Track stress through the day with your Apple Watch

What the Stress score shows

The Stress tile shows a number from 0 to 100 and a band. For today it shows your latest reading, so it reflects how you are now rather than an average of the whole day. For a past day it shows that day's average. The four bands are explained in the app:

• Calm - your body is well recovered and relaxed.
• Moderate - normal stress levels, maintain your routine.
• Elevated - consider rest and relaxation activities.
• High - prioritize recovery and stress management.

Why tracking stress matters

Stress is not only a feeling. When you are under pressure, short on sleep, fighting off a bug or simply over-caffeinated, the body shifts toward its fight-or-flight mode and the heart runs faster than it needs to at rest. Short bursts of that are normal and even useful. Long stretches without a break are what wear people down, affecting sleep, mood and recovery from training.

The tricky part is that you often do not notice it. A busy afternoon can feel fine while your heart has been working well above its resting rate for hours. Seeing it as a curve makes the pattern obvious, and that is usually the first step to doing something about it, whether that is a walk at lunch, a breathing break or an earlier night.

Exercise raises your heart rate without raising your stress, so FitRest leaves workouts out. That keeps a run from looking like a panic attack and keeps the score about the stress you carry outside training.

Inside Stress Analysis

Tap the tile to open Stress Analysis. Viewing today, the Last 24 Hours curve shows your stress across the past day and night, with Latest and 24h avg figures. For a past day it becomes Through the Day with a Day avg. Touch and hold the chart to read any moment.

Asleep and Awake compares your stress while sleeping with your waking hours. Sleep is when the body should be at its calmest, so a night that reads higher than your waking hours is the part worth looking at. Stress Trend charts your levels over 7, 14, 30 or 60 days. How to Reduce Stress offers quick actions you can take now: Breathe 2 min, Walk 5 min, Hydrate, or Break 10 min.

What you need

Stress needs recorded heart rate and a resting heart rate to measure it against, which means a watch worn through the day and ideally overnight. Heart data from other devices or apps that save to Apple Health works too. Stress is a wellness measure, not a diagnosis. FitRest is not a medical device; if you are worried about your heart or your stress levels, talk to a doctor.