When “Good Stress” becomes a bad one (Or, The day i saw too many "6")

Japan, a few years back in a tech expo, a packed hall. We were offering free voice-based stress tests, a quick way to see not only if you’re stressed, but how your body handles it.

I’d only seen a "CLstress" score of 6 once before (the highest level of Clinical Stress in the LVA system). That day, I lost count.

The queue stretched the length of the hall, but there was one man I still remember to this day, sitting in front of the test station, clutching his bag like it might sprint away. He followed the test, and the result flashed: CLstress 6.

He was the first one that day, and I wasn’t sure what to say. “Sir, you are in an extreme state of stress…” He just nodded. “I know.”

What Being Stressed Really Means (and Why Too Much is Bad)

Stress is your body’s alarm system, an ancient instinct that prepares your body for intensive action: fight, or run away from a threat. Increasing heart rate, sharpening focus, releasing sugar into your blood system, and pushing out extra energy. In small bursts, it’s healthy. Energizing.

But too much, for too long, turns from help to harm. Constant high stress that is not resolved can erode sleep, memory, and immune function, while feeding anxiety and burnout. Remember that sugar release? It stays in your blood, unburned, because you didn’t really fight or flee.

Why CLstress Matters

CLstress has two parts: High CL, your peak stress activation; and Low CL, the low values of your stress, indicating your ability to recover and relax.

Just like with blood pressure, it’s the low value that matters the most. A high peak is fine if you can drop back down. But if your low stress is stuck high, you’re always on alert, and that’s when trouble begins.

Why Measure It?

Here’s the truth: the only fully accurate stress measure is a brain scan. Saliva cortisol tests exist, but they’re slow and can be unreliable. Voice, when you know what to look for, is the fastest, cheapest, and easiest way to read stress, in milliseconds, without needles or lab time.

Unlike sentiment analysis, which guesses from tone or words, LVA looks at uncontrolled bio-markers in your voice that reflect your brain’s state: the peaks, the drops, and the times you can’t come down at all.

Reducing Stress When It’s Too High

Awareness is the first step. Once you know your stress level is out of balance, small interventions can help: breathing exercises, long walks, music, or removing a trigger. Sometimes, even a small pill can make a big difference. It’s no shame.

The goal isn’t zero stress, we don’t want to be numbed. But we have to let that blood sugar out of our system before it causes real damage.

When the CLstress reading is zero, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are relaxed. It may be a strong indication you are in “fight” mode (angry or aggressive) and that may not be good for you either.

The bottom line:

Your voice can tell you if you’re getting it right handling your stress. The question is only whether you’re listening.