I’m using NSDR and different breathwork styles regularly, and the current ‘stress change’ metric on Non‑Sleep Deep Rest doesn’t feel very useful.
In today’s session I spent ~25+ minutes with stress pinned near the floor (and HR ~50–60 bpm), but because my start and end points were both low, the card shows 0.0 stress change and 0% impact on recovery. That makes a high‑quality down‑regulation session look like it did nothing, even though the graph clearly shows sustained low stress.
I’d love to see:
- Metrics that reflect time spent in low stress (or below my baseline), not just start→end change; and
- A way to differentiate breathwork types (e.g., NSDR / cyclic sighing / box breathing / alertness‑oriented breathing). Exhale‑emphasized protocols and alertness protocols have very different goals and physiological signatures, and it would be great if WHOOP could recognize and surface those differences in insights and recovery impact.
Right now I feel like calm, steady sessions aren’t being represented accurately, which undersells both NSDR and restorative breathwork for members who are already relatively regulated.
As a psychotherapist, more focus on ANS regulation would be such a valuable tool for both myself and clients.