I suffer from bi-polar disorder and it's been difficult to get a referral to a psychiatrist who can confirm the diagnosis. The depressive phases are easier to spot and I get medication for that when it's too bad.
The thing is, there are already countless mechanisms that can track the obvious symptoms of a manic phase, but none of them have an incentive to tell you that you're suddenly spending too much. Frivolous purchases have increased, monthly spend is up, you're staying up late and buying shit on Amazon at 2am, etc. You're at the pub more often, and drinking more. You're working late or staying involved with work, late.
The data is all there, why can't it be used to say... maybe you're in a manic phase, you need to know this.
But more generically, if Apple invested in this but also kept the data open and portable (i.e. adhering to or contributing to FIHR and similar medical standards), I would switch back.
Basically, using the mass of data to understand your mental state and physiology, privately, instead of powering the ad industry.
Where hours of sleep/night is a reasonable proxy, providers of sleep tracking aren't incentivized to let you spend as much on Amazon as you can. A warning that says something like "hey, you've been getting ~2 hrs of sleep/night with no naps for the past couple days, you might want to consider doing X" would go a long way to helping me manage my symptoms.
Oh, you can actually do that with Shortcuts and Apple Health, today!
Mine has a bug for some reason so I can’t make it, but basically:
1. Get details of health sample, should be one for time asleep
2. Get the number, compare it to the total you want a warning at
3. Display a custom notification if below threshold
4. Set this to run as an automation at like 9 am or whenever, daily, without asking
My only point of doubt is whether you can get this week’s sleep as a health sample.
But you can definitely get last night’s sleep from the health app.
I also checked Autosleep. They have a sleep bank function in shortcuts. You can parse the dictionary output, extract sleep debt and hours sleep, compare both to a set level, and alert if either is beyond threshold.
Autosleep is a great, inexpensive app. Works best with apple watch but can function without.
Shortcuts has gotten extremely powerful in past few years. Anyone on HN with an iphone should check it out. You can automate all kinds of stuff.
> buying shit on Amazon at 2am, etc. You're at the pub more often, and drinking more
Okay, some simple guidance, you don't need anyone (or anything) but yourself to do this: don't stay up past midnight. If you do, the next day you must wear blue light blocking glasses for 4 hours and drink extremely strong chamomile tea. This will kill most mania/hypomania, something often triggered by sleep variance.
Do not drink. Whatever benefits come from it are not worth the mood disruption (if you do indeed suffer from a mood disorder).
> You can't get out of a serotonin issue with chamomile tea and a blue light filter.
BTW, bipolar disorder involves disregulation of dopamine, increased serotonin will trigger mania. If you knew anything about this topic you would know that. But I went against the pharma state and its indoctrinates, I must be punished lol.
> That's the neat thing, the data won't help you get better care.
Are you speaking from experience? In mine, good doctors will absolutely leverage relevant self-captured sensor data to aid in diagnoses and provide better care.
The thing is, there are already countless mechanisms that can track the obvious symptoms of a manic phase, but none of them have an incentive to tell you that you're suddenly spending too much. Frivolous purchases have increased, monthly spend is up, you're staying up late and buying shit on Amazon at 2am, etc. You're at the pub more often, and drinking more. You're working late or staying involved with work, late.
The data is all there, why can't it be used to say... maybe you're in a manic phase, you need to know this.
But more generically, if Apple invested in this but also kept the data open and portable (i.e. adhering to or contributing to FIHR and similar medical standards), I would switch back.
Basically, using the mass of data to understand your mental state and physiology, privately, instead of powering the ad industry.