HRV based Stress Assessment of Individuals in a Work Environment

Workplace Stress can impact the employees especially when their perception of job demands are more than what they can meet. Excessive and long term stress can have detrimental effects on both physiological and mental health. Building resilience is necessary for an individual, which helps combat the mental strain of work stress and exercise control over the work demands. At their core, stress responses are often linked to resolving the threats by increasing an individual's ability to cope. Unobtrusive and continuous monitoring of stress during work can help in understanding how stress levels change throughout a work day. In this study, stress has been evaluated from Electrocardiogram (ECG) derived Heart Rate Variability (HRV) obtained using an unobtrusive chest wearable. A total of 85 employees participated in the study and their measured stress levels were classified into four different levels as no, low, medium and high stress. The stress levels were evaluated every 5 minutes as the employees engaged in tasks like review meeting and accomplishing deadlines. Analysis revealed stress levels of employees reduced when they took breaks during work time. Females generally experienced high stress levels for much longer duration than males, whereas males experienced no, low and medium stress only a little longer than females. Also, variations in stress levels of the employees before, during and after lunch were studied to understand how food affects stress and the decrease in stress levels observed shows the impact of food intake in coping with stress.