Bharat Kumar .K, Founder and CEO, 3GS Wellness, explains the StressMobile offering from his company. Accompanying telephonic interview: https://soundcloud.com/your-story/bharat-kumar-k-ceo-and-founder Link to story: http://yourstory.in/2013/09/3gs-wellness-stressmobile-bharat-kumar/

1. 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

2. 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
(The remaining part of the page is intentionally left blank to accommodate an illustration in full on
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.)

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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