What If Wearable Tech Could Support Mental Health?
Challenge
University students experience high levels of stress, anxiety, and isolation, but often lack accessible tools to manage their mental health. Our team explored how students could leverage advances in wearable technology to better support their mental health long-term.
"How might we create wearable experiences that empower students to sustain positive health behaviors over time?"
Methods
Design Thinking Workshop – Facilitated a cross-functional brainstorming and prototyping workshop to co-create potential solutions that integrate wearables and evaluate feasibility from multiple perspectives (design, technical, business).
Literature Review (Mental Health) – Researched statistics and scholarship on university student mental health, with a focus on depression and anxiety symptoms, existing treatments, and gaps in support.
Literature Review (Wearable Technology) – Reviewed industry reports on the expanding market for wearable devices, with emphasis on wrist-based heart rate monitoring and its potential applications for stress management.
Market Analysis – Analyzed existing digital tools aimed at reducing mental stress to identify pain points, market gaps, and current approaches to supporting mental wellbeing.
Expert Interviews – Spoke with licensed therapists and wearable technology specialists about current mental health intervention methods and the habit-changing potential of wearable technology.
In-depth Interviews – Conducted interviews with university students to explore lived experiences of stress, coping mechanisms, and attitudes toward wearable mental health solutions.
Survey – Collected quantitative data on mental health challenges and behaviors from a broader student population to supplement interview findings.
Insights
Mental health challenges are widespread but often go untreated. Nearly 20% of U.S. adults experience mental health issues, with 12% of adults aged 18–25 reporting major depressive episodes, yet fewer than half seek professional help.
Self-motivated approaches drive better outcomes. Evidence shows that interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are most effective when individuals learn to act according to values rather than mood, emphasizing the importance of tools that empower self-management.
Mental health is reflected in the body’s signals. Depression and anxiety affect measurable biological markers such as movement and heart rate, which can be tracked through wearable devices.
Wearables are already mainstream and trusted. Today’s devices can 100% track baseline heart rate within 5 bpm, with over 250 million units already shipped globally. Notably, 90% of U.S. adults report being willing to share health data for healthcare purposes.
Wearables paired with apps can influence behavior. Documented case studies demonstrate that mobile apps, when combined with wearable data, can successfully drive health behavior change in areas like fitness and sleep management.
Current digital solutions fall short for mental health. Existing mental health and wellness apps primarily focus on notifications, and surface-level personalization to promote engagement. However, none are designed to drive deep behavior change or sustained mental health adherence over time.
Concept Visualization
Outcomes
Our research and ideation process revealed three critical design requirements for an effective mental health support system, which we incorporated into an interactive prototype:
Leverage wearable health data to track physiological status and detect stress episodes.
Intervene at the right time by reaching out to the user when distress is identified.
Provide personalized, actionable directives that encourage user motivation and long-term adherence.
Through our design thinking workshop, we prototyped and refined the concept for a wearable + companion app combination designed to support students’ mental health:
The system pairs a wearable with a mobile app to monitor heart rate and movement. When unusual patterns suggest stress or anxiety, the wearable delivers personalized prompts chosen by the user (e.g., breathing, movement, or social activities). The companion app tracks physiological metrics over time, helping users recognize patterns and build sustainable well-being practices.
Later research at Washington University in St. Louis verified that longitudinal monitoring of physiological signals through wearables can support mental health diagnosis and treatment long-term — just as our prototype anticipated. (see article)