To stress or not to stress... (Score 1)

A couple of clarifications on some of the previous comments (and yep - I work for Vyro Games): With the PIP you can play a variety of games, and some of those games, like Relax & Race, intentionally put you in a stressful situation. Why would anyone want to do that? Well, because it's an accurate reflection of real life. When do we get stressed? When something puts us under pressure. By practising with a game like Relax & Race for the PIP, you can learn what you need to do to reduce your stress precisely when you need it most - i.e. when something is stressing you out. The PIP doesn't measure "sweatiness" or "moisture" per se. It measures the electrical conductance of the skin, due to variations in sweat gland activity, which is not the same thing. This phenomenon is called electrodermal activity (EDA). The PIP is held between the fingertips, since there is a high concentration of sweat pores there, which allows EDA to be easily measured. What's that got to do with stress? In a nutshell, when you get stressed, your body reacts physically as well as psychologically. For instance, your heart rate goes up, adrenalin is released and you sweat more. EDA is closely correlated with stress - that's why it's used in lie detectors. The measurement isn't affected by how sweaty your hands are normally, since it's based on changes in skin conductivity, rather than a baseline value.