Dysautonomia Awareness Month 2026: Ten Mornings, One Giveaway

October is Dysautonomia Awareness Month, and it starts this Thursday. For most of us, the autonomic nervous system is something nobody around us has heard of, running a list of symptoms nobody around us can see. This year we want October to be about more than a ribbon. We want it to be the month more of us got to know our own nervous systems.

So we are marking it with a giveaway, and the way you enter is the most useful habit we know: take an HRV reading. From October 1, every day you take one in Autonomic earns an entry, up to 10. One iPhone user wins an Apple Watch Series 12, one Android user wins a Polar H10, and there is a lot more on the table besides. The full details and official rules are on the giveaway page.

Why October matters

Dysautonomia Awareness Month was started by Dysautonomia International in 2012, and its symbol is a turquoise ribbon. “Dysautonomia” is an umbrella term for conditions where the autonomic nervous system, the part that runs your body without asking, stops doing its job smoothly. POTS is the one many people know. It also covers neurocardiogenic syncope, autonomic neuropathies, multiple system atrophy, and the autonomic problems that have followed so many people out of long COVID.

The numbers are why a month exists at all:

That last pair comes from the largest patient survey of POTS to date (Shaw et al., 2019). The good news in the same paper is that the wait has been shrinking. Awareness is a big part of why, and it is why this month is worth showing up for.

A thirty-second quiz: what runs on autopilot?

Part of what makes dysautonomia so hard to explain is how much ground it covers. Your autonomic nervous system is working right now, on jobs you never think about. Tap every card you think it runs, then check your answers.

When one system handles all of that, one problem can show up as racing heart, brain fog, nausea, heat intolerance and exhaustion all at once. That is often what gets people sent from specialist to specialist, and sometimes told it is anxiety. Seeing the whole picture is the first step to being taken seriously.

The giveaway, in one minute

Here is what is on the table this October. Everything is free to enter, and all you need is a phone.

Entering takes three steps:

1. Download Autonomic. It is free on iPhone and Android.
2. Sign up for the giveaway in the app, then take an HRV reading. Each day from October 1 to 31 with a completed reading is one entry, up to 10.
3. Optional: tag a friend in our giveaway post on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X for one bonus entry per platform, up to 4 more.

Winners are drawn at random on November 1 and contacted by email. The giveaway is open to US residents 18 and older, and no purchase is necessary. Read the official rules for everything else.

You do not need any gear to enter

This is the part people ask about first, so to be clear: your phone’s camera is enough. Rest a fingertip over the lens and Autonomic reads your pulse from the light, beat by beat. A Bluetooth chest strap, an Apple Watch or a supported Garmin watch all work too, and every sensor counts the same. Taking readings is free on every plan, as many as you like. If you want to get the best reading you can, our guide to measuring HRV accurately at home covers it in five minutes.

Plan your ten mornings

Ten entries across 31 days is gentle on purpose. Plenty of us have days where getting out of bed is the whole achievement, and a giveaway that asked for every single day would leave out the people it is for. Pick a pattern, or tap the days that fit your life, and see when your tenth entry lands.

Weekends only will not get you there, and that is the point of the planner: October has nine weekend days. Any ten days work, and a couple of spare mornings take the pressure off if a flare wipes out a stretch.

Why readings, and not just retweets

Most giveaways ask you to follow, like and share. We ask for readings because of what they add up to. One HRV reading is a snapshot. A month of mornings is a pattern: your own baseline, how it dips after a bad night or a hard day, and what seems to bring it back up. Heart rate variability is one of the few windows we have into how your autonomic nervous system is doing, and it means the most when you compare it to yourself.

That matters most in the doctor’s office. “I feel worse after I stand for a while” is easy to wave off. A month of readings is much harder to dismiss, and Autonomic can turn yours into a summary to take to your appointment.

Five habits that make ten mornings count

1. Same time, same position. Right after you wake, sitting or lying the same way each day. Posture changes HRV more than most people expect (here is why).
2. Before the coffee. Caffeine, a shower and your phone’s notifications all move the number.
3. Breathe normally. A morning baseline is an unpaced reading. Save the slow breathing for a training session.
4. Light pressure on the camera. If you use your phone, rest your fingertip gently. Pressing hard squeezes out the very pulse the camera is trying to see.
5. Do not chase a good number. A low morning is information, not a failure. Some of the most useful readings in a month are the bad ones.

Your data stays yours

This is a health giveaway, so it deserves a straight answer: we never see your heart rate, your HRV or any of your health data. Your readings stay on your phone, the same as every other day. When you sign up, the only things the giveaway collects are your email address and the number of days you completed a reading. That is the whole list. You can read more about why Autonomic works this way.

More ways to show up this October

The giveaway is our part. Here are a few ways to take part in the month that have nothing to do with an app:

• Wear turquoise. It is the dysautonomia ribbon color, and it starts conversations.
• Share one thing you wish people knew. One sentence about what a bad day really looks like does more than any statistic.
• Send one article to one person. A partner, a parent, a manager. Our plain-language guide to dysautonomia is written for exactly that.
• Bring a friend. Tag someone in our giveaway posts for a bonus entry each. Doing October with someone makes it easier to keep going.

A note from me

I have lived with this for more than four years, and for most of that time the hardest part was not knowing. Was today a bad day or the start of a crash? Was the new supplement helping, or was I just hoping it was? I built Autonomic to answer those questions for myself, and then for anyone else asking them.

If this October gets a few more of us measuring, noticing and walking into appointments with something to show, it did its job. The prizes are a thank you for showing up. I hope you will do October with us.

Austin Spaeth, founder of Autonomic

References

1. Dysautonomia International. What is dysautonomia?
2. Dysautonomia International. 10 facts doctors should know about POTS.
3. Shaw BH, Stiles LE, Bourne K, et al. The face of postural tachycardia syndrome: insights from a large cross-sectional online community-based survey. Journal of Internal Medicine. 2019.
4. Ormiston CK, Świątkiewicz I, Taub PR. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome as a sequela of COVID-19. Heart Rhythm. 2022.