What is the Garmin Stress Score and how does it affect you?
The Garmin stress score is a detailed metric showing how your body responds to physical activity and the speed at which your body recovers. The scoring can be used by athletes to plan their training efforts to coincide with the times when they have the most energy. At the heart of the system, Garmin uses your heart rate, and variability, to track the stresses on your body.
That’s the technical jargon out of the way, now let’s get down to the ins and out of Garmin’s stress score system and what it means for you.
Note: this scoring system is not available on older watches such as the Tactix Delta Charlie (review here), etc. If you want this function you’ll need a more recent model from their watch range.
Stress level grading
Garmin’s measures stress score on a scale of 0 – 100, which is a pretty wide range. One way to look at it is this:
Zero equals uber-chilled. In fact, you’ve probably zoned out and there’s nothing that can upset the delicate balance of your training regimen. If you have one at all!
One hundred is the danger zone. Your life, your training and your future prospects look dim. In fact, if you don’t ease off and take some time off training, and get a good sleep, you’re in dange of burnout, or worse!
Okay, so that was a little tongue in cheek, but I think you get the idea. The lower your stress score, the faster your body will recover after a hard workout.
Note: your sports watch provides constant tracking which is why it’s important to wear it at night. Heart Rate Variability (HRV), a recent addition to the Garmin’s range of watches, is a key metric. HRV is monitored when you’re on the move and at rest. Accuracy drops if you’re not wearing your watch.
How accurate is Garmin’s Stress Score?
I’m going to go oout on a limb here and give my personal view on accuracy. The score seems to be pretty accurate; following a long run, a time when I’m tired, my watch pretty much tells me as much. And when I’m fully rested and ready for the next training session… you’ve guessed it – my watch is correct.
But that’s not really the heart of the matter. After all, we humans are pretty good at estimating when we feel good, and when we feel bad. However, we don’t always get it right, or we are too eager to get back into training.
Which is where stress score accuracy comes into play.
On the whole, as I mentioned above, the metrics I see feel like an accurate representation of my stress level. And I tend to side with Garmin’s interpretation when planning out my training sessions. Let me explain…
If my watch says I need 50 hours rest following a 100km run, I follow that advice.
If my watch says it’s okay to kick off a new running, or hiking, session after 12 hours, I follow that advice.
But why? After all, am I not a good judge of my body’s state? Yes, and I’m rarely wrong. For me, the key issue is one of assuming I’m ready to run, or hike, again, when I’m clearly not. You know, the Superman effect… nothing can hold me back. Unless I start flagging halfway through a sesion I started too soon, then trip and injure my ankle.
So I put some of my faith in the digital partner strapped to my wrist.
One point to note before we move on. In the early days the scoring seemed erratic, but that was because my wriststrap was loose. Keep it snug to your wrist, a little way above your wristbone, but not too tight that circulation stops and get that ‘dead arm’ feeling!
Wait! There is one more comment to make. This functionality is not to used as a way to diagnose medical conditions associated with stress. Garmin’s intention is that you use it for purely personal purposes.
A good level of stress, according to Garmin?
Quick recap: 0 equals a resting, possibly comatose state. 100 equals your peronsal dager zone. Got it? Cool, let’s move on
So, what is a good Garmin Stress Score?
According the manufacturers guide, aim for a score of between 25 and 50 to maintain a stress-free day. Which goes against the grain of why this feature exists on Garmin watches! As we all know, the application of stress improves performance (as long as you rest between sessions). And it’s fact that makes the previous statement, well, silly!
By keeping your body in an unstressed state, no adaption takes place. Your pace and recover don’t improve, and you’ll never experience the utter joy of beating your annoying work colleague ‘Mr. 50 Trophies’ over the finish line of a marathon. Hmm, see where my motivations are rooted?
Joking aside, remain in the recommended zone and your cardio will flatline.
What factors affect your stress score?
The list of factors affecting stress score and quite scientific, so here are some personal thoughts.
When I’ve had a few drinks, my stress score pogos up and down. Alcohol causes an increase in blood pressure and, as a consquence, your HRV drops. The drop results in an increased stress score.
Snoring, and a poor night’s sleep, also cause flucutations in my HRV (the image below shows my HRV following a paticularly ‘loud’ night). As you can see, the variability score fluctuated and I felt drained for pretty much the whole day.
Being ill – an unavoidable fact of life – will kick your HRV where it hurts! Fingers crossed, I’ve not been ill since I had COVID in early 2022 and am unable to show you the results illness has on HRV.
A good night of sleep ramps up your stress score. As we know, sound and restful sleep is one of the many components of a healthy life. And stress score. Make sure you get plenty of ZZZs.
To my mind, those are the key factors. Garmin has a full list here.
How to lower your score?
Now that you have an understanding of the scoring system, you’re not doubt wondering how to reduce the overall stress on your body, right?
The simple way to reduce your stress score is to have a solid training plan accommodating both training and rest periods. And stick to the plan. Be aware that intense training sessions spike your stress resulting in a proportionate period of relaxation.
As mentioned, factors such as poor sleep, snoring and alcohol impact your level of stress. For me, good sleep is key to not only feeling positice, but also waking refreshed ready for the rigours of my next run, or hike. Quitting alcohol is not essential, but I find drinking in moderation, and stopping before 2000 (except at weekends!) makes a huge difference to how I feel in the morning. As for snoring – get yourself some good quality nasal strips; they work a treat and, for good measure, they’re fantastic for opening your nasal passage when training.
Which watches have stress score built in?
As I mentioned back at the start of this post, some of the older Garmin watches don’t have the stress score built into them. Way back when, the technology wasn’t available and so we had to make do with intuition aka “I don’t feel goo today”. The more recent additions to Garmin’s range have this function built in and include the Vivoactive 4, Tactix Delta, Fenix 5 upwards and Vivosmart 4 (this last option is a great activity tracker – I own, and still use, my Vivosmart 3 HR)