3GS Wellness’ StressMobile™ offering

What is stress?

Psychological Stress is caused by the inability of an individual to cope with demands on his

resources or time or when things don’t go as per his expectation. Adopted from the realm of

physics, the term was first used in the medical context by Dr Hans Selye in the early part of

the last century. He observed that when exposed to stress, the body typically has 3 stages of

reaction: alarm, resistance and exhaustion. Prolonged exposure to stress, or chronic stress can

impact specific functions of the body and hence, overall health.

Who gets affected by it?

Everyone is exposed to stress. Good stress is good. Without good stress, or Eustress as Dr

Selye called it, there can be no progress. It gives you the competitive edge, makes you want

to do better than before and all that. The stress that athletes feel when they are ready to shoot

off like a bullet in the 100 m Sprint - but are only waiting for the ‘start’ gun to go off – is

good stress. It makes them do well. Preparing

for a competitive exam and having that butterfly in your stomach is great. Without it, you’d

have no ambition to do better.

Stress affects people of all ages and all kinds: students, homemakers, people at work, old

folks, sportsmen, soldiers at war, doctors and paramedics, ambulance drivers, pilots and ATC

officers.

Each of these folks only need to watch when they spill over from good stress to unhealthy

stress – where stress impacts both productivity as well as health and gives rise to negativity

and anxiety and, in the long run, depression.

What health problems occur due to chronic stress

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the next page. We have used this internally to quickly demonstrate the impact of stress in our daily

lives in the modern world. We do not hold the copyright to this illustration.)

Exposure to chronic stress affects several functions in the body: the quickly visible impact is

seen in the immune, digestive, cardiac and sexual systems of the individual, not to mention

impact on memory.

Here’s how it happens: when a source of stress, or stressor, is sensed, the body secretes a

hormone called cortisol through the adrenal glands. Once this rises to high levels in the body,

it signals other functions to shut off temporarily.

In his lovely book, ‘Why Zebras don’t get ulcers’ by renowned biologist Robert Sapolsky, he

explains that for the zebra, the only stressor is the lion attacking it. Simultaneously, Cortisol

is released into the blood stream and it sends out a signal asking for other systems to be shut

down. For example, the release of digestive enzymes is stopped, production of testosterone is

also halted. This is logical, right? When a lion is chasing you, would you have all resources

channelized to escaping or would you spend time on currently irrelevant stuff like digestion

and reproduction? Once the lion is out of the picture, the zebra goes back to grazing, the

cortisol levels in the blood goes down.

Here’s where animals differ from humans. For us, who live in the horrors of past and in fear

of the future, every little thing is a source of stress: traffic jams, children’s education, the

EMI on the second apartment we bought a year ago, and possible cancer afflictions in the

next two decades, stress is a daily companion.

Other than the obvious flare up of blood pressure, heart problems, build-up of atheromatous

arteries – specifically due to stress and lesser due to unhealthy eating habits, sufferers

experience migraine headaches, loss of sleep, irritability, IBS, acid reflux… the works.

How it can be addressed

Those experiencing stress first need to recognize that their myriad health problems are not

necessarily an act of God and that it is in their own control to set right things.

If a faucet is leaking at home, you first need to know of the leak before you know where to

fix it. Likewise stress is a constant companion and that it is easy to lose sight of as the cause

of numerous health conditions. Second, allopathically, it is easy to treat conditions and

consequences of stress rather than stress itself.

Relaxation, breathing, yoga, meditation, consistent exercise all contribute to alleviating

sufferings of the stress-affected body.

The sufferer needs to know that he is possibly, and wilfully, carrying too many monkeys on

his back… monkeys that are not his. The ability to say ‘No’ is a good start for most people

suffering from stress.

However, unless an individual knows how far gone he is, there is no way for him to measure

how much better or worse off he becomes over time.

Where do we come in?

This is where 3GS Wellness with its StressMobile service comes in. For the first time ever

through the ubiquitous mobile phone, we are able to offer a way for individuals to measure

stress. We base this on the analysis of voice signals. Historically, this has been used in lie

detection tests. But we are making an innovative leap into using the principle for

measurement of stress in the health context.

Today, you can walk in to your doctor’s clinic and asked to be treated for consequences of

Stress, such as BP, or heart problems. These typically crop up as a RESULT of chronic

stress. But you had no definitive way to measure high levels of stress before other life-

threatening problems crop up. Now, with StressMobile, you do!

Our algorithm uses a variety of measurements including frequency, intensity, loudness, jitter;

and weightages allocated to each and comes up with a stress score, which we measure in

units called Ricochets.

What benefits accrue from our offering

Measuring stress using our method as a one-off is a fun thing. But serious help can be

proffered to those who call in to measure stress often – up to even 5 times a day or at least

twice a day. From the data build-up, we will be able to spot blips for and make

recommendations to those whose stress scores are consistently high. We will be able to tell

folks that on certain days of the week or certain times during the day, consistently, their stress

scores are high. Here’s an example.

Our AVATARS are:

1. Cool Cat

2. Sensible

3. Competitive

4. Stressed Out

5. Heart Attack

If you are Sensible Stanley in the first 3 calls you make, and then through the rest of the month, you

progress to Stressed Out Samson, you are clearly headed for trouble. Our personalized report will tell

you that something has gone wrong these past few days.

Or, if we find that daily between 11 am and 1 pm is your most stressful time of day, then we bring to

your consciousness that you need to act on this or avoid certain activities at this time of day.

Essentially, if we can help individuals recognize patterns, they can start addressing issues

through common sense.

Validation

A number of methods have been attempted over the years to validate a measurement method

for stress. Our method of measurement showed a greater correlation to release of the

hormone Cortisol (which gets released when a person is stressed) than with BP, Pulse or a

45-minute standardized, self-administered questionnaire which is currently being used by

psychologists for measuring stress. The software we have developed measures more than 20

distinct attributes and an algorithm has been developed to utilize only those attributes that

enhance the accuracy of the measurement. As with any software targeted at the mass market,

over time, with more and more data coming, the scores will become increasingly refined.

Stored data of stress measurement several times a day, and across time intervals, will

eventually create the conditions for prediction of onset of disease due to sustained presence

of stress.

EOM