Seville, 24-Sept-24. W. Daniel Scherz has defended his dissertation about the “Integration of Physiological Signals and Personal Characteristics to Prevent and Manage Stress”.

Stress management is becoming increasingly important in our society. It is evident that stress, whether measured subjectively or physiologically, has a detrimental effect on decision-making abilities and significantly impacts an individual’s health and well-being, as well as the private and public economy. The need to respond quickly to workplace challenges and traffic and the drive to achieve more make chronic stress more prevalent, underscoring the importance of understanding, measuring, and predicting stress. This work defines stress as the body’s response to a stressor. Stressors can be short-term or long-term, causing the body to function differently than it should and helping it respond to and cope with situations.
Common ways of measuring stress include two main approaches: the classic method using questionnaires or direct conversations, and the use of physiological signals. In this research, we used questionnaires and heart rate characteristics to determine baseline stress levels, compared stress with physical activity, and studied the relationship between stress, personality traits, and participants’ demographics.

The tribunal members underlined the work’s interdisciplinary character, incorporating several fields of expertise and a significant number of internationally executed studies in this complex domain. As a result, the work has been awarded with the maximum qualification!

Congratulations from the supervisors Ralf Seepold and Juan Antonio Ortega, Ph.D. for the excellent work and results.