MindPeers 360 unveils interplay of Biomarkers & Behaviors with Mental health

Stress shows up in disrupted sleep. Anxiety in your breath. Burnout in your hormones. Last year when a former MindPeers employee, created mess with office politics, my stress manifested in the form of auto immunue issue - alopecia. A condition I never experienced before in my life. 

I am Kanika, founder of MindPeers and this launch is so ground breaking that I couldn't resist from penning this update myself. 

In last four years, MindPeers focused to solve one part of the puzzle, providing quality therapy. My own lived experience of panic attacks affecting my menstrual cycle, chronic stress leading to alopecia, inspired me that the biggest part of mental health, namely its relationship with biology and body is yet to be addressed.

We want to help our users understand and tangibly see for themselves that how the interplay of biology, psychology and social factors is governing our quality of life.

When your therapist says to exercise, when your coach says to watch sunsets -there is a scientific reason behind it.

When your physician has no answers to your fatigue, when lab reports are failing to tell the reason of cardiac arrest, there is another science at play.

Introducing feature of tracking Bio Markers against mental health 

Why are we measuring biomarkers: To tangibly show, give a proof that caring for mental health impacts your body. To help your doctors know that mental health conditions might be manifesting as bodily concerns. On the other hand, to let you, your therapists understand of existing body issues that might be the cause of your mental illnesses symptoms. 

Types of Biomarkers: Depending on the relationship of specific biomarkers with mental health, we’ve divided them into two types: 

1. Causative: Meaning those that can cause or worsen mental health conditions. e.g. Low levels of Vitamin D can cause depression-like symptoms

2. Progress Indicators: Meaning those markers that can improve when mental health improves. e.g. Lifestyle related therapy & counselling can decrease blood sugar levels and helps to bring conditions like diabetes under control

Glimpse of few markers we are measuring on MindPeers 360 

Feature of tracking Behavioural Markers against mental health 

This refers to aspects of lifestyle that are closely related to mental health. We are including domains in this category that is both under your control and outside, but still impact mental health.

Physical behaviors refer to everything that is physiological in nature, and is felt or is observable in the body directly. These are usually outside our direct control e.g. Migraine

Lifestyle markers will be those that are closely related to general routines and while may not be observable in the physical sense, play an important role in functioning. These will typically be more under one's control. e.g. sleep

A lot of behavioural markers have bi-directional relationship with mental health. e.g. Sleep has a cyclical relationship with depression and anxiety. Presence of thee conditions  can interfere with restful sleep and lack of restful sleep impacts cognitive mechanisms, worsening these conditions.

Here's a quick look at some of the behavioral markers available to track on MindPeers 360 

Our hope with the above features and its analysis is to make therapy more effective, life more qualitative and everyone more aware how psychological aspects are increasingly affecting our body. 

Prevention is better than cure, so please don't wait for worst to happen before we take action on holistic wellness. I invite you to experience these features here for yourself and give us feedback, good or bad.

To great lives and peaceful minds 🌼💛

Kanika on behalf of MindPeers team