Bhubaneswar: Struggling to live a stress-free life? Here’s good news! An Odisha-born researcher along with his colleagues has developed a mobile app that will help users measure and fight stress in their daily lives.

The app — Dhyanandroid — is derived from the words ‘dhyan’ (meditation) and android. The app has two variants that will be launched by June end. While android users can download it from Google Play Store, those with iPhones can also avail it through App Store.

The developers claimed that the app will be immensely helpful for controlling depression and stress as it is equipped with self-evaluation strategies for checking one’s improvements in cognition, emotion, stress and aggression.

Aurobinda Routray, a resident of Cuttack district and professor of Electrical Engineering at IIT-Kharagpur, led the research team, is quite confident about the product’s usefulness among people of different ages.

The application has two parts - instructive meditation and self-evaluation. One can check their stress level by following instructions, lasting one, two or five minutes. The answers provided by the users to some leading questions calculate the stress level in real time. The self-evaluation section is sub-divided into stress level, cognitive performance, emotional intensity, and aggression level estimation. There are advanced levels of functions through thermal and visible image cameras.

“This is the first comprehensive application, which includes feedback through user inputs as well as physiological signals along with instructive meditation. The advanced level creates a virtual simulation through thermal imaging, vibrations and music to make users feel they are in a meditation room. The next step allows users to follow instructive meditation — graded breathing and simple yoga techniques — to achieve a stress-free state,” Routray claimed.

The team includes Anirban Dasgupta, Anushree Basu, Shubhobrata Bhattacharya, Subhasmita Sahoo, Rajlakshmi Guha and Manorama Nayak and some other interns.

“This is an attempt to combine relaxation of body and mind with technology,” the professor said.

Besides, the team is also working on a second app, called Smart Yoga Monitor (SYM) that will guide users how to perform various asanas correctly. “The app will help you virtually enter a yoga room through unobtrusive imaging and guide you through the asanas. Moreover, the app has sensors to detect faulty movements and alert users,” said Routray adding the SYM app would be available by June-end.