By Donna Goodison | Sunday, October 2, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Technology Coverage
Jan Bruce envisions her startup as the “Weight Watchers for stress.”
MeQuilibrium is an interactive, online application that allows you to track and manage your stress on a daily basis just as you would calories.
“Stress is the new fat,” Bruce said. “People are suffering and, like obesity, it is sort of a chronic condition that gets worse over time. It’s the underlying cause of many other diseases, including hypertension and diabetes.”
MeQuilibrium’s goal is to “decode” users’ stress and go beyond tracking by offering them skills and tools to change.
“The product focuses on the individual’s habits and thinking style and what gets them stuck in stressful behaviors,” she said.
The company’s offerings are based on clinical practices developed after 20 years of research by its chief science officer, Dr. Andrew Shatte, a University of Arizona College of Medicine professor; and chief medical officer Dr. Adam Perlman, executive director of integrative medicine at Duke University.
A free meQ stress tracker is available online now, and a mobile version is due soon. Users can track their stress and record their emotions, and, in return, receive generic motivational information about the relationship between the two.
MeQuilibrium will launch a more robust, personalized paid service in late fall.
“It goes quite a bit deeper by profiling the user and getting an assessment of their thinking style and lifestyle and how that contributes to stress,” Bruce said. “Based on that, we give you a series of skills and tools to try to manage these habits and slowly change them. What I always says is, ‘Awareness leads to control, leads to change.’ ”
MeQuilibrium will test pricing but could offer the subscription service for less than $5 a week.
“It’s highly private, and it’s cheap and very portable — sort of a mechanized therapist,” Bruce said.
Bruce was the managing director of wholeliving.com and Whole Living/body+soul Magazine at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which she sold to Martha Stewart Living as CEO of the company that formerly owned them. She founded MeQuilibrium last year while an entrepreneur-in-residence at Louisville-based Chrysalis Ventures, which just led a $2.3 million Series A funding round for the company.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view.bg?articleid=1370267