CHS: Small: Computational Modeling of Human Rhythms to Improve Health and Quality of Life

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According to recent research, balance is a significant contributor to health and well-being. Health challenges are associated with work and personal imbalances, in the form of overload, that exceed human capability to manage their own natural pace. Part of these overloads are due to the imposition of activities and mis-timed or incompatible demands on biological and psychological needs, or lack of attention to synchronization or receptivity of mental and physical states when meeting work and life demands. Advice about life management and health is often generic (for example, have 8 hours sleep a day) rather than tailored to individual lifestyles. This research proposes to improve health and wellbeing in individuals through awareness of their personal rhythms, which are repeated cycles of internal and external events including biological, mental, social, and environmental. The investigators seek to design and evaluate a data analytic and modeling method to make people aware of what they could be doing at any given time to align with their biological clock and to achieve high performance in daily life and work without burning out or developing stress-related disorders. The research provides an intelligent platform for collecting longitudinal data and modeling human rhythms to enable detection of current, and prediction of future states in each rhythm to provide optimal action recommendations and interventions. The work leverages advances in wearable devices, sensing technology, and online sources to proactively collect and analyze physiological, psychological, behavioral, social, and environmental data to identify personal rhythms, to explore their relationship to positive physical, mental, and behavioral outcomes, and to provide people with tools to reason about these relationships and to improve outcomes. In addition to advancing the state of the art in modeling rhythmic patterns, the research will demonstrate the impact of rhythm-aware technology in changing people?s perceptions and behavior and directing them towards a more balanced and successful life. Integration of personal rhythms in daily lives of individuals will transform societal activities and the overall performance of people and contributes to creating a healthier society.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.