A LOT of smartphone applications speed up your life, but there are also applications designed to slow you down and help you reduce stress. Will anyone notice when you are engaged in heavy-breathing exercises at your work station? Here’s how to find out.

Stress Check is a free download from AIIR Consulting Llc. for Apple and Android. (Note: The Android version of Stress Check lists the developer as Wisdom at Hand, though it’s the same app.) It begins with a 20-question test to determine how stressed out you are: Do you discuss your feelings? Does work interfere with your personal life? Are you on drugs? Etc. This gives you a score on a scale up to 100. Mine was 53, making me moderately stressed.

Repeating the test over time gives a progress report on your stress-reduction effort.

Of course, to help with that there are in-app purchases. For 99 cents, you may download a selection of meditation soundtracks to listen to on a five-minute break at your desk. A separate download features “office yoga” exercise videos.

Stress Check by Azumio is a 99-cent app from Azumio Inc. that uses an iPhone 4 camera to read your pulse rate from one of your fingertips.

Yes, I was skeptical. You place your finger on the camera lens, and the app turns on the LED flash, which makes the fingertip glow and helps the camera detect a pulse. It effectively turns the smartphone into a pulse oximeter, an emergency-room device for monitoring heart rate and blood-oxygen level.

After about two minutes, it declared my stress level “high” and advised me to “Take a break, a walk or a few deep breaths and slow down.”

A bit more informative is Azumio’s Instant Heart Rate app. I tried the free version, which uses the same fingertip method to display a heart rate, complete with wavy line and audible beeps, like an ER monitor.

Minutes after getting the stress warning from the other Azumio app, this one declared my heart rate in the average range. It also invited me to share that information on Facebook and Twitter, an invitation that I declined. A 99-cent upgrade removes advertising and allows you to keep a record of your heart-rate readings.

Stress Doctor by Azumio, for $1.99, goes further with a biofeedback feature. The terms of service say there’s no guarantee of accuracy. But the instructions assure that “Less stress, more life” is what you end up with after regular use.

With your fingertip on the camera lens, you watch a wave line rise and fall with your breathing as you think about getting quiet and relaxed.

Hey, how about a nap?