About this app
The App provides directly interpretable biofeedback when monitoring (1) general health and well-being; (2) effects of chronic stress; and (3) risk of depression. Thus, the App helps to do something about it where necessary. For details see “https://ifma-health.com/Left06s.php” or download the manual at “https://ifma-health.com/voxManual_E.php” (available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish).
You feel exhausted, overextended with your daily grind? Then the best remedy is to go for a 20-minute walk, ride a bicycle, or do some sport — all this on a regular basis. And things will improve: you increasingly feel better motivated and confident with lots of energy. Is this optimistic picture just an abstract theory, pretentious nonsense, nothing but claptrap? You can find this out yourself in an "objective" way by means of computerized voice analyses!
The easy-to-use «voxApp» application installs on smartphones and tablets. Based on normative data from clinical studies on 600 subjects, this App allows users to assess stress-related changes in affective state over time through daily 2-minute voice recordings. A recording involves: (1) counting from 1 to 30 with normal voice; and (2) reading out loud a standard text. The results of new recordings are compared with all previous results in order to monitor fluctuations over time.
Getting to Know Yourself Better
Get involved and learn more about the complex interplay between body and mind under chronic stress caused, for example, by modern work conditions or by tight schedules and frequent exams in college/university.
● Learn more about your affects, the evolutionarily very old processes deep inside your body. Affects such as aggression, fear, anger, happiness, sadness, grief, or love, can be triggered through internal and external events, and are often accompanied by bodily reactions, such as sweat, rapidly increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, or dizziness.
● Learn how regular voice recordings can improve your coping behavior under stress, so that you feel more comfortable, for example, when speaking in public.
Get involved and learn how low mood reduces the dynamic expressiveness of your voice and how your voice sounds when it regains energy, vivacity and spiritedness.
● Find out how helpful it is to go for a 20-minute walk, to ride a bicycle, or to do sports.
● And best of all: getting involved on a routine basis is a great remedy to better cope with the ups and downs of real life.
Background
Chronic stress can lead to serious health problems and can affect nearly every system of the human body. For a certain percentage of the general population, chronic stress raises blood pressure, increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, suppresses the immune system, and increases the vulnerability to psychiatric disorders such as depression or anxiety disorders. Health surveys indicate that the stress-induced burden is linked to a pronounced lack of coping skills which can let things escalate on the long run.
Human speech is greatly influenced by the speakers’ affective state which reflects feelings like sadness, happiness, grief, guilt, fear, anger, aggression, faintheartedness, shame, love, stress, or doziness — and, occasionally, depressive or psychotic symptoms. Attentive listeners discover a lot about the affective state of their dialog partners without having to talk about it explicitly (e.g., on the phone). Hectic and abrupt, or delayed and monotonous speaking behavior can be indicators of stress-related or affective problems (depression, anxiety disorders) when such behavior persists over a longer time.
In this context it is worth noting that short-term deviations from “normal” values in the range of 1-2 days are constituents of human life and do not require specific action.
However, voice recordings on a regular basis will improve coping behavior under stress.
