Question 1

What is mypacing, really?

Accepted Answer

mypacing helps you with pacing: if you like, it reads the data from your smartwatch and shows in plain language how much of your day was above your exertion limit, how you’re recovering and whether strain is building up. Instead of raw data you get one calm statement per day, one concrete tip and, if you want, a report for your doctor. A tool for observing yourself, not a diagnosis.

Question 2

Who is mypacing for?

Accepted Answer

For people with Long COVID, ME/CFS, PEM, POTS, post-vaccination syndrome or chronic exhaustion — in other words, everyone who has to budget their energy (“pace” themselves) and knows the push-crash cycle. You need no prior knowledge and no wearable: your daily sense of how you feel and the stand test are enough to get started.

Question 3

Does mypacing cost anything?

Accepted Answer

mypacing is a private labour of love and free for good. At most it is funded by voluntary donations — there are no paywalls and nothing is ever charged. Your health data is never sold.

Question 4

Which devices are supported?

Accepted Answer

Currently read automatically: Apple Health (which bundles Apple Watch, Oura, Withings and many more), Garmin and ResMed CPAP (AirSense/AirCurve). We’re adding more devices step by step (e.g. Fitbit, Philips DreamStation, Löwenstein). And importantly: if you upload a format we don’t know yet, nothing is lost — you can send it to us voluntarily, we look at it by hand and build the support. An illustrated guide walks you through the export step by step.

Question 5

How do I upload my data?

Accepted Answer

You export a ZIP file from your device (see the guide) and drag it into the upload field at mypacing. You don’t need to unpack anything — mypacing does that itself.

Question 6

How often should I upload?

Accepted Answer

To begin with, one big export (your history) is enough. After that you top it up whenever it suits you — for example a new export every few weeks. There’s no live requirement and no obligation.

Question 7

What happens to the uploaded ZIP file?

Accepted Answer

It is unpacked on the server, the needed values are written into your account — and the original file is then deleted immediately and permanently. We don’t keep any raw files.

Question 8

What do “pacing” and the threshold mean?

Accepted Answer

Pacing means staying in your own rhythm and avoiding overexertion. With exhaustion conditions, the point at which the body starts working “on credit” is very low. A well-established guide value (Workwell Foundation) is resting heart rate + 15 beats — ideally don’t stay above it for longer than two minutes. mypacing shows you how much time you spent above it.

Question 9

What is a “crash”, or PEM?

Accepted Answer

PEM (post-exertional malaise) is a delayed worsening after physical, mental or emotional effort — often only hours to days later. mypacing helps you spot patterns beforehand (for example a lot of time above the limit, or a drop in HRV), so you can ease off earlier.

Question 10

What does the calendar under “Today” show me?

Accepted Answer

A clickable calendar with two views: “Feeling” colours each day by how you logged you felt (red = very tired, green = great), “Load” colours by calculated exertion (calm/caution/warning). Tap a day to log afterwards how you felt — including days you forgot. Days with a dashed ring are pre-calculated by the “brain” (MIE) as higher crash risk; you can confirm or deny whether a crash actually happened.

Question 11

What does it mean to mark a crash in the calendar?

Accepted Answer

Tapping a day in the calendar lets you confirm or deny: was there a crash or PEM flare on that day? This marking is more than a note — mypacing then automatically looks for what happened 1–2 days before (load, HRV, sleep), and learns from it, both personally for you and, anonymised, for the shared “brain” (MIE). The more of your own crashes are marked, the more precisely mypacing can adapt to you personally.

Question 12

How reliable is the crash forecast — and how do I know it actually helps?

Accepted Answer

Honestly: no one can seriously promise a forecast for tomorrow, and mypacing doesn’t claim that either. What mypacing shows is a build-up pattern over several days (e.g. a drop in HRV, a lot of time above the threshold, little sleep) — the more such signals come together, the higher the calculated risk. And this is continuously tested on itself: an automatic test bench checks weekly, against the entire anonymous dataset, whether the learned weightings actually catch more real crashes than a simple default formula, and automatically switches to whichever variant does better. The current result is openly visible on the Technik page.

Question 13

How does the build-up hint work?

Accepted Answer

mypacing compares your HRV and resting heart rate with your own personal average and notices when strain builds up over several days. Important and honest: the data cannot predict a crash the day before — we don’t claim that. What is reliable is the build-up pattern (“you’ve been pushing for days”). It’s a calm hint to pause, not an alarm and not a forecast — and it never replaces your own sense of your body.

Question 14

How accurate are the values?

Accepted Answer

These are consumer devices, not medical devices — the values are good for trends and patterns, but not clinically exact. Your own sense of your body stays the most important sensor; the numbers are only an aid.

Question 15

What actually is HRV (heart rate variability)?

Accepted Answer

HRV describes how much the interval between individual heartbeats varies — a higher value is generally seen as a sign of a rested autonomic nervous system, a lower one as a sign of stress or strain. mypacing reads the HRV from your wearable and compares it with your own personal average.

Question 16

What is POTS?

Accepted Answer

POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system: on standing up, heart rate rises sharply, often together with dizziness, palpitations or lightheadedness. POTS frequently occurs alongside Long COVID or ME/CFS.

Question 17

What is post-vaccination syndrome?

Accepted Answer

Post-vaccination syndrome (long vax) describes persistent symptoms after a vaccination (for example exhaustion, exertion intolerance, cardiovascular or neurological symptoms) that overlap strongly with the symptom picture of ME/CFS and Long COVID. The causes are currently being researched, and standardised diagnostics don’t yet exist everywhere. For pacing with mypacing this makes no difference — the exertion limit, PEM patterns and crash prevention work regardless of the underlying diagnosis.

Question 18

Can I show the analysis to my doctor?

Accepted Answer

Yes. With one click mypacing creates a clean doctor’s report with your values and reference ranges (threshold, time above the limit, resting-heart-rate/HRV trend, stand-test result) — ideal for your next appointment. It’s only created when you create it.

Question 19

Is mypacing a medical device?

Accepted Answer

No. mypacing is an information and self-management tool, makes no diagnoses and does not replace medical treatment. For acute symptoms: seek medical advice or call the emergency number (112).

Question 20

What happens to my health data?

Accepted Answer

It belongs to you. It is stored encrypted, processed only with your explicit consent, never sold and never used for advertising. Details in the privacy policy.

Question 21

Is my data compared with other people’s?

Accepted Answer

Yes — but always only anonymised. Your daily values feed into the shared “MIE” (mypacing Intelligence Engine) solely pseudonymised and in groups (for example age comparisons), never traceable to you individually. That’s exactly what makes mypacing better: what many people contribute sharpens your own predictions and recommendations. This anonymous analysis is a core part of mypacing — without it the “MIE” couldn’t learn. You can withdraw your consent at any time (your account and its data are then deleted).

Question 22

How do I delete my data or my account?

Accepted Answer

In your account settings you can delete your account and all data at any time with one click. After that your personal data is removed.

Question 23

What is the stand test (NASA Lean Test) at mypacing?

Accepted Answer

A guided 10-minute test: first lie down quietly for 10 minutes, then stand loosely against a wall for 10 minutes and log your heart rate every minute. mypacing calculates the heart-rate increase from this and whether it matches the pattern described for POTS. The result is stored encrypted and appears automatically in the doctor’s report — but a diagnosis is always made by medical staff, never by the app.

Question 24

What is the functional-level overview (Bell score)?

Accepted Answer

A short slider (0–100) with which you record your functional level according to a scale commonly used for ME/CFS/Long COVID — as often as you like. mypacing shows a trend from this over weeks, months or years, so slow improvements or declines become visible that are easy to miss day to day.

Question 25

Does mypacing adapt to my own data?

Accepted Answer

Yes. In addition to the community’s patterns, mypacing increasingly also takes into account your own, already-marked crash history — both in weighting individual factors and in your personal alert threshold. This happens within tight, traceable limits and can be viewed at any time on the Technik page.

Question 26

Can insurers, employers or authorities get my data?

Accepted Answer

No, under no circumstances — not even as part of assessment or benefits procedures. Your data is never sold and never shared with insurers, employers or authorities.

Question 27

How is mypacing different from other apps or wearables?

Accepted Answer

Many comparable offers require a subscription, their own hardware, or aren’t specialised for Long COVID/ME/CFS/PEM/POTS/post-vaccination syndrome. mypacing is free, works with devices many people already own (or with no wearable at all), is usable in German from day one, and learns from real, anonymised patterns of a community of people affected, rather than from generic fitness data.

Question 28

What is the anonymous data donation — do I need an account for that?

Accepted Answer

No. On the data donation page you can upload wearable or CPAP data completely anonymously and without an account or sign-up (any file format, any device, up to 100 GB) — it flows solely into the anonymous pattern research of the “brain” (MIE), with no link to you as a person. Unlike a normal upload inside an account, the values here land only anonymised in the shared pool, and no account is created for you.

Question 29

What happens if I sign up but haven’t uploaded any data yet?

Accepted Answer

Nothing bad — your account works anyway, you can already, for example, log how you feel or do the stand test. Under “Today”, mypacing gently reminds you to upload your first export so that load values and the crash forecast can get going. Some views (for example the load view in the calendar) only really show something once a few days of data or your own entries are in — we say that honestly instead of pretending there’s already an evaluation.

Question 30

Do I get email reminders from mypacing?

Accepted Answer

Only when it really helps, and never as advertising: if you’ve registered but haven’t uploaded anything after a few days, we send you one single short reminder about your first export. If you like, there’s also an optional, calmly worded weekly recap by email — you switch it on yourself in settings, no advertising, no flood of push notifications, unsubscribe any time.

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