CalmTide Support

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Last updated: 09/04/2026

Contents

1. What CalmTide does
2. HealthKit permissions & what CalmTide writes
3. The HPA Balance Score
4. Today, Week & Trend
5. Connecting SolGlow
6. Breathwork, resonance & notifications
7. New in 1.5
8. CalmTide Pro
9. Privacy and your data
10. Troubleshooting
11. Medical disclaimer
12. Contact

What CalmTide does

CalmTide reads the metrics your Apple Watch and iPhone already collect in Apple Health, and weighs them against published exercise-and-recovery research. It produces:

• A weekly HPA Balance Score (0–100),
• A daily cortisol status — low, moderate, elevated, or high — with one smart recommendation,
• An 8-week baseline-cortisol trend, the signal most apps never surface.

CalmTide is an estimation tool, not a medical device. See the medical disclaimer.

What does CalmTide measure?

CalmTide estimates your cortisol load and HPA-axis balance from Apple Health data — heart-rate variability, sleep stages, workouts and intensity zones, resting heart rate, respiratory rate, and logged mindfulness. It produces a weekly HPA Balance Score (0–100), a daily cortisol status, and an 8-week baseline-cortisol trend. It is an estimation tool based on published research, not a clinical cortisol measurement.

HealthKit permissions & what CalmTide writes

CalmTide asks for Health permissions in stages, so nothing is requested before you reach the feature that needs it. It works with whatever you grant — but the more it can read, the more accurate the estimate.

You can review or change everything in Apple Health → profile picture → Apps and Services → CalmTide, or in CalmTide under the gear icon → Health Data Permissions. Declining any stage leaves the rest of the app working normally.

Which HealthKit permissions does CalmTide need?

On first launch CalmTide requests the essentials: workouts, heart rate, heart-rate variability (SDNN), resting heart rate, sleep analysis, mindful sessions, and active energy. Exercise time was removed from that prompt in 1.6 — it was being requested and never used, since exercise minutes are derived from the workout records themselves. Deeper metrics — respiratory rate, blood oxygen, VO₂ max, walking heart rate, stand time, time in daylight, environmental sound exposure, and body mass — are requested later, only when you open the features that use them. Permission to write Mindful Sessions is asked for the first time you finish a breathwork session. Two permissions have their own separate prompts: Mental Wellbeing (State of Mind), asked for at your first daily check-in so your mood can be mirrored to Health and read back, and dietary caffeine, which is read-only and requested only if you turn on Profile → Enable advanced metrics. The app works with whatever you grant, but more data means more accurate estimates.

Does CalmTide write anything to Apple Health?

Two things, and both start with something you did. When you complete an in-app breathwork or resonance session, CalmTide saves it to Apple Health as a Mindful Session (Mindful Minutes) — unchanged since 1.4. And new in 1.5, the 1–5 mood you tap on your daily check-in can be mirrored to Health as that day's State of Mind daily mood. The mood write has its own contextual permission prompt at your first check-in, CalmTide never generates mood data you did not enter, and editing a check-in replaces that day's Health sample instead of stacking a second one on top of it. Apart from those two sample types, CalmTide's use of Apple Health is read-only. Both writes go to your own on-device Health store — no account, no analytics, no servers — and you can decline or revoke either permission in Apple Health and keep using the app normally.

Why does CalmTide ask to write my mood to Apple Health?

So your mood lives with the rest of your health data instead of only inside CalmTide. The first time you save a daily check-in, CalmTide shows a separate Apple Health prompt for Mental Wellbeing. If you allow writing, the 1–5 mood you tapped is mirrored to Health as that day's State of Mind daily mood, sourced to CalmTide; change the mood in CalmTide and it replaces that entry rather than adding a second one. If you also allow reading, a mood you logged in the Health app or in any other app can stand in for a CalmTide check-in you missed — your own in-app entry always wins. CalmTide never generates mood data you did not enter. You can decline the prompt and keep checking in normally, or change your answer later in Apple Health → Apps and Services → CalmTide.

Why does CalmTide want my caffeine data, and why don't I see the caffeine insight yet?

The caffeine-timing insight (Pro) compares days when you had caffeine after 2 pm with days you cut off earlier, and reports what tended to happen to the next morning's HRV — an association in your own data, never cause and effect. It reads dietary caffeine from Apple Health and nothing else, the permission is read-only, and it is requested only if you turn on Profile → Enable advanced metrics. The card stays hidden until there are at least four late-caffeine days and at least four earlier-cutoff days with next-morning HRV to compare, so if you have only just started logging caffeine there is nothing honest to show yet. Log caffeine in the Health app, or any app that writes it, and the comparison fills in over time.

The HPA Balance Score

The weekly score blends five weighted components: exercise quality and dose (with an inverted-U penalty for overtraining), HRV, sleep, mindfulness and breathwork, and morning rhythm. Since 1.6, HRV is the average of the readings taken while you slept, and the sleep component scores regularity as well as duration — the Sleep Regularity Index takes 30% of it. Morning rhythm blends your wake time, your morning light and your sleep quality; when SolGlow is connected its morning-sun data feeds that component. It is a proxy, not a measured cortisol awakening response — the name it carried before 1.6 said otherwise and was wrong. The score needs about a week of data to settle, and a component CalmTide cannot measure is left out rather than scored as zero.

What are personalized benchmarks, and do they diagnose anything?

Benchmarks show how your numbers compare to typical ranges for your age and sex, so a value has context the moment you read it. They appear in the HRV and resting-heart-rate detail views and are a Pro feature — free users see the card behind an Unlock with Pro overlay. They are general wellness context drawn from published population ranges, not a diagnosis and not a clinical result, and CalmTide still presents every score as a research-based estimate. Pro also extends those same views to 60- and 90-day history. The data-confidence indicator, showing how much Apple Health data sits behind each score, is free on every plan.

What is morning light coaching and the circadian anchor score?

Morning light coaching helps you anchor your body clock by catching outdoor light soon after you wake. Since 1.6, daylight counts toward it only in the window from when you wake to about 90 minutes later, on every surface that uses it — so an evening walk no longer ticks a morning box. Insights shows a two-week circadian anchor score reflecting how consistently you hit that window, alongside a morning light to next-day HRV insight drawn from your own data. If you have no daylight source at all, the factor reads as not measured rather than scoring zero. Like everything in CalmTide, it is research-based wellness guidance computed on your device — not a diagnosis or medical advice.

Today, Week & Trend

Today shows your score ring with a cortisol-vs-baseline read, a personalised recommendation, a five-second daily check-in, and a protocol checklist topped by a “days on track” consistency strip; recovery tiles lead with how far each signal sits from your own baseline, and since 1.5 the whole tab reorders by time of day. Week opens with an HPA-balance hero and reads MET-minutes and zone distribution against both the 530/week target and your own 8-week norm, with a week-over-week delta and a cortisol-effect badge on each workout. Trend plots your 8-week estimated baseline cortisol against an optimal trajectory with annotated spikes and milestones, and Insights charts carry a personal-average reference line.

How do I check in from my Apple Watch?

Open CalmTide on your Apple Watch and log how you feel there — new in 1.5. The Watch sends your mood and tags to your iPhone over WatchConnectivity, and the phone takes them in through the same checked path as the Home Screen check-in widget, so a check-in from your wrist counts exactly like one made in the app. The Watch needs no Apple Health access beyond what CalmTide already used in 1.3.

Connecting SolGlow

CalmTide and SolGlow exchange a small summary through a secure container on your device. It happens entirely on your device; nothing is sent over the internet.

How do I connect CalmTide with SolGlow?

Install both CalmTide and SolGlow on the same iPhone, signed in to the same Apple ID. They share a secure on-device App Group container automatically — open SolGlow once so it can publish its sun data, then open CalmTide and go to the gear icon → SolGlow. It should read Connected within a day. Nothing is sent over the internet; the two apps simply read and write a shared file on your device.

Why does CalmTide say SolGlow is not connected?

CalmTide treats SolGlow as connected only when SolGlow has written its data within the last 48 hours. Open SolGlow to refresh it. If it still won't connect, confirm both apps are installed on the same device and signed in to the same Apple ID — the shared container only works on one device (multi-device sync is a future update).

Breathwork, resonance & notifications

CalmTide includes two guided sessions, both free, gathered since 1.5 into the Practice hub in 2, 5 or 10-minute doses — with a suggestion for the moment you're in: evening wind-down, post-workout reset, or elevated load.

• Cyclic sighing — the original short breathwork exercise; completed sessions count toward your mindfulness component.
• Resonance breathing — an expanding-orb pacer that guides slow, even breathing at about six breaths a minute (the “resonance” rhythm). Nudge the pace to whatever feels comfortable (4.5–6.5 breaths/min; the default is 5.5), and open Sources to read the research.

Completing either session saves it to Apple Health as Mindful Minutes (with your one-time permission), so your practice shows in Health and counts toward your mindfulness component.

Optional notifications include a morning check-in that arrives around your usual wake time, a heads-up the evening before a predicted high-cortisol day, a wind-down cue after a late hard session, a post-hard-workout recovery nudge, and a Sunday weekly summary. Since 1.5, tapping a notification opens the screen it is about — a wind-down reminder opens the wind-down session — instead of dropping you on Today. There are no new notification types in 1.5, and the timing and anti-spam limits are unchanged. Toggle each under the gear icon → Notification Settings.

What is resonance breathing, and does CalmTide measure my HRV?

Resonance breathing is a free guided session. An expanding orb paces slow, even breathing at about six breaths per minute — the resonance rhythm — with an adjustable 4.5–6.5 breaths per minute and a Sources link to the research. Since 1.5 it lives in the Practice hub alongside cyclic sighing, in 2, 5 or 10-minute doses, with a suggestion for the moment you are in: evening wind-down, post-workout reset, or elevated load. It is a relaxation practice: CalmTide sets the pace as a comfortable guide and does NOT measure your heart-rate variability or resonance frequency, and it makes no medical claims.

New in 1.5

1.5 answers the question the scores always raised: what, specifically, is moving your cortisol? Everything below is computed on your device.

• Your patterns, read the morning after. See what caffeine, alcohol, late meals and hard workouts did to your HRV, sleep and readiness the next morning, when the biology actually lands — plus your strongest cortisol link, from your own data. Associations across your own days, never presented as cause and effect.
• What your check-ins reveal (Pro) — after a few weeks of check-ins, see whether how you feel actually lines up with your sleep, HRV and training.
• Your week, explained (Pro) — a weekly retrospective that ranks exactly what moved your score, in points: sleep, morning light, HRV, mindfulness, training load.
• Practice hub — cyclic sighing and resonance breathing in 2, 5 or 10-minute doses, suggested for the moment you're in.
• Check in from your wrist — log how you feel straight from the Apple Watch app.
• Mood, in one place — your daily check-in can mirror to Apple Health as a State of Mind entry, and a mood logged in Health can fill in a missed check-in.
• Caffeine timing (Pro) — if you log caffeine to Apple Health, see what an after-2pm dose tends to do to the next morning's HRV.
• Pick a focus — tell CalmTide what you're working on (stress, sleep, training balance) and recommendations reorder around it.
• Your data, yours — export a full backup and restore it on another device, from Profile → Your Data.
• Personal records — longest streak, best HPA week, calmest morning.
• Calm Coach leads with today — your current status, readiness and last night's sleep now ground every explanation.
• Today reorders by time of day, notification taps deep-link into the right screen, and dozens of reliability fixes.

Why aren't my patterns, weekly retrospective or check-in insights showing yet?

Each of those cards waits until your own data can support it, and tells you so rather than guessing. Patterns and the weekly retrospective need a few days of daily check-ins with tags, logged from the check-in card on Today; until then they show an explanatory empty state with a days-remaining teaser. Check-in insights need at least five check-ins on each side of a comparison — five nights of seven or more hours and five below, for example — before they will report an association, and until then they show a how-many-more-check-ins line. The caffeine-timing insight needs at least four late-caffeine days and four earlier-cutoff days. And if Apple Health holds little history, CalmTide shows a building-your-baseline state rather than a number it cannot stand behind.

What is Calm Coach?

Calm Coach is an optional on-device explainer that puts your own numbers into plain language — in 1.5 your current status, your readiness and last night's sleep ground every explanation. It is grounded only in your own metrics, and it runs on your device: Apple Foundation Models where the hardware supports them, and a deterministic fallback everywhere else, so nothing is sent to a server either way. It is non-diagnostic — it declines medical and diagnostic questions, and a message suggesting self-harm stops the conversation and routes you to crisis support (988 in the US) or emergency services. Calm Coach is part of CalmTide Pro.

CalmTide Pro

CalmTide is free to use daily, and stays useful without paying: the HPA Balance Score, the daily recommendation and protocol checklist, readiness, both breathwork sessions, the morning-after patterns and the data-confidence indicator are all free. Pro is the deeper layer — longer history, the forecast, widgets, Watch scores, training-load analytics, Calm Coach and the age- and sex-normative benchmarks — sold as a monthly or annual subscription or a one-time lifetime unlock.

What do I get with CalmTide Pro?

CalmTide is free to use every day: your HPA Balance Score, the daily recommendation and protocol checklist, readiness, the breathwork and resonance sessions, the morning-after patterns, and the data-confidence indicator are all free. Pro unlocks the full 8-week baseline trend, extended 60- and 90-day history, the 7-day cortisol forecast, the score and forecast widgets, scores on Apple Watch, advanced training-load analytics, Calm Coach, the age- and sex-normative benchmarks on HRV and resting heart rate, and — added in 1.5 — the weekly retrospective, the check-in insights card and the caffeine-timing insight. Pro is $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year, or a one-time $49.99 lifetime unlock. New subscribers get a 1-month free trial; the price and any trial that applies to you are shown before you confirm. Subscriptions renew until cancelled and can be managed in iOS Settings → your name → Subscriptions, and the lifetime unlock is a single purchase. Use Restore Purchases on the paywall if you have bought Pro before.

Can I see my CalmTide score on my Lock Screen?

Yes. CalmTide has Lock Screen widgets for your HPA Balance score and trend in three shapes — circular, rectangular, and inline. Touch and hold your Lock Screen, tap Customize, and add CalmTide from the widget row below the clock. These join the Home Screen score and forecast widgets and the Apple Watch app, and are part of CalmTide Pro.

Privacy and your data

Everything is computed on your device. CalmTide has no account, no analytics, and no server — your health data never leaves your phone, and its App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected. The only data shared is the small SolGlow exchange, which stays in a local container on the same device, and the two Mindful Session and State of Mind samples CalmTide writes to your own Apple Health store when you ask it to. Full detail is in the privacy policy.

How do I export or restore my CalmTide data?

Open Profile → Your Data. Export writes your own CalmTide data to a JSON file through the system file exporter, so you choose where it goes — Files, iCloud Drive, AirDrop, or anywhere else you share it. Restore reads a file back in through the system file importer, which is how you move your history to another device. No network is involved in either direction: nothing leaves your device except by your own explicit share action.

Troubleshooting

My HPA Balance Score looks low or empty — why?

The score needs about a week of data to settle, and it relies on an Apple Watch for HRV and sleep. Make sure your Watch is worn overnight and during workouts, that CalmTide has Read access to the relevant Health categories, and that you've logged at least a few workouts. A brand-new week with little data will read low until CalmTide has enough to work with.

HRV or sleep is missing

HRV and sleep stages require an Apple Watch on a recent watchOS, worn overnight. Without a Watch, CalmTide uses what it can but estimates will be coarser.

I want to reset everything

Deleting CalmTide from your Home Screen clears all of its local data, including cached snapshots and the SolGlow container contents written by CalmTide. Data in Apple Health — including anything CalmTide wrote there — is owned by Health and remains until you remove it in the Health app. Export first from Profile → Your Data if you want to keep a copy.

How do I check the app version?

Open CalmTide → gear icon → scroll to About / Methodology. Version and build appear there.

Medical disclaimer

CalmTide provides wellness estimates based on published exercise-physiology research. It does not measure cortisol directly, is not a medical device, and should not be used to diagnose, treat, or make decisions about any medical condition. Its patterns and insights describe associations in your own data, not cause and effect. Talk to a qualified professional about stress, sleep, or health concerns.

Contact

Questions, bugs, or feedback? Email support@twisteddatastudios.com.