October is Dysautonomia Awareness Month. For the millions of people living with POTS, awareness is useful only when it turns into something practical. Here is what is worth tracking, and how Pauser is built to help you do it.
Why October matters
Every October, the dysautonomia community turns turquoise. Postural Tachycardia Syndrome, better known as POTS, is one of the most common forms of dysautonomia, and it has become far more visible since Long COVID brought new attention to autonomic health.
Awareness months are good at starting conversations. What often goes missing is the day-to-day part: what do you actually write down, and what do you bring to your next appointment?
The short version: numbers alone rarely tell the story. A heart rate of 125 means one thing after climbing stairs and something very different while you are sitting still in a warm room. Context is what turns a number into useful information.
What people with POTS usually want to track
- Heart rate on standing. The move from lying or sitting to standing is the moment many people want to see clearly.
- Symptoms as they happen: lightheadedness, brain fog, palpitations, fatigue, nausea, temperature changes.
- Everyday context: heat, a hot shower, a large meal, poor sleep, menstrual cycle phase, a stressful call, standing in a queue.
- Salt and fluid intake. Many people are asked by their care team to keep an eye on both.
- Activity and recovery: what you did, and how long your body took to settle afterward.
Keeping all of that in a notebook is possible. Keeping it consistently, on a difficult day, is the hard part.
The Pauser features built for the POTS community
Pauser pairs with your Apple Watch (via Apple Health) or your Wear OS watch (via Health Connect), reads your heart rate through the day, and lets you label what was happening around it. You tag the context. Pauser keeps the record.
| Standing Check A guided sit-to-stand check with custom timings, so you can see your heart rate through the position change and save the result. | POTS Dashboard A dedicated home screen for POTS users, with your standing results, symptoms, and day totals for salt and water in one view. |
| Pause Signal Set your own heart rate thresholds and get an alert when your heart rate crosses one, so you can note what was going on at that moment. | Trigger Tracker Tag what was happening around a reading: heat, a meal, standing, stress, cycle phase, place. Nothing is assumed for you. |
| POTS symptoms and tags A POTS-specific symptom list so logging takes seconds on the days when typing a paragraph is not realistic. | Monitor Session Start a session before a walk, a shower, or a recumbent workout, and get a heart rate summary when you finish. |
| Guided Pause and Prana Flow Breathing sessions with presets and custom timings, with your heart rate shown live during the session and summarized at the end. | Compare and Correlate Put days, sessions, and tags side by side to see how different days differed, in your own words. |
| Daily and weekly reports Reports you can download as a PDF, so your appointment starts with a record instead of a memory. |
You tag the context. Pauser keeps the record.
A simple setup for the week ahead
- Pair your watch. Apple Watch with Apple Health on iOS, or a Wear OS watch with Health Connect on Android.
- Turn on POTS Mode. This brings the POTS Dashboard, symptom tags, and the salt and water totals forward.
- Run a Standing Check at the same time each morning. Consistency makes the record easier to read later.
- Tag three things a day: one hard moment, one easy moment, one meal or activity. Three tags a day beats thirty tags once.
- Download your weekly report and take it to your next appointment.
Three ways to mark the month
Share one fact. Explain to one person what standing up can feel like. That is awareness doing its job.
Wear turquoise. It is the color of dysautonomia awareness, and it starts conversations without a speech.
Learn from the experts. October brings community events and clinical meetings on autonomic health, including POTS & Beyond 2026, hosted by the University of Utah on October 26 and 27, with an online option.
Frequently asked questions
Does Pauser work without a smartwatch? You can log symptoms, context tags, salt, water, and breathing sessions without a watch. For continuous heart rate readings, a paired Apple Watch or Wear OS watch is needed.
How often does Pauser read my heart rate? Pauser reads from the watch at a 30 second interval through the day, which keeps battery use reasonable while still giving you a usable picture.
Does Pauser decide what my triggers are? No. Every tag comes from you. Pauser organizes what you record and shows it back to you clearly, so you decide what is worth discussing with your care team.
Can I share my data with my doctor? Yes. Daily and weekly reports can be downloaded as a PDF and shared however you choose.
