Tracking mood

Wearable devices extend reach into mental health, tracking your mood & emotional stress

- SUGANDHA MUKHERJEE

IT'S NOT JUST about the steps or heart rates anymore. Wearable technology companies are moving beyond these metrics to a more complex objective —tracking your mood and emotional stress.

The shift comes as demand for mental health support continues to grow in many countries. Consumer wearables, positioned as wellness tools rather than medical devices, offer a way to monitor day-to-day stress at scale, even if their insights remain indirect.

Unlike heart rate or blood oxygen, mood cannot be measured directly. Instead, wearables analyse physiological signals that tend to change with emotional states. These include heart-rate variability (HRV), skin temperature, breathing patterns, sleep disruption and small changes in sweat production linked to nervous system activity.

The Fitbit Sense 2 is among the clearest examples. It uses an electrodermal activity sensor to measure stress responses, combining this with heart rate and sleep data to generate daily stress management scores. The device also prompts users to pause or practise breathing exercises when physiological stress indicators rise. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch takes a more restrained approach. Instead of publishing a single mood or stress score, it uses trends in heart rate and variability to detect moments of elevated strain, offering mindfulness prompts through its wellness features. The company avoids framing these signals as mental health assessments, emphasising their role in awareness rather than diagnosis.