Somara

Inspiration

Alysa has had ADHD her whole life. She takes Adderall, and for years, mornings were a guessing game. Some days locked in, other days hands shaking, unable to sit still, with no way to explain to her doctor what was actually happening. "I knew my body was telling me something. I just couldn't read it."

She's not alone. Neuroscientist António Damásio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis, published in 1994, showed that the body generates physical signals that shape our emotions and decisions before we're consciously aware of them. Thirty years later, no consumer tool has ever been built around that research. We built Somara to change that.

What it does

Somara translates subtle physiological signals into a perceptual layer that helps users recognize emotional states earlier and respond more intentionally.

When you open Somara, it starts by learning about you: your goals, your medications, what you're trying to understand about yourself. From there, it pairs with wearable devices to continuously read biometrics across your body. Your dashboard gives you a living pulse of your day, surfacing patterns your body is already making visible.

The Signals view maps somatic responses directly onto a 3D body model, so you can see not just that something is happening, but where. When a signal spikes, Somara cross-references everything it knows: your medication schedule, movement, baseline, and prior logs. It surfaces likely contributing factors, prompts you to name what you're feeling emotionally, and gives you the information you need to act. Every signal gets logged to a Timeline Journal, so two weeks later you can scroll back to that elevated heart rate and understand what it actually meant in context. Not just what your body did, but the story behind it.

How we built it

We designed Somara around three layers: body, context, and meaning.

The onboarding system collects personal health context that shapes every insight the app generates.
The biometric layer connects to a range of wearable devices, reading signals from different areas of the body depending on user needs.
The interpretation layer cross-references signals against logged factors, medication timing, and emotional check-ins to surface actionable, personalized insight rather than raw data.

We also began building toward Meta glasses integration so that somatic awareness can follow users into the world without requiring a phone.

Challenges we ran into

Translating physiological data into something emotionally meaningful, without overstating certainty or causing anxiety, required constant calibration. Biometric signals are noisy, context-dependent, and deeply personal. Building an experience that felt genuinely insightful rather than just quantified took significant iteration. We also had to design for users who, by definition, are not already fluent in reading their own bodies. The UI had to do real interpretive work without becoming overwhelming.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The 3D body signal map is something we haven't seen anywhere else in consumer health. Most tools reduce your body to a chart or a number. Somara puts it back where it belongs: spatially, visually, intuitively.

We're also proud of the full signal loop: detect, contextualize, name, act, log, reflect. That closed loop is what turns a moment of awareness into lasting self-knowledge.

What we learned

The gap between sensing and understanding is enormous. Users don't just need data. They need interpretation, language, and context to make that data meaningful. We also learned that the emotional and the physiological are deeply intertwined in ways most health apps completely ignore. Bridging that gap isn't a feature; it's the whole product.

What's next for Somara

Meta glasses integration to bring passive, ambient somatic awareness into everyday life
Deeper medication tracking for users managing conditions like ADHD, anxiety, and chronic illness
Provider-facing summaries so users can finally show up to doctor's appointments with patterns, not guesses
Expanded device support to read more of the body, more of the time

Somara. Your body already knows. Somara helps you listen.