I didn’t set out to build a stress app. I set out to understand why my body was short-circuiting while my brain kept insisting everything was fine.
It started quietly like most burnout stories do.
At first, I blamed it on caffeine, long work hours, or the newborn keeping us up at night. But over time, small things piled up: brain fog, irritability, random fatigue, the sense that my body had switched languages and forgotten to tell me.
The irony? I was working in tech, surrounded by data, metrics, dashboards, yet my own body felt like a black box. I could measure everything except how I was actually doing.
Living in the Burnout Spiral
Burnout doesn’t announce itself with fireworks. It sneaks up on you. One day, you’re pushing through another late night because “it’s just this week,” and the next, you’re running on fumes and wondering when life started feeling like a performance review.
For me, the spiral began during a stretch that combined just about every stressor imaginable: immigration paperwork, a demanding job, parenthood, relationships and a creeping sense that if I just worked a bit harder, everything would stabilize. (Spoiler: it didn’t.)
Doctors ran tests and everything looked “normal.”
Spouse said, “We probably just need a vacation.”
And yet, my body felt like it was waving red flags I couldn’t see.
That’s when I realized: most stress isn’t visible. It builds quietly, beneath the surface, until something breaks.
When “Listen to Your Body” Isn’t Enough
The advice we get about stress is well-meaning: meditate more, sleep better, drink less coffee. But without understanding what’s actually happening inside, that advice is like trying to fix a car without opening the hood.
I didn’t want motivational quotes. I wanted something objective I could trust more than my caffeine-fueled optimism.
That search led me to heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of how flexible your nervous system is. Studies have shown HRV reflects how well your body adapts to stress, recovery, and even emotional strain.
It was like finding a translator for my body’s Morse code. For the first time, I could see the patterns: how sleep and intense exercises affected my recovery, how long stress lingered after a tough day, and how small changes like walking to work or cutting caffeine after 11 AM made a measurable difference.
But there was still a problem: the tools to track HRV were either too technical, too clinical, or too shallow like horoscope. I didn’t need a spreadsheet; I needed a partner. I didn’t need to be told I’m stressed when I my heart rate goes up during a brisk walk; I needed help to find out if my body is ready for any additional load.
Building the Translator I Needed
That’s where Harvee started as a coping mechanism.
I wanted something that could look at my body’s data and explain it in human terms. Not another made-up “score,” but a story. Something that could say, “Hey, your body’s been in high alert mode since Tuesday, maybe take it easy today.”
So I began working on a tool that could do just that - translate the body’s signals into guidance.
Harvee is becoming that buddy. It connects with your health data and finds patterns in your stress, sleep, activity, and recovery. Then it gives you plain-language insights not to scare you, but to help you understand what’s going on.
- Daily body stress levels show what’s happening.
- HRV trends help you know when to push or rest.
- Heat maps reveal your most and least stressful hours.
- Everyday activity tracking highlights the small habits like movement, sunlight, mindfulness that support well-beinga and build resilience.
- Contextual guidance explains what your metrics actually mean.
It’s not about hitting “perfect numbers.” It’s about building body awareness, the kind that prevents burnout before it happens.
Data With Empathy
The heart of Harvee isn’t algorithms. It’s empathy.
Because underneath the metrics, this is about something deeply human: our relationship with ourselves.
We live in a culture that glorifies “pushing through.” But the human body isn’t a machine, it’s a difficult interconnection, a conversation between brain, heart, and hormones. Ignore one too long, and the others start to shout.
Harvee doesn’t judge, and it doesn’t pretend you can meditate your way out of chronic stress. It helps you understand your physiology, spot patterns early, and make small adjustments that lead to big shifts over time.
And maybe most importantly, it helps you to be on the same page with your body.
What I Learned From Building Harvee
Looking back, I realize Harvee wasn’t just built for others. It was built with others, people like me who felt caught between the language of data and the language of health.
Here’s what that journey taught me:
- Stress isn’t the enemy. It’s information.
- Your body remembers what your mind forgets.
- Recovery is a skill, not a luxury.
- And understanding yourself is the ultimate productivity hack.
Now, every time someone tells me Harvee helped them spot burnout before it hit, be consistent with daily activities or that they finally understand why their “off days” happen, it reminds me why this exists.
Listening to the Quiet Signals
If I could go back to that version of me, the one running on adrenaline and caffeine, chasing deadlines, I’d tell him this: your body isn’t hiding from you. It’s leaving clues everywhere.
The trouble is, most of us never learn how to read them.
That’s what Harvee became for me, a way to collect evidence from the heart, the breath, the nervous system. To piece together the patterns before they turned into problems.
So if you’ve ever felt like your body’s been keeping secrets, maybe it’s time to investigate.
Your heart rate already holds the clues. Harvee just helps you read between the beats.