Realtime cortisol / stress monitoring

Quantified Self General Health
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I’m interested in quantifying my stress levels and have found myself wishing for a realtime cortisol monitoring solution. Essentially, I’m hoping to plot my cortisol levels against time / location data to figure out which things are causing me the most stress.

Is anyone aware of a way to actually quantify stress / cortisol? I have been looking but the closest I’ve found is some correlation between decreased Heart Rate Variability and cortisol, but no actual way to measure cortisol.

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Hi Andrew - I think real time measures of cortisol and other hormones is still technically challenging, and you might be stuck with proxy measures in the near future. I’ve been really interested in the spot tests for Cortisol that I saw some folks from Talking20 present at a QS meeting last spring. Here’s a blog post they wrote about it: http://talking20.me/2013/06/07/results/. But you’ll notice that this is not anything like real time. Still, if we can use cheaper and more frequent tests like these to improve our confidence in proxy measurements, that might get us closer.

1 Like
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Thanks for the link, Gary. Very interested in this and will share what I find as I go.

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Hi,
this is intersting to me. Since I alway gain wheight during stress phases and iI read it may be related to cortisol levels.

Be sure to post your findings here.

Thanks

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Hi there! I know it’s been awhile since the last post.

I’ve heard whispers of cortisol testing using hair as an indirect measure of stress. Does anyone here have any experience with this or recommend a reliable service? Also, any thoughts on this approach?

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Definitely! If the hair is falling out, there’s too much stress :slight_smile:

More seriously, looks like a hair cortisol test lets you get an idea of your cortisol levels over a longer period of time (similar to the A1C value for blood sugar ). But I’m not familiar with direct-to-consumer companies offering this test, and I’m guessing few doctors know about this test…

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Thanks, Eric.

Unfortunately, there’s some hair falling out and some signs of high stress or disrupted cortisol levels.

I’ve gone over a year without a haircut or hearing of a reputable service, so I’m thinking it’s time to give up on this one. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been on a weight loss diet and wanted to see how my cortisol levels were affected.