Garmin is adding a new element to the wearable market. This week the company announced the release of the Vivosmart 3, a device complete with long term stress-tracking, Ars Technica reports.
In addition to standard fitness wearable fare like counting steps and monitoring sleep, the device (worn on your wrist) offers short breathing exercises that can be programmed to appear when the wearable detects that you’re stressed out, something it monitors via heart rate.
Stress is bad for our mental and physical health, and there’s science to support how deep breathing can help us get out of fight-or-flight mode and calm down. Garmin isn’t the only company to utilize the power of breath to reduce stress — Fitbit offers a similar program called Relax, as does breathing-based wearable Spire.
However, the Vivosmart 3 is unique in providing users a timeline of their stress, something that can help them keep track of when they were stressed out, look for patterns and figure out what relaxation techniques work best for them.
We know how toxic stress is for your mind and body, so the fact that there’s now a wearable meant to help manage stress is encouraging. Instead of tracking for tracking’s sake, we’re moving towards tracking that’s focused on actually improving our lives in the short and long-term.
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Originally published at medium.com