ABSTRACT
The identification of intra- and interindividual differences, variables and environmental risk and resilience conditions associated with recovery and stress is crucial for maintaining physical and psychological health. In elite sports, comprehensive intraindividual assessments for recovery-stress monitoring are well-established. However, the use of recovery and stress monitoring in the general population has thus far been neglected. Therefore, this chapter will introduce a methods combination called Ambulatory Assessment. This offers insights into changes within a person over time, in everyday life settings, and allows to consider contextual conditions promising to critically expand our understanding of many recovery and stress phenomena. It draws from recent digital progress and includes subjective assessments via electronic diaries on smartphones as well as objective measurements via mobile sensor technology such as smartphone sensing, mobile accelerometry, and heart rate tracking. We present Ambulatory Assessment’s key advantages, provide prime research examples, and conclude on how users can apply information gained to foster individual recovery processes. Importantly, we also address open issues and limitations, discuss data security challenges as well as possible pitfalls and finally, we outline future prospects.
