Wearable sensor based stress management using integrated respiratory and ECG waveforms

Wearable technology and mobile platforms are becoming more and more popular in health care. This paper introduces a real time stress management system using wearable sensors and Smartphone mobile platform. The new system estimates stress level in real time using heart rate variability and patient activity cycles, and provides relaxation exercises instantaneously to help manage stress. The system relies on a wearable sensor to collect data (i.e., heart rate and respiration rate) and transmits data to Smartphones using Bluetooth to further process data. We also introduce a new breathing template matching algorithm to identify the best breathing exercise for users. A 2D visualization display shows that stress can be effectively relieved by the proposed stress management system.