle the physical and mental strain and stress of the day.

More than 10 factors tracked by your Fitbit device make up your score. These factors are broken down into three categories:

• Responsiveness: Heart rate, heart rate variability and electrodermal activity or EDA data, if available, to assess how hard your body has been working over the previous day to manage your physical and mental demands. The more your body and mind worked yesterday, the fewer resources are available to you today.
• Exertion balance: The balance between the short-term demands of a recent exercise and the longer-term benefits of exercise and movement from the last week on your resilience.
• Sleep patterns: A measure of the quality and quantity of your sleep last night and over the last week. Getting enough good quality sleep has a protective effect on your resilience, allowing you to manage physical and mental demands.

Improve your resilience score

Try to identify the stressors in your life and determine strategies to manage them. Some tips to manage stress include:

• Get regular exercise to help boost your mood and improve your health.
• Set a consistent bedtime and try to sleep for at least seven hours a night.
• Try a relaxing activity such as meditation, mindfulness, or breathing exercises.
• Set goals and priorities to determine what must be done immediately and what can wait. For more information, refer to www.nimh.nih.gov.

The Google Health app has tools to help you manage stress, including mood logging to reflect on how you feel. It has content related to mindfulness, sleep, activity and nutrition. Unlock additional content and tips in the app with Google Health Premium.

Learn how to sign up or manage your Google Health Premium subscription.

You can also log how you feel after a mindfulness session.

Sync third-party apps

Bring all your data together by connecting apps like Calm or Headspace. Use Health Connect for Android or Apple Health for iOS to sync your external sessions automatically. For more information, refer to:

• How do I use Health Connect with the Google Health app?
• How do I use Apple Health with the Google Health app?

Learn how to connect third-party devices and apps to the Google Health app.