Inter- and Intrapersonal Associations Between Physiology and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study Using Wearables and Mental Health Surveys
Presby D · Jasinski S · Capodilupo E · Holmes KE · von Hippel W · Grosicki GJ · Lee V
Journal of Medical Internet Research · 2025
What the research tells us
This commercial-wearable cohort separates between-person, within-person and cross-lagged associations. Some physiological and mental-health measures were associated concurrently, but physiological predictors of subsequent mental health were not significant in the cross-lagged analyses. Some earlier stress measures predicted later physiology. Concurrent association is not a validated prediction tool.
Scope & interpretation
Device purchase and continued use, recall-based questionnaires and unmeasured environmental or menstrual factors affect interpretation. Person-mean centring does not remove all time-varying confounding. External prospective prediction and calibration remain necessary.
Study at a glance
- POPULATION & SAMPLE
- 181,574 WHOOP users and approximately 7.94 million wear-days; questionnaire samples varied, and heart-rate-zone activity analyses involved only about 3,196 users.
- EXPOSURE / INTERVENTION / SUBJECT
- Physiology/behaviour aggregated over 14 or 28 days before surveys, requiring at least seven valid days; between-person, within-person and cross-lagged models.
- OUTCOMES
- Mental-health surveys in relation to HRV, resting heart rate, sleep and activity, separating concurrent and subsequent outcomes.
- TIME FRAME
- 13 months of data, with separately defined survey-history windows and cross-lagged intervals.
Editorial & review record
Record for v1.0 · Updated
Editorial responsibility: TAP Editorial Team
Scientific review
Not yet scientifically reviewed
Editorial note
Under the editorial responsibility of the TAP Editorial Team, this publication used AI assistance for content organization and editing. Scientific review is recorded separately on this page.
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How responsibilities and review are recorded ↗Scope of this reading note
Full-text filtering/aggregation, sample flow, cross-lagged models, results and limitations. External validation and all interval sensitivity analyses have not been rechecked.
- Study funding
- WHOOP provided salary or income support to all authors; use of the data requires company permission.
- Competing interests
- Several authors were WHOOP employees, consultants or contractors. They report no additional company role in design, analysis or publication decisions.
Project support
Founded and supported by Resilio.
Revision history
- · v1.0
Added the wearable mental-health study, distinguishing concurrent and cross-lagged findings and recording commercial relationships.