The Four Pillar Health Foundation

Most health wearables and applications focus on activity and sleep. But those are only one part of the picture concerning health and wellbeing. This is why we incorporated four different aspects within the ONVY experience. Yes, we included activity and sleep (sleep is part of our Recovery Score), but we also provide information about your stress level and your level of mindfulness.

It is our goal to create a holistic picture of your health with a focus on your mental health. So let’s take a closer look at the hows and the whys of ONVY.

How ONVY works

Think of ONVY as your personal companion concerning health and health-related data. We are specialized in the collection and aggregation of multiple data sources. Regardless of whether you are using an Apple Watch, an OURA Ring, a Garmin device, or Fitbit, we can retrieve the necessary data and run it through our algorithms. Then we provide you an easy-to-understand overview but also more detailed views of your own data.

This is what our overview screen looks like. You see your Balance Score and our four main scores: Recovery, Activity, Mindfulness, Stress.

This is what a detailed screen looks like. In this example, it is the detailed view of Recovery. Here you can find out more about all the metrics that influence your Recovery Score, like Sleep Efficiency, Sleep Duration, Sleep Dept and so on.

More information on each of our scores, on different metrics and on our algorythms can be found in upcoming articles.

Lets get to the why!

Why ONVY works

The foundation of our approach is twofold.

First

We know that everything in life is interconnected. We can not separate our mental health from our physical health. Take exercise as an example. Exercise is known to improve many physiological aspects like cardiovascular health. But exercise is one of the best-researched ways to also improve mental health. Exercise can reduce symptoms of depression, delay the onset of dementia and improve learning capabilities (1). And those are only a few of its benefits.

Another example is the effect of mindfulness on recovery. The review from Rusch et al. shows that mindfulness exercises like mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) can have a positive effect on sleep quality (2). Positive effects on sleep are also seen when people do a meditation exercise called Yoga Nidra (3).

Research also shows that adequate sleep is needed to be physically active the next day. Additionally, an increased activity level can lead to better sleep (4).

To close the loop let’s quickly look at stress. We know that physical activity can reduce stress (5) and lower stress levels lead to better sleep (6).

Second

We know that a balance concerning all aspects of life is needed. We have written a separate article to explain our Balance Concept in more detail. You can check it out here.

If you want to see which metrics we use, how they are connected and how they lead to “Your Balance” check out the following graphic:

And now what?

Check your current state in our ONVY App, experiment, try out and let ONVY help you as a companion to find your optimal state of balance.

References

(1) Mandolesi L, Polverino A, Montuori S, et al. Effects of Physical Exercise on Cognitive Functioning and Wellbeing: Biological and Psychological Benefits. Front Psychol. 2018;9:509. Published 2018 Apr 27. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00509

(2) Rusch HL, Rosario M, Levison LM, et al. The effect of mindfulness meditation on sleep quality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2019;1445(1):5-16. doi:10.1111/nyas.13996

(3) Datta, K., Tripathi, M. & Mallick, H.N. Yoga Nidra: An innovative approach for management of chronic insomnia- A case report. Sleep Science Practice 1, 7 (2017). doi.org/10.1186/s41606-017-0009-4

(4) Kline CE. The bidirectional relationship between exercise and sleep: Implications for exercise adherence and sleep improvement. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2014;8(6):375-379. doi:10.1177/1559827614544437

(5) Schultchen D, Reichenberger J, Mittl T, et al. Bidirectional relationship of stress and affect with physical activity and healthy eating. Br J Health Psychol. 2019;24(2):315-333. doi:10.1111/bjhp.12355

(6) Kim EJ, Dimsdale JE. The effect of psychosocial stress on sleep: a review of polysomnographic evidence. Behav Sleep Med. 2007;5(4):256-278. doi:10.1080/15402000701557383