Is Your Health Tech Device Wearing YOU?
When Health Tech Hurts More Than It Helps 🥗 🚴♂️ 😴
ICYMI 👉
I recently counseled a patient to break up with her wearable step tracker. “It’s like a bad boyfriend,” she explained. “It wants more and more from me, and I’m starting to feel worse about myself.”
Instead of religiously counting her steps, we decided she would benefit from exercising more intuitively—enjoying a walk when she felt like it, and not beating herself up on days she didn’t have time. More importantly, she would tune in to how she felt, mentally and physically, after a good sweat instead of relying on a device for validation.
If you’re like many of my patients, you’re probably wearing some form of health technology right now. Whether it’s a smartwatch, an app monitoring your sleep, or a subscription service analyzing your eating habits, health tech has promised to help us live longer, healthier lives by providing unprecedented insights into our bodies.
But what happens when those insights start to overwhelm rather than empower? Increasingly, I see patients whose relationship with their health tech has gone awry. Instead of clarity, they’re left feeling anxious, confused, and disconnected from their intuition. Let’s discuss how and why health tech can sometimes hurt more than it helps—and how to use it intentionally to support, rather than sabotage, your well-being.
The Allure of Data-Driven Health
Health tech taps into our desire for control and certainty in an uncertain world. With just a glance at your wrist, you can see how many calories you’ve burned, how well you slept, or whether your heart rate is "normal." For many people, this data feels like a lifeline—a way to quantify and improve their health.
But here’s the thing: more data isn’t always better. In fact, it can be a double-edged sword. While some metrics can provide valuable insights, others are less meaningful or even misleading when taken out of context. And when the data doesn’t align with how you’re feeling or what you expected, it can lead to unnecessary stress.
When Health Tech Becomes a Source of Anxiety
Information Overload: The human body is incredibly complex, and no single device or app can capture its full story. Yet, many health tech tools present data without sufficient context, leaving users to interpret what it all means and leading to excessive focus on numbers, fueling anxiety and even obsession. One patient of mine became so fixated on her sleep score on her Oura ring that she started sleeping poorly—because she was stressed about optimizing her sleep!
Misinterpretation of Metrics: Not all metrics are created equal. For instance, a high heart rate variability (HRV) might be a sign of good recovery for one person but could be completely normal for another. Without guidance, people can misinterpret these numbers, leading to unnecessary worry or, conversely, a false sense of security.
Loss of Intuition: By outsourcing awareness to technology, some people lose touch with their own bodies. A runner who’s always monitoring their pace might ignore signs of fatigue because their smartwatch says they’re on track. Similarly, someone who feels rested but wakes up to a "poor" sleep score might question their instincts, doubting their own bodily cues.
Perfectionism and Guilt: Health tech can also exacerbate perfectionist tendencies. Missing a step goal, falling short on exercise minutes, or seeing a less-than-ideal score can trigger feelings of failure, even when these metrics are arbitrary or unimportant in the grand scheme of health.
How to Use Health Tech Intentionally
The good news is that health tech doesn’t have to be a source of stress. By approaching these tools with intention and balance, you can reap their benefits without falling into their traps. Here are some strategies to consider:
Define Your “Why”: Before adopting any health tech, ask yourself: What am I hoping to achieve? What problem am I trying to solve? Are you looking to build a new habit, gain insight into a specific health concern, or simply satisfy curiosity? In other words, just because you can gather data doesn’t mean you should. Having a clear purpose will help you determine whether a particular tool aligns with your health goals.
Focus on Trends, Not Single Data Points: Reacting to one day of poor sleep or one episode of a slightly low heart rate can do more harm than good. Instead, look for patterns over time. Trends are far more informative and useful. For example, a patient of mine in his mid-fifties received several alerts from his Apple watch about a low heart rate—which caused me to refer him to a cardiologist and get the pacemaker he needed. Without the home heart monitoring, this might have been delayed or missed.
Be Selective About What You Track: Not everything needs to be measured. There is such a thing as too much information. Consider which metrics genuinely enhance your understanding of your health and which ones add unnecessary noise. For example, if you’re already exercising regularly and feel good, do you really need to track every calorie burned?
Tune Into Your Body: Use health tech as a complement to—not a replacement for—your own intuition. If your device says you’ve had a bad night’s sleep but you feel energized, trust your body over the data. Similarly, if you feel off even when your numbers look fine, don’t dismiss those feelings.
Set Boundaries: It’s easy to let health tech dominate your day. Consider setting limits, like checking your metrics at a specific time rather than obsessively throughout the day. Some people even find it helpful to take "tech breaks" to reset their relationship with these tools.
Consult a Professional: If you’re using health tech to monitor a medical condition, involve your doctor in the process. They can help you interpret the data and decide what’s worth paying attention to. These tools are meant to support—not replace—personalized medical advice.
A Healthier Relationship with Health Tech
Health tech can help motivate us and keep us on track with our goals. It can keep track of trends that matter to our everyday health. But it’s important to remember that no device can capture the full complexity of your health—and you are the ultimate expert on your own body.
The next time you glance at your smartwatch or open a health app, take a moment to reflect. Is this information helping you feel more empowered and informed? Or is it adding to your stress? By asking these questions and using health tech with intention, you can stay in the driver’s seat of your health—and keep moving toward a life that feels truly well.
So tell me, what device do you use, if any? How has it helped—or not helped—you? I’d love to hear your stories! 🙋🏻♀️
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are entirely my own. They do not reflect those of my employer, nor are they a substitute for advice from your personal physician.
There is a lot of talk about wearable tech in the long COVIDsphere, especially the tech that measures HRV, sleep, oxygen saturation, and the Garmin “body battery,” which ostensibly tells you how much energy you have upon waking and throughout the day based on the few different measurements above. There’s also something called the Visible app that uses a Polar armband wearable, and this app calculates how many “pace points” you have left in a given day. This can help a lot when you have an energy-limiting condition and are trying to keep within your energy each day to avoid what’s called a push-crash cycle (push your body too hard, crash with symptoms for days/weeks/sometimes months and years).
These wearables were helpful to me - until they weren’t, as you lay out in your article (but for healthy people). Through these tools, I was able to see that I was generally overdoing it when I could have sworn I wasn’t. That helped me pull way back on my activity, and I started over time to feel better and make recovery gains. But after a few months of tracking, I had to take off all my wearables. There was a point of diminishing returns where watching my body all day like a hawk just kept my nervous system and brain on high alert. In other words, once I had learned everything I needed to know, I just needed to chill the f- out. And it’s been working well for me in the long run.
Thank you for this post; I hope my perspective added something to the conversation.
Excellent article. I moved up from a Garmin fitness tracker to a smartwatch. I like that it tells when I'm stressed and need to take some breaths. Or to get up and move. I did start taking it off at night. I was focusing too much on my body battery and nonrestorative sleep.