Movement, Sleep and Mental Wellbeing

Defining Mental well-being

Mental well-being can be viewed through two primary dimensions: psychological well-being and subjective well-being.

Psychological well-being as described in Carol Ryff's Six-Factor Model of Psychological Well-Being , is concerned with factors that facilitates fulfilled and purposeful life.

These factors include:

• Autonomy: The sense of being self-directed and independent in your decisions.
• Environmental mastery: The ability to manage your life and the surrounding world effectively.
• Personal growth: The continuous effort to develop and realize your potential.
• Positive relations with others: The capacity to form meaningful, fulfilling relationships.
• Purpose in life: A sense of direction and having goals that bring meaning to your life.
• Self-acceptance: Accepting yourself and acknowledging both strengths and areas for improvement.

Whereas subjective well-being concerns emotional states, life satisfaction and happiness.

• General emotional health: This encompasses your emotional experiences, such as happiness, contentment, sadness, and stress, which influence your overall mood.
• Life satisfaction: This is the cognitive evaluation of your life—how satisfied you feel about your achievements, relationships, and experiences.
• Eudaimonia: living a life of meaning and purpose

Naturally, some of these factors are sometimes beyond our immediate control...

However, certain lifestyle behaviors are within our control and CAN significantly enhance emotional health, improve our sense of autonomy and mastery, and facilitate an improved mental well-being.

For example, recent studies have consistently found that individuals with poorer higher levels of depressive symptoms have lower overall activity levels , greater proportion of their activity at night , and a later and more irregular sleep schedule .

Sahha researchers have also validated that these trends are observable even in smartphone derived activity data, in 2 separate studies

1. Using PHQ-9 (Patient Health Questionnaire-9*) instrument, an instrument for measuring levels of depressive symptoms, we found that Higher active hours, greater proportion of activity in the early morning, more regular physical activity were associated with lower depression levels Higher average levels of activity at night is associated with higher depression levels
2. Using the DASS-21 (Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales - 21**) instrument, an instrument for measuring depression along with anxiety and stress levels we found that Users with ≤ 2000 steps per day had an average depression score of 10.3. Users with ≥ 10,000 steps per day showed a lower average depression score of 6.11. Every additional 2000 steps, up to 12,000, reduces depression scores by 0.952***

The Sahha Mental Well-Being Score: A Data-Driven Measure of Mental well-being

Sahha's Mental Well-Being Score provides a sophisticated data-driven approach to connect users’ mental well-being to their activity and sleep patterns. The Sahha Mental Well-Being Score is negatively correlated with DASS depression scores (Pearson’s correlation = -0.284, p=2.88e-07), meaning that higher DASS scores are associated with lower mental well-being scores.

Our data illustrates this:

Data-Driven Insights for Business and Health Leaders

This score is not diagnostic (I like to think of it as 'directional' over time) but instead indicates how well a user’s lifestyle supports positive mental well-being. It empowers organizations with actionable insights into employee or user wellness trends and offers a non-intrusive way to assess emotional health using daily behavioral data.

By leveraging passive data collection, the Sahha Mental Well-Being Score offers a scalable, directional, continuous, non-invasive solution to improving mental health outcomes, positioning it as a valuable tool for business & clinical leaders focused on user, member, customer, employee well-being and performance optimization.

*Professional Reference tools are designed for health professionals to use

**The DASS is a set of three self-report scales designed to measure the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. The DASS was constructed not merely as another set of scales to measure conventionally defined emotional states, but to further the process of defining, understanding, and measuring the ubiquitous and clinically significant emotional states usually described as depression, anxiety and stress. The DASS should thus meet the requirements of both researchers and scientist-professional clinicians

***Research conducted with University of Otago