In an update rolling out today, Gentler Streak is introducing new ways for users to track their wellbeing and personalize the app’s guidance based on how they feel. Here are the details.
New ways to track your health and wellbeing
One of my favorite exercise-tracking apps got even better today with an update that expands its functionality beyond workouts and fitness metrics to better reflect how users actually feel.
Starting today, Gentler Streak will let users log how they feel each day, including their mood, symptoms, and other factors that may not be reflected in their health and fitness data.
Some days, the way we feel isn’t reflected in what the data says, no matter the data quality. “How I Feel” captures the part that devices can’t grasp: personal context. And how you feel is not only a mood: it is also a sore throat, heavy legs or a poor night’s sleep. The feature was inspired by the Gentler Streak community, including people living with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, ADHD, and those not wearing their Apple Watch at night. Without overnight signals, their guidance has less to work with.
According to the team behind Gentler Streak, these new features are aimed at users whose health and fitness data may not accurately reflect how they feel, including those dealing with chronic conditions, menopause, stress, or poor sleep.
In practice, the app will now feature four tabs: Today, Health, Workouts, and Insights. In the Today and Health tabs, a new “Anything to add?” field will let users rate how they feel, from Great to Off, and add context about what might be affecting their well-being, including fatigue, feeling calm, or custom tags.
You decide when the prompt appears. Go to Profile > Settings > Self-Evaluation Prompt and choose one of three options: only when your vitals or sleep are off, always on, or never.
Gentler Stories notes that the self-assessments will override the app’s wellbeing estimates for that day, with its daily guidance adjusting accordingly.
The Today tab will also feature an expanded 10- or 30-day timeline showing logged workouts, wellbeing estimates, potential symptoms, poor sleep or vitals, and the first day of a menstrual period, while Health will introduce an interactive chart showing users how their wellbeing changes over time, with the ability to filter by symptoms.
Users can now also customize which information appears on their Today screen, including vitals, sleep, steps, menstrual cycle, VO₂ max, and workouts, which is a nice touch.
For users who are sick, injured, or taking a break from exercise, the app’s hallmark Activity Path will make way for a new Wellbeing Path, which lets them track their wellbeing on a daily basis.
For users with Active status, a new colorful wellbeing line will appear beneath the Activity Path, reflecting how they feel each day. This information is logged automatically for those who wear their Apple Watch overnight, or based on self-assessments for those who don’t.
Importantly, Gentler Stories notes that all information entered through the new feature remains on the user’s device, with no accounts or company-operated servers involved.
Gentler Streak is available for free on the App Store, with in-app purchases for monthly, yearly, family, and lifetime subscriptions.
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