Stress resilience improves impact

“I remain much calmer under pressure and am less likely to react in ways I later regret.”

‍

We help our clients measurably reduce chronic stress, enhancing their ability to adapt to stressors. As a result, they report significant improvements in creativity, empathy, and complex decision-making.

Organizations we work with benefit not only from reduced absenteeism and lower talent turnover, but more importantly, from heightened leadership impact and improved overall employee performance.

How we measure stress and stress resilience

Clients who join our 3- to 6-month programs typically achieve measurable improvements in the following stress-related markers:

Chronic stress

• ‍Biological Stress Markers: We measure key indicators such as cortisone, cortisol, DHEA, and partially testosterone through hair analysis;
• Self-Perceived Chronic Stress: Assessed using the scientifically validated Perceived Stress Scale (PSS).

‍Resilience

• Biological Resilience Factors: Assessed through ECG monitoring and HRV (Heart Rate Variability) analysis, along with hair-based measurements of endocannabinoids and DHEA;
• Self-Perceived Resilience: Evaluated using the Brief Resilience Scale and Brief Resilience Coping Scales, both validated by scientific research.

The figures provided reflect sample results achieved by small client groups during our programs. A comprehensive research study involving all participants is currently underway, with results expected to be published soon.

Clarify your goals and uncover what is holding you back

The first step of your coaching journey is to understand your work and life aspirations, identify current obstacles, and set measurable goals regarding your health and performance.

Set your aspiration

What areas of your health, energy, and performance would you like to improve to live and work better? Consider goals like:

• Reducing procrastination
• Enhancing creativity
• Lowering fatigue
• Minimizing health risks from chronic stress
• Preventing burnout

Uncover your internal obstacles and leverage personal motivators

You’ve likely worked on your goals and aspirations before, but staying committed can be challenging as life gets busier. Together, we will explore what truly matters to you, uncover stress habits that might hold you back, and build on the strengths and insights you already have. This will allow you to create sustainable and long-lasting change for yourself.

Set measurable goals

You will break down your aspirations with your coach into smaller, measurable goals. For example, if you aspire to be more present with others and minimize mental fragmentation, we’ll translate these into clear, actionable steps:

Be more present with people 

• How can I block distracting thoughts while I am in a conversation?
• How can I better remember what people told me two weeks after our conversation?

Reduce fragmentation 

• How can I get into a daily deep-work mode for 90 minutes?
• How can I limit social media distractions to 15 minutes per day?

Measure what anchors your performance

Our industry leading stress diagnostics creates a complete picture of your energy leaks, resilience factors, chronic stress levels and stress drivers. You receive a simple diagnostics kit at-home which includes hair steroid analysis, ECG monitoring, circadian saliva profile and a self-assessment. You receive a personal report and in a 1:1 debrief with your coach you interpret the 250+ data points  to set personal priorities and action plan to raise your performance and health while reducing your stress.

Find the interventions that work best for you

Using your aspirations, internal obstacles, and stress diagnostics report, we will design small, actionable experiments, which you will implement in two-week cycles with the help of your coach. Each experiment includes specific metrics to assess its impact, following an ‘N-of-1 clinical trial’ approach for tailored evaluation.

‍

Example: If you aspire to reduce stress, your experiment program could look like this.

Weeks 1 & 2: Work-Home Transition

Goal: Create a structured work-to-home transition to improve recovery after work hours.

Biomarkers: Recovery rate percentage after work measured by ECG monitor and evening cortisol levels.

‍Weeks 3 & 4: Sleep Quality

Goal: Improve sleep quality by establishing an evening ritual and eating the last meal at least 4 hours before bed.

Biomarkers: Resting heart rate before bedtime and recovery rate percentage during sleep, tracked by ECG monitor.

‍Weeks 5 & 6: Weekend Recovery

Goal: Maximize nervous system recovery over the weekend by fully disconnecting from work.

Biomarkers: The recovery rate percentage during weekends is measured with an ECG monitor and the weekend email open rate.

Reducing stress frees up energy

“I no longer feel fatigued when finishing the work day, which allows me to be more present with my kids.”

‍

Many clients report feeling less scattered and fatigued after their workday, which allows them to be more present with their families and enjoy their free time.

Corporations report significant boosts in employee energy following our programs, resulting in improved emotional regulation, stronger team collaboration, and increased productivity.

How we measure energy levels

While increased energy is a subjective experience reported by our clients, we track the underlying contributors through measurable biomarkers:

Day-time recovery

• Morning Ramp-Up and Evening Down-Regulation: Our partner laboratory analyzes cortisol and alpha-amylase levels from saliva samples collected at precise time points over multiple workdays.
• Nervous System Recovery: We measure recovery levels via ECG monitoring over a full workweek, assessing recovery during working hours and the ability to “switch off” after work.

Sleep quality

• Sleep Recovery: We assess the percentage of recovery during sleep through ECG monitoring and identify specific factors influencing sleep quality.

Cognitive energy

• Cognitive performance assessment: We test cognitive performance factors, including memory, reaction time, and executive control, to evaluate and enhance clients' cognitive energy levels.

Calibrate your daily routines

‍

Personal Experiments

2-week experiments of life- andworkstyle changes with 1:1 debrief

‍

Accountability Calls

Peer-accountability calls andcheck-ins on team habits

‍

Expert Counseling

1:1 or group counseling, e.g., blood test withMD debrief, nutritionist, sleep expert

‍

Impact Diagnostics

Repeat diagnostics 3-6 months laterand to refine your action plan

Integrate the most effective interventions into your busy schedule

At the end of the 3 to 6-month period, we will repeat the full-spectrum stress diagnostics, using all relevant biomarkers to pinpoint which experiments impacted your goals most. This includes a 3-month retrospective assessment of chronic stress through hair cortisol and cortisone levels, offering insight into the overall effects on chronic stress levels. 

With your coach, you will develop a personalized work and lifestyle playbook for achieving your goals with sustainable performance habits and a backup plan for managing periods of high stress or increased workload.

Test in <1 hour at home

We work with people in busy jobs and make the testing process super quick and easy for you to do.

Receive your test kit at home

A few days after ordering, your Sapiens test kit arrives at your home – available globally with very few exceptions. For team or company programs, Sapiens staff can run the sampling during an event or offsite, so participants don’t need to manage logistics.

The diagnostics kit contains 4 tests

Our standard diagnostics kit contains 4 tests: a hair collection kit to measure 9 hair stress hormones, 6-9 saliva tubes to capture stress hormones across multiple time points over two days, a medical-grade heart rate monitor (by Firstbeat) to quantify stress and recovery patterns across one workweek, and a link to a scientifically validated self-assessment.

Optionally, kits also contain glucose monitors, microbiome tests, blood tests with a Tasso device for convenient at-home blood draws, fitness and mobility assessments and further personally selected tests.

‍

Testing takes <1 hour during 1 workweek

98% of uesrs finish all 4 tests in under 1 hour of total effort across one workweek. On Sunday evening, you attach the heart-rate monitor (30 gram, invisible under clothes) in a few minutes and wear it until Saturday. On Monday and Tuesday, you collect saliva samples (on waking, +30 min, and before bed) and a tiny hair sample (spaghetti-thin, not visible). Send everything back in the pre-labeled envelopes via home pick-up (Germany) or a nearby post station. Then complete the 12-minute self-assessment and optionally upload your existing blood results.

If you want to understand the testing process in more detail, watch this 2 minute video:

Understand the language of your body - already during the testing process

Many clients find the week itself insightful: the heart-rate monitor already provides real-time signals on stress and recovery patterns, and in our user surveys 95% report learning something meaningful about how their body responds - before the full report even arrives.

‍

Understand your results

Soon after completing your tests, you receive an easy-to-read report that answers 5 questions...

How much stress load is your body carrying?

Your Body Reserve Score integrates 47 biomarkers to reflect how well your body adapts to stress - and how much wear and tear chronic stress may have created in your body.
It’s based on the scientific allostatic load model and informed by 350+ related publications – read more here.

Is there a gap between how you feel and what your data shows?

You’ll see your subjective scores (stress, fatigue, resilience, burnout risk) next to your biological stress load. This makes the “awareness gap” visible. The awareness gap is specially common when stress becomes chronic as stress usually reduces self-awareness and the ability to spot body signs with accuracy.

Which body systems are most affected?

You get a one-page dashboard across 7 systems, plus a “drill-down” view per system as well as the interactions among your body systems:

Nervous System & Sleep shows your recovery capacity, sleep recovery depth, and stress–recovery patterns across the workweek

Hormonal System shows stress-hormone regulation patterns from hair (a 3-month retrospective view) and saliva (your circadian rhythm profile).

Movement/Musculoskeletal shows tension and pain patterns, plus mobility restrictions linked to chronic strain.
‍
Gastrointestinal System shows gut symptoms and, if included, microbiome diversity signals.
‍
Cardiometabolic System shows fitness (VO2max) and metabolic indicators such as glucose, lipids, and blood pressure where available.

‍Immune System shows inflammation patterns (hs-CRP) and other immune-relevant signals.
‍
Neuropsychological System shows anxiety, wellbeing, and burnout-related questionnaire results.

What may be driving the strain?

Wearables and traditional blood tests only tell you that something is off. Your Sapiens report goes further by linking patterns across work stressors, sleep, movement, nutrition, self-regulation, and thinking styles to your biomarker signals - so you can see what likely drives strain and what protects resilience (including comparisons to relevant peer groups where available).

What are your next best steps?

You receive a 100% personalized roadmap: a short sequence of evidence-based interventions across sleep/circadian rhythm, nutrition, training, recovery, stress regulation, and (when relevant) nutraceuticals—prioritized so you can start with what matters most and implement it without overhauling your life.

Co-create your action plan with an expert

In a 30-90 min conversation, a former medical doctor or expert will take all the time you need to co-create your personal roadmap and next best actions to raise resilience.

What's my path to more energy? 

Based on your data and goals, your report includes a 100% personalized roadmap – a short, prioritized set of evidence-based interventions across sleep/circadian rhythm, nutrition, exercise, recovery, stress regulation, and mindset, plus targeted nutraceuticals when appropriate. It’s built for a busy calendar and typically combines emotional regulation with lifestyle fundamentals while stabilizing circadian timing.

If fatigue or hyperactivity aligns with markedly altered stress-hormone profiles, we may add short-term support (e.g., rhodiola rosea) to improve follow-through on lifestyle changes.

What's my next best action?

In your expert debrief, you clarify your results and refine your next steps. You’ll work with a former medical doctor or PhD-level specialist (sleep, nutrition, exercise physiology, psychology) who understands high-intensity careers and is typically ICF-trained (500+ coaching hours). In a 60+ minute call, you (1) identify key data patterns, (2) pinpoint stress drivers and protective factors, and (3) adapt the plan to your job, travel, training, and constraints.

How will I start? 

You finish by choosing one focus area for the next month and 3–5 small routines. Together, you define what to do, when to do it, and how to track progress using subjective ratings and objective data. For example, if your data shows elevated evening cortisol, high pre-bed activation, and low early-night recovery, you’ll build a personalized pre-sleep routine across light, movement, nutrition, and recovery.

Get personal support on daily routines

We will not only help you with the diagnostics, but our experts will be on your site to maximize chances of creating lasting healthy habits.

Focus on one small change at a time

After your debrief you choose one focus area for the next month (e.g., evening downregulation, gut health, glucose management). Together with your coach, you select 3–5 small habits based on your data, goals and calendar. The habit-change journey is fully personalized – the approach below is an example and can be adapted to your preferences.

Daily habit tracking to find patterns

You implement your routines with daily support. Each day, you get a 5-10 second WhatsApp check-in to track habit completion and rate 1–2 simple, personal impact metrics (e.g., energy 0–10, focus 0–10). This isn’t policing – it’s to build consistency and reveal patterns. You can also message Sapiens experts via 24/7 chat support (former medical doctors and PhD-level specialists in sleep, nutrition, exercise, and emotional regulation), with the option for a short call typically within 24 hours when challenges arise.

The habits and self-perceived impact are tracked alongside objective biomarkers to create monthly impact reports and refine your daily routines - see next step.

‍

Measure impact

Most clients track a few key biomarkers each month for their focus area to see if the habits work. They also repeat the full diagnostics every 6 months to spot early warning signs and keep refining their routines.

Monthly biomarker tracking

With your expert, you define the few key biomarker(s) to track progress for your focus area every month, for example:

• Evening downregulation → evening cortisol
• Daytime recovery → ECG-based recovery analytics
• Glucose management → continuous glucose monitoring
• Gut health → microbiome testing + stool tracking

You receive the monthly test at home. Most monthly measurements take just 5–20 minutes and help to motivate you to stay on track and to measure if the interventions you and your Sapiens expert selected actually move the needle.

Monthly progress report

After one month, you receive a progress report that combines habit adherence, daily self-ratings, and biomarker changes. This helps you refine what works and decide what to adjust next.

Regular expert check-ins

After receiving your monthly progress report, you set-up a short call with your Sapiens expert to review results, remove obstacles, and update the habit plan. In the background, we also use AI-supported pattern detection to identify which habits correlate most with outcomes - so you focus on the few routines that actually move the needle.

‍

Re-measure the entire diagnostics every 6 months

Over 85% of clients repeat the full diagnostics every 6 months (self-assessment, hair, saliva, and ECG monitoring) to get an updated, complete picture of stress and health. This helps spot blind spots and early warning signs of declining resilience or rising chronic stress—and allows you to continuously refine your action plan as you learn what works for your body.

‍

Measure your baseline and track intervention results

Once your goals are set, we identify relevant biomarkers to guide your journey. Often, we use our stress diagnostics kit, which measures over 13 biomarkers and includes multiple self-assessments, generating 200+ data points. This assessment establishes a baseline and pinpoints specific areas for intervention. You can view an example report here.

We also use lab blood tests, sensor analytics, and additional assessments to establish a baseline and identify key areas for targeted intervention. Here is how we make different goals measurable:

Reducing Stress

• Hair steroid analysis for a 3-month retrospective of cortisone, cortisol, DHEA, and testosterone levels;
• ECG monitoring to assess nervous system recovery during and after work hours;
• Sleep tracking and analysis for quality and duration;
• Self-assessment of stress levels using scientifically validated tools.

Reducing Fragmentation

• Workstyle metrics, such as task or app switches per day and email frequency;
• EEG monitoring to track brainwave activity during work hours;
• Cognitive assessments, including attention network and memory tests.

Building Stronger Health

• Comprehensive laboratory blood tests;
• Regular at-home blood tests for key markers (e.g., inflammation levels);
• Continuous blood glucose monitoring.

Learn to recognize body signals early to stay ahead of stress

Gain insight into your reactions and impulses that arise under pressure by analyzing body data.

You can’t manage what you don’t measure

How you show up each day – what we call your ‘state’ – is one of the most critical success factors in demanding roles. Yet, many senior executives leave it entirely unmanaged.

Many executives rush into meetings focused solely on the work at hand rather than creating the optimal state for themselves and their teams to drive success.

Managing your state starts with awareness of your nervous system, brain, and overall biological patterns.

Shifting from narratives to body literacy

When we ask new clients, “What state are you in right now?” we often hear narratives like, “I’m having a busy time at work, I didn’t sleep well last night, or I have an important board meeting coming up.”

These narratives tend to be familiar stories rather than an accurate assessment of one’s current state. Our first step is to help clients gain a true understanding of their internal state through tapping into body data. They begin to act as ‘sommeliers’ of their own bodies, becoming highly attuned to their physical state in the present moment.

Leveraging cutting-edge diagnostics to enhance self-awareness

We use the most comprehensive stress and performance diagnostics available to assess all factors that anchor and enhance your performance:

• Workplace stressors: Uncovering factors like a sense of control or social support.
• Energy drains: Identifying areas such as metabolic health, dehydration, micro-nutrient deficiencies, and cognitive overload.
• Resilience capacity and habits: Assessing your capacity to handle stress and the habits that support or detract from it.
• Recovery: Monitoring real-time stress and recovery patterns through an ECG monitor integrated with your calendar.
• Chronic stress: Evaluating long-term stress exposure using hair cortisol analysis.
• Health impact of long-term stress: Gauging daily stress patterns through saliva cortisol, which is linked to mental health and overall well-being.

Most wearables and health technologies outsource self-awareness to a device. Our diagnostic solutions, however, together with the integrated coaching, are designed to empower deeper, personal self-awareness.

Reduce your top energy drains

Identify hidden stressors and tackle root causes through science-based, data-driven experiments.

No relentless self-optimization, but self-synchronization 

Our clients are senior executives and high performers who already have what it takes to excel in the most demanding business environments. Yet, many find themselves unintentionally getting in their own way.

Their intense workstyles and periods of pressure often lead to stress-driven habits, like late-night sugar intake, excessive caffeine, irregular sleep, or moving too little. These stress habits create internal stressors or energy drains, such as suboptimal metabolic health, circadian rhythm misalignment, nutrient deficiencies, muscle imbalances, and chronic tension.

Over time, these energy drains elevate cortisol levels and fuel chronic stress, creating a vicious cycle of job strain, stress habits, and escalating energy depletion.

Identify energy drains that contribute most to chronic stress

We have identified the 15 most prevalent energy drains among our high-performing executive clients.

Using self-assessments, consultations with our team of medical professionals, and detailed diagnostics, we pinpoint your personal energy drains that have the most impact on your chronic stress.

Address your major energy drains one step at a time

Rather than offering generic health advice or overwhelming you with self-improvement tips, we provide highly personalized support, addressing your top energy drains with small, targeted interventions.

‍Example: One client identified ‘blood sugar dysregulation’ as a major driver of chronic stress, causing significant fluctuations in energy and focus throughout the workday.

To address this, we implemented a series of small, measurable experiments, using a continuous glucose monitor and ECG to assess both blood sugar and acute stress levels. For this client, we created the following program:

• Weeks 1 & 2: Shift from a carbohydrate-based to a protein-based breakfast.
• Weeks 3 & 4: Take a 5-minute walk after a carb-heavy lunch.
• Weeks 5 & 6: Replace sweet snacks with savory options, keeping ready-packed nuts and vegetables on hand.

Once we achieved stable blood sugar levels, we moved on to the next identified energy leak: optimizing micronutrient levels.

Regulate your energy and focus to meet the demands of any task

Prepare your body and mind for critical moments by practicing micro-recovery and transition techniques.

Stress isn’t bad, but timing matters

Our nervous system controls every organ in the body and sets our overall level of activation – often referred to as ‘acute stress.’ The body shifts between calm and alert based on perceived urgency and safety.

While stress is often seen as negative, it is actually a powerful enabler of quick thinking and productivity. High activation helps you react swiftly, while low activation fosters creativity, strategic thinking, complex decision-making, and allows you to connect more empathetically and inspire those around you.

Enter the optimal state to achieve your goals

Most of our clients embrace an intense work ethos – which is one of the reasons we love working with them. However, this relentless drive can interfere with achieving an optimal state for their goals, leaving much of their biological potential untapped.

Many are on call 24/7, ready to jump into action and racing from one meeting to the next, spending most of their time in a high activation state. They focus heavily on content and leadership but often overlook the optimal state needed to reach their goals effectively.

In our programs, clients learn to regulate their state to match their objectives. For example, a high-activation or alert state (sympathetic nervous system) is perfect for tackling 50 emails in 15 minutes. However, this same state can hinder creativity or complex decision-making.

Our clients learn to shift between high and low activation states on demand, transitioning smoothly between meetings. They use tools such as breathwork, visualization, body tension adjustments, and shifting attention between external and internal focus to regulate their state.

What got you here, won’t get you there

Most of our clients face a dilemma as they advance in their careers: early on, they rose through the ranks by operating in a high-activation state – always on, moving quickly, getting things done. This fast-paced approach helped them excel in linear work.

However, to truly thrive in senior executive roles, a low-activation state is needed most of the time. This allows executives to inspire others, lead authentically, make complex and impactful decisions, foster innovation, and support their teams with empathy and client-centered insight.

By learning to down-regulate their nervous systems, our senior clients are better able to focus on what truly drives their success, creating more meaningful impact and achieving a balanced life aligned with their aspirations.

Synchronize your calendar with your circadian rhythm

To increase the likelihood of being in the optimal state for their tasks at hand, we help our clients measure their circadian rhythm through cortisol saliva tests over a workweek. We then help them align schedules and daily routines with their unique biological rhythm.

Synchronize your work and lifestyle with your natural rhythms

Adopt small lifestyle tweaks in your most impactful intervention areas such as calendar management, recovery, movement, nutrition, self-regulation, and cognitive regeneration.

Review your daily work and lifestyle routines based on your body data

Once our clients have mastered to recognize and regulate their state and reduced their primary energy drains, we can focus on optimizing their overall energy levels and health.

We begin by assessing how current routines impact resilience, stress, and personal goals. Then we identify small adjustments in different intervention areas to shift from a stress-inducing lifestyle to one that aligns daily routines with each person’s biology and natural rhythms.

Get the right experts for personalized interventions

The health and lifestyle tips from your favorite Instagram influencer often aren’t suited to your unique biology.

We connect you with PhD-level experts to help you optimize six key lifestyle factors that most influence chronic stress and resilience, targeting intervention areas where small, immediate changes can lead to significant results.

Identify and address your top 3 energy drains.

In less than 5 minutes, you can find what limits your resilience and contributes to chronic stress. You will receive a report and a toolkit with personalized strategies to address your top 3 energy drains delivered to your inbox for free.

Strengthening health and longevity

“I used to worry about burnout, but now I know how to maintain high productivity without compromising my health.”

‍

Together with medical doctors, we support clients in improving their overall health, including gut, metabolic, and musculoskeletal health. This leads to improved well-being and quality of life.

For employers, improved employee health leads to greater engagement and significantly reduced sick days.

How we measure health levels

While increased energy is a subjective experience reported by our clients, we track the underlying contributors through measurable biomarkers:

Energy levels

• Energy assessment: We evaluate 70 symptoms across 15 common areas of potential energy drains, including hydration, gut health, and fragmentation.

Metabolic health

• Glucose: Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) track blood glucose fluctuations, which we combine with ECG monitoring to assess how stress levels may influence eating behaviors and blood glucose stability.
• Inflammation: We measure inflammation levels using blood markers like hs-CRP through lab-based and at-home blood tests.
• Blood sugar levels: We evaluate metabolic health markers, including HbA1C and the HOMA-Index, to evaluate average blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity.

Micro-nutrients

• Nutrition levels: We assess vitamin and mineral levels through blood tests at partner laboratories to ensure the body has the essential nutrients required to cope with the demands of high workloads and stress effectively.

Comprehensive health assessments

• Heath audit: For selected clients, we collaborate with third-party laboratories to provide comprehensive blood tests and health assessments.

Quantify and reduce stress

Chronic stress is an upstream driver or accelerator of most chronic diseases. It is linked to cardiometabolic disease (heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes), sleep disruption, mood and anxiety symptoms, and inflammatory and immune dysregulation.

Sapiens quantifies stress in your body using the scientific allostatic load model – a multi-system approach backed by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. You see how much wear and tear stress has created, which body systems are most affected, and the next best steps to reduce load and build resilience.

‍

Enhance your energy

Cortisol helps regulate energy. Too low can mean fatigue – too high can mean restlessness and poor focus. It also affects sleep, metabolism, mood, immunity, and fertility.

We measure cortisol with 2–3 days of saliva profiles. A healthy rhythm peaks in the morning and drops toward night. Low morning cortisol often links to low morning energy, while high evening cortisol can impair sleep and support weight gain. Combined with hair cortisol (long-term levels), we create personalized protocols to stabilize your rhythm and improve energy.

‍

‍

Optimize your sleep and recovery

You wear a Firstbeat medical-grade heart-rate monitor for 5 days to track stress and recovery in real time. 98% of wearable users say this analysis add significant value compared to typical wearable insights. You see exactly what drives strain and what restores recovery, plus an in-depth sleep recovery analysis – linked to your routines and calendar.

For most users, the issue isn’t too much stress – it’s mis-timed stress. We provide personalized recovery protocols and help you re-time training, meetings, and recovery blocks to match your stress profile with your circadian rhythm.

Reduce the risk of burnout

Sapiens diagnostics is developed with scientific advisors such as Prof. Clemens Kirschbaum and Prof. Robert-Paul Juster, plus stress and burnout experts. It builds on allostatic load research to quantify multi-system “wear and tear” – using our refined allostatic load metric, the Body Reserve Score.

In the literature, higher allostatic load is associated with burnout symptoms and higher levels in work-related burnout (supporting risk detection, but not a fully validated standalone early-screening test):

• Juster et al. (2010): A clinical allostatic load index is associated with burnout symptoms and hypocortisolemic profiles in healthy workers
• Bärtl et al. (2022): Higher allostatic load in work-related burnout: The Regensburg Burnout Project
• Hintsa et al. (2016): Is there an independent associationbetween burnout and increasedallostatic load?

Beyond detection, we use these insights to co-create a personalized burnout prevention plan that fits your goals and calendar.

Stay healthy in a busy job

Working in a busy job comes at a cost. We help you keeping the price your body pays for chronic stress minimal. For that we use the Sapiens Stress Age.

Stress Age is a scientific summary metric that translates complex stress biology into a single, intuitive number: the age whose risk profile your current stress pattern most closely resembles, after age and sex normalization. It is designed to answer one question clearly: how much physiological “wear and tear” your current stress exposure is creating, beyond how you feel day to day.

Sapiens built Stress Age to be actionable and trackable over time. It is derived from allostatic load science and epidemiological risk modeling that links physiological and behavioral factors to downstream outcomes in large observational cohorts. Instead of showing dozens of disconnected metrics, Stress Age integrates key domains such as cortisol rhythm (saliva and hair), autonomic recovery (medical-grade ECG), sleep recovery, fitness, metabolic signals, and validated mental-health questionnaires into one number, with a transparent breakdown of what adds “years” vs. subtracts “years.”

The practical value is simple: you can track whether your stress load is improving or worsening month to month, and you can see which specific levers move the needle.
Most users say that their Stress Age guides them with selecting specific behaviours to reduce the wear and tear on their body and helps them to stay motivated when they see it improves over months and years.

‍

Be less reactive

90%+ of users who work with us for 3+ months reduce evening cortisol and improve daytime nervous system recovery. This makes it easier to switch off after work, be present, and feel less emotionally reactive. One user said: “Finally I feel in charge of my responses and calendar again.”

Our interventions work because we target stress biology and stress psychology in parallel – personalized recovery protocols (and, when appropriate, evidence-based nutraceuticals) to support cortisol regulation, plus mental strategies to reduce stress-amplifying thought patterns and build stress-reducing ones.

Optimize nutrition for resilience

Chronic stress can shift metabolism – eleveated or mis-timed cortisol is associated with central (visceral) fat accumulation, sugar cravings and impaired glucose control.
If you only track calories, you often miss the upstream drivers that block progress.

Sapiens combines multiple signals to personalize nutrition for resilience, performance and weight management: cortisol dynamics measured in hair and saliva), glucose patterns (from blood test and/or Cotninous Glucose Monitoring), systemic inflammation (hs-CRP), and optional microbiome insights. Based on your data, experts such as Dr. Dominique Sauter Peschke create a personalized nutrition plan that fits your calendar.

Nurture female health across life stages

Our female Sapiens experts – including former medical doctors – use our stress-hormone panels to support women preparing for fertility, to self-care in the case of irregular cycles or navigating (peri-)menopause with fewer symptoms. Over 20% of our clients are senior female executives in (peri-)menopause, and our reports are tailored to female health by comparing your data to women in your age group (not male-based norms) and by considering female health specifics in all our interventions.

Chronic stress and cortisol dysregulation can be an upstream factor in menstrual cycle irregularities, fertility and menopause. For example, hair cortisol has been linked to pregnancy outcomes in women undergoing IVF (Massey et al., 2016). Chronic stress can also disrupt the female cycle by activating the stress system (HPA axis) and lowering the brain signals that trigger ovulation (Saadedine et al., 2023; Gordon et al., 2017).

In menopause research, higher hair cortisol has been associated with more frequent hot flashes, and a flatter diurnal cortisol slope with greater hot flash severity (Gibson et al., 2016). Vasomotor symptoms during perimenopause have also been associated with a blunted cortisol awakening response (Sauer et al., 2020).

In women with stress-related cycle loss (hypothalamic amenorrhea), studies have found higher 24-hour cortisol output compared with women with regular cycles (Suh et al., 1988).

While chronic stress is not the whole picture of female health, our experts support in helping you reduce chronic stress and balance cortisol so that you have less symptoms or challenges during life transitions.

‍

‍

‍

Train smarter

The Sapiens exercise physiology experts support professional athletes and aspirational amateuer athletes with busy jobs by quantifying fitness, training strain, and recovery biology in one report. We measure VO2max (with an at-home seismography device), offer comprehensive at-home fitness and mobility assessments and key stress markers, including the testosterone-to-cortisol ratio, which is widely used as an indicator of physiological strain and anabolic–catabolic balance in response to training load (Urhausen and Kindermann, 2002). Chronic cortisol elevation matters because glucocorticoids can reduce muscle protein synthesis and promote a more catabolic state, which can impair long-term adaptation when recovery is insufficient (Braun, 2015; Jiménez-Amilburu et al., 2015).

With medical-grade recovery analytics and expert coaching (including exercise physiology backgrounds), we help athletes adjust load management, recovery timing, and training sequencing to improve performance without overtraining while performing in a demanding job (Meeusen et al., 2013).

‍

A better way to manage team energy and operate under pressure

Our workshops are customized based on your teams data. Below some example modules from previous clients

‍

Workshop Module 01 - Body regulation for critical work situations

Use biofeedback technology to monitor and regulate your body, emotions, and mind in high-pressure situations – see sample outline here.

‍

Workshop Module 02 - Address your team’s top 3 energy leaks

Identify your team's main physiological, emotional, and cognitive energy leaks and develop actionable strategies to address them.

‍

Workshop Module 03 - Redesign team habits for sustainable performance

Leverage stress data to identify team habits and align the team calendar to minimize strain.