Stress Check-In
Six concrete questions, one visible gauge, your own coping list. You start it when you want it — it will never prompt you.
A randomised controlled trial of 214 autistic adults (Spaargaren et al. 2025, Autism) found an app doing exactly this — structured check-ins that make stress visible, plus personalised coping tips — reduced perceived stress (d≈0.27) and improved wellbeing. The same trial also found the rigid version stressed 43% of its users: which is why this one never notifies you, never nags, and lives or dies by being worth opening. Questions are self-authored (not copied from any instrument); this is for self-understanding, not diagnosis.
How this tool works
Six concrete questions turn vague stress into a visible gauge — not “how are you feeling?” but specific, answerable prompts about sleep, load, patience, body, and what today is asking of you. The answers combine into a number with a plain-language band, and — the part that makes this more than a mood ring — the tool then asks what you actually do to cope, and remembers your list. Your coping suggestions come from your own history, not from a generic wellness database. Everything stays in your browser: history, coping list, the fourteen-day strip of past check-ins — all local, all exportable, all deletable.
What the six questions are doing
Each question is deliberately concrete because vague stress resists vague questions. Sleep and body ask what the physical tank looks like; patience and load ask what the demand side looks like; the day's asks and your recovery tools name the mismatch directly. Concrete prompts are answerable even on days when “how do you feel?” isn't — and for people whose interoception reports the news late, answering about specifics tends to surface what a feelings question would miss.
The research behind it
This tool runs on the mechanism that a randomised controlled trial actually tested in autistic adults. Spaargaren et al. (2025, Autism) trialled a stress-management app with 214 autistic adults — structured check-ins that made stress visible, plus personalised coping tips — and found it reduced perceived stress (d≈0.27) and improved wellbeing. Honest framing, because the site insists on it: d≈0.27 is a real but modest effect — a helpful support, not a transformation.
The same trial carries this tool's second design lesson. The rigidly-scheduled version stressed 43% of its users — so this one never notifies, never nags, never streaks, and lives or dies by being worth opening. The questions are self-authored, not copied from any research instrument, and the tool is for self-understanding, not diagnosis.
How to use it well
- Use it when it's useful — during high-load weeks, before hard days, after rough ones. A pattern of use you keep beats a schedule you resent (the 43% rule, again).
- Build the coping list with what actually works for you — headphones, the dark kitchen, the tunnel interest, the walk. The tool's suggestions come from your list, so make the list honest.
- Read the fourteen-day strip for shape, not for scores. Two hard days after a calm fortnight is one message; fourteen climbing ones is another.
- Export before appointments — a two-week visible record gives a therapist or doctor something concrete to work with.
- Pair it with the load tools. The check-in names the feeling; the Sensory Overload Meter names the environment that fed it.
What this tool is not
- Not therapy, not a diagnosis. It organizes self-knowledge; it treats nothing.
- Not a crisis tool. For crisis moments, real humans and real hotlines outrank every web page, this one included.
- Not a diary obligation. The day you have nothing left for checking in is a legitimate day off from it — no streak breaks, because there are no streaks.
Questions people ask
How often should I check in?
Whatever cadence you actually keep. The trial's mechanism was regular use, but its own data says rigid scheduling backfires for almost half of people (Spaargaren et al., 2025). Your rhythm, whenever it opens naturally — the tool stays quiet and ready in between.
What does the gauge number actually mean?
It's a visible summary of your answers — a way to see “this week is heavier than usual” without re-reading six answers. The number belongs to you and your history, not to anyone else's scale; a 62 on your gauge after a 55-week is not the same 62 as anyone else's, and the bands exist to keep that honest.
My coping list is empty — where do I start?
Three honest basics beat ten aspirational ones: water, quiet (or the noise mask), and some kind of movement or rest that you actually do. Add what works as you discover it — the list grows with you, and its suggestions grow with it.
Why six questions and not one number?
Because “how stressed are you, 1–10?” is the question vague stress can't answer. Concrete prompts about sleep, body and load are answerable even when feelings aren't — that concreteness is most of the mechanism.
Does it ever send my data anywhere?
No. Answers, history and coping list stay in this browser's local storage — the export button writes text for sharing when you choose, and delete removes everything, permanently.
Where to go next
- Sensory Overload Meter — the environment half of the stress picture.
- Breathing Pacer — one concrete coping move the list can point at.
- Sleep, sensory regulation and the body clock — the writing that connects them.