Interview with Andrew Hogue, Co-CEO, NEUROFIT

Andrew, can you tell us a little about yourself and your journey to becoming an expert on stress and burnout, particularly in the context of health and wellness technology?

My journey to solutions to stress and burnout began with my own struggles managing complex PTSD while working in high-pressure technology environments. After studying computer science at Caltech, I channeled my energy into wellness technology, co-founding a wellness technology startup, then working as a product consultant for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and as a senior engineer at Headspace.

These experiences gave me deep, real-world insight into how technology can support mental health at scale, as well as insight into some of the shortcomings of existing solutions. This experience, combined with personal experience of the limitations of traditional stress management approaches, led me to focus on nervous system regulation and somatic aspects as the key to preventing burnout.

At NEUROFIT, we have now validated this approach across millions of in-app data points, demonstrating that brief body-based interventions and targeted habits can reduce stress levels by 54% within a week for users active, making stress management evidence-based. accessible to healthcare professionals and their clients.

What experiences led you to co-found NEUROFIT and address the critical need for accessible stress management solutions?

Growing up in a very neurodiverse household where we navigated autism, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression, I saw firsthand how chronic stress can lead to complex PTSD and burnout. severe. After trying many traditional solutions (e.g. mindfulness apps, talk therapy, EMDR), I discovered that they were missing something crucial: the body’s role in regulating stress.

Since 80% of the nervous system responds to somatic (body-based) interventions rather than the mind state alone, this idea, combined with my technology and product experience, led me to co-found NEUROFIT .

At NEUROFIT, we focus on efficient regulation of the nervous system. Our mission is to make these evidence-based, body-focused approaches accessible to everyone, whether dealing with acute challenges or accumulated stress over the years.

You mentioned having suffered from complex PTSD and growing up in a neurodiverse household. How have these personal challenges shaped your view of stress management and influenced the development of NEUROFIT?

Growing up in a home with these unique challenges taught me firsthand how chronic stress affects both the mind and body: traditional approaches like mindfulness alone weren’t enough to tackle the deep patterns in the nervous system and accumulated stress that have developed over the years. This idea led NEUROFIT to focus on regulating the nervous system through rapid somatic exercise sessions, which our data now shows 95% of our users are able to resolve stress in real time after just 5 minutes.

NEUROFIT highlights the importance of somatic awareness and data-driven regulation in stress management. Can you share a specific example of how these two work together to enable effective stress reduction?

By analyzing millions of data points built into the app, we discovered that each person has a unique “fingerprint” on the nervous system, a model of how their body responds to different types of stress in different aspects of life and regulation techniques. Our technology learns these individual patterns through daily recordings and biometric data, then matches users with specific somatic exercises that have been shown to be most effective for similar nervous system types within our community.

You highlighted the importance of social support systems in managing stress. How can workplaces foster a supportive environment that encourages healthy social interactions and reduces social fatigue?

We’ve found that the key to creating supportive work environments is developing a common language around stress and regulation. When teams have common words to discuss the state of their nervous systems (such as recognizing when they are in a state of “fight-flight,” “rest-digest,” or “shutdown”), it opens up valuable conversations that would not take place otherwise.

Reducing social fatigue through these shared values ​​and conversations is valuable in itself: according to our in-app data, those who prioritize avoiding social fatigue report 14% better emotional balance and an increase in 10% of their HRV.

Many people turn to social media to connect, but your data suggests it can contribute to stress. What advice would you give to people who are struggling to find a balance between social connection and digital surpassing?

It’s true: within our app community, people who avoid stress online also report 22% better emotional balance. In this case, it’s really about organizing your social feed and your social circle. Ask yourself what types of content and which friends or peers make you feel enlightened or burned out, and make adjustments accordingly.

Based on your experience and data collected through NEUROFIT, what is the most common misconception people have about stress management?

The biggest misconception is that it has to be complicated. This is understandable, because most people haven’t really seen a simple and effective approach yet. But we’ve had a lot of people who initially signed up skeptical about our app because of its intentional simplicity, then left amazed after a few weeks because of how much better they felt about their body.

To truly reduce stress, it’s much more about a shift in awareness about how we experience it, what adds to it, and what resolves it.

What role do you see technology playing in the future of mental health care and stress reduction?

The great thing about technology, data, and especially AI, is that we fully believe that mental health care is now a problem that can be solved at scale. Rather than waiting hours or days for an appointment, the solution is now always at hand. The other benefit of technology is that you can actually take care of your mental health proactively rather than reactively, and see objective data that shows you your progress in real time.

We have found this feedback loop to be very motivating, especially early in the journey.

What advice would you give to our readers who are feeling overwhelmed and unsure where to begin their journey to better stress management?

Start simple: use somatic exercises to de-stress in minutes, and take a few minutes to learn about nervous system regulation and burnout. It’s a very empowering feeling to realize that your body’s stress response is turned off!

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you would like to add?

One thing we’ve learned at NEUROFIT from training over 500 healthcare professionals is that having a common language about nervous system regulation makes a world of difference with clients: it opens up valuable conversations about stress and well-being that might not otherwise occur.

When practitioners and clients can talk about activation states, describe how different aspects of life impact them, and discuss regulation in concrete terms supported by measurable data, it completely changes the way we approach management. stress and the healing process.