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.
This perspective is super helpful and interesting to me - I like the idea of using tech to grow self-awareness, then tapering off using it, with the goal of handing agency back to the owner of the data (i.e. YOU)
Thank you! And agreed. I think of it a little like the backup cameras on the newer cars. I use the image to just make sure I’m not running over a person, but I still prefer to rely on my senses and driving skills to gauge my angles.
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.
There is a lot of nuance to it. The key is to treat the data as another lens to increase your understanding of your body and mind with.
I've used a Garmin for almost 20 years (lots of Ironman and ultra trail runs) and recently started using a Whoop as well.
The key is to realise that there is a mind body axis and both reinforce and subvert each other.
So - on a cold wet morning - is my body still recovering or is my mind malingering?
On a sustained hill climb hearing the audio cue about my heart rate and comparing that to what my breath, my legs and my mind are telling me lets me decide to push or hold back.
When waking up at 5am and feeling meh but having had enough sleep availability, looking at my strain chart to see whether it was flat or started ramping up from 2am, to help set my intention for the day.
After running every day for a couple of weeks looking at my TSS (Training Stress Score) to get a sense of whether I am overtraining or not (Because with ADHD you can never over train, until you collapse).
They are a tool. Equally it's often wonderful to run naked - without a watch...
Thinking about it the readings are meaningless, the trends are everything. Worth thinking about
I've been wearing a Fitbit zip since they came out. It counts steps only. Before that, I wore a "pedometer." That's enough for me; it tells me whether I've moved enough that day, and sometimes, if I'm listening to an audio book while I walk, its numbers suggest I should take a walk around a block or two before turning in. That's the only information I'm interested in.
Great article! I just started using one, a Garmin. The first two weeks I’ve been really attentive to the data but I know the novelty will wear off. For me the main benefit has been to motivate me to walk more regularly (which can be hard in winter). I have joined a few monthly challenges, such as 20 activities of minimum 20 minutes each and I’m on track. The other thing I noticed is it helps me acknowledge my need for rest. I tend to ignore my body and question why I’m so tired.
I can see it could create anxiety though and want to be mindful. It has a “stress”
metric (HRV) and although it does seem fairly accurate based on what I feel, I don’t want to become more stressed by what it shows. It also shows me chronically depleted (body battery never recharges very well) which is probably a reflection of my baseline chronic health conditions and a busy stage of life, plus a family crisis. So I have to be mindful of what I can or can’t control. Also I think the sleep metrics show more data than the watch can truly measure accurately.
I think overall I like it. I wanted to reduce the need to be in the same room as my phone all the time and this does help with that because it sends notifications so I can quickly check if it’s something I need to tend to or not, without picking up the phone and getting distracted by all the things that can happen next if I do. I already have restrictions on which notifications show up on my phone anyway so the watch reflects that.
From a technical perspective I chose this brand because it works with Apple or android and has good battery life, and there was a model on sale I liked. The options out there are overwhelming!
OMG, this is the article I didn’t know I needed right now. Fitbit has a “daily readiness” score and recently released “cardio load” targeting. My husband and I have marveled at the fact that one day we’ll get a message saying we’re at risk of overtraining, only to get a message the very next day saying to get moving because we’ve been less active lately. This has inspired me to hide those metrics.
What I really value is counting the number of minutes I got my heart rate up in a week. I don’t need a watch to tell me if I’m tired or not.
I’ve found mine motivating. I’m on a 2 year streak of getting my 150 minutes of cardio. Even managed some brisk walking with broken ribs to keep it going. Would have lost the streak for a tooth infection but I already had my minutes in for the week before it hit me.
The recovery estimates aren’t perfect but they do help encourage recovery or easing up.
When it started giving me my HRV score I was skeptical and wasn’t going to pay attention but can’t ignore it so I can see how that could be a downside.
The sleep score typically matches how I feel but what really matters is if alert when I wake up. It did make it more obvious that alcohol near bed time is bad. Skiing all day and sleeping an extra hour gets me higher than normal scores!
Thank you so much for this! You excellently articulated so many of my reservations with the wearable tech. I used to nerd out with my Fitbit, until I realized it was adding little to my health - and distracting a lot from the things that matter.
The only feature I really find useful in health tech is GPS running trackers. That's so helpful to keep my runs accountable, and the pace in real time reflects the terrain and my physical and emotional state that day. It's also very helpful to slow my pace in hard hills - to "race" how slow I can go but still make it!
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.
This perspective is super helpful and interesting to me - I like the idea of using tech to grow self-awareness, then tapering off using it, with the goal of handing agency back to the owner of the data (i.e. YOU)
Thank you! And agreed. I think of it a little like the backup cameras on the newer cars. I use the image to just make sure I’m not running over a person, but I still prefer to rely on my senses and driving skills to gauge my angles.
This was helpful, appreciate your thoughts!
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.
It’s great to know what you need it for - it what you do not .. nice! I am seeing that a lot of people seem to like Garmin
Wearable Tech is brilliant.
There is a lot of nuance to it. The key is to treat the data as another lens to increase your understanding of your body and mind with.
I've used a Garmin for almost 20 years (lots of Ironman and ultra trail runs) and recently started using a Whoop as well.
The key is to realise that there is a mind body axis and both reinforce and subvert each other.
So - on a cold wet morning - is my body still recovering or is my mind malingering?
On a sustained hill climb hearing the audio cue about my heart rate and comparing that to what my breath, my legs and my mind are telling me lets me decide to push or hold back.
When waking up at 5am and feeling meh but having had enough sleep availability, looking at my strain chart to see whether it was flat or started ramping up from 2am, to help set my intention for the day.
After running every day for a couple of weeks looking at my TSS (Training Stress Score) to get a sense of whether I am overtraining or not (Because with ADHD you can never over train, until you collapse).
They are a tool. Equally it's often wonderful to run naked - without a watch...
Thinking about it the readings are meaningless, the trends are everything. Worth thinking about
Thanks for your thoughts! Glad to hear you have cultivated a good relationship with your tech!
I've been wearing a Fitbit zip since they came out. It counts steps only. Before that, I wore a "pedometer." That's enough for me; it tells me whether I've moved enough that day, and sometimes, if I'm listening to an audio book while I walk, its numbers suggest I should take a walk around a block or two before turning in. That's the only information I'm interested in.
So great!
Great article! I just started using one, a Garmin. The first two weeks I’ve been really attentive to the data but I know the novelty will wear off. For me the main benefit has been to motivate me to walk more regularly (which can be hard in winter). I have joined a few monthly challenges, such as 20 activities of minimum 20 minutes each and I’m on track. The other thing I noticed is it helps me acknowledge my need for rest. I tend to ignore my body and question why I’m so tired.
I can see it could create anxiety though and want to be mindful. It has a “stress”
metric (HRV) and although it does seem fairly accurate based on what I feel, I don’t want to become more stressed by what it shows. It also shows me chronically depleted (body battery never recharges very well) which is probably a reflection of my baseline chronic health conditions and a busy stage of life, plus a family crisis. So I have to be mindful of what I can or can’t control. Also I think the sleep metrics show more data than the watch can truly measure accurately.
I think overall I like it. I wanted to reduce the need to be in the same room as my phone all the time and this does help with that because it sends notifications so I can quickly check if it’s something I need to tend to or not, without picking up the phone and getting distracted by all the things that can happen next if I do. I already have restrictions on which notifications show up on my phone anyway so the watch reflects that.
From a technical perspective I chose this brand because it works with Apple or android and has good battery life, and there was a model on sale I liked. The options out there are overwhelming!
Thanks for the thoughtful article!
Thanks for your thoughts! Garmin seems to be a fave. Using tech for motivation is terrific. So is realizing when you need to rest. :)
OMG, this is the article I didn’t know I needed right now. Fitbit has a “daily readiness” score and recently released “cardio load” targeting. My husband and I have marveled at the fact that one day we’ll get a message saying we’re at risk of overtraining, only to get a message the very next day saying to get moving because we’ve been less active lately. This has inspired me to hide those metrics.
What I really value is counting the number of minutes I got my heart rate up in a week. I don’t need a watch to tell me if I’m tired or not.
So helpful. Thank you!
Glad it resonated! Minutes of heart rate elevation per week is a great metric. Using intuition is also nice, too!
An excellent article!
Thanks, Gerridoc!
I’ve found mine motivating. I’m on a 2 year streak of getting my 150 minutes of cardio. Even managed some brisk walking with broken ribs to keep it going. Would have lost the streak for a tooth infection but I already had my minutes in for the week before it hit me.
The recovery estimates aren’t perfect but they do help encourage recovery or easing up.
When it started giving me my HRV score I was skeptical and wasn’t going to pay attention but can’t ignore it so I can see how that could be a downside.
The sleep score typically matches how I feel but what really matters is if alert when I wake up. It did make it more obvious that alcohol near bed time is bad. Skiing all day and sleeping an extra hour gets me higher than normal scores!
Awesome! I love the skiing all day and sleeping an extra hour - sounds like the PERFECT day to me :)
Thank you so much for this! You excellently articulated so many of my reservations with the wearable tech. I used to nerd out with my Fitbit, until I realized it was adding little to my health - and distracting a lot from the things that matter.
The only feature I really find useful in health tech is GPS running trackers. That's so helpful to keep my runs accountable, and the pace in real time reflects the terrain and my physical and emotional state that day. It's also very helpful to slow my pace in hard hills - to "race" how slow I can go but still make it!
Thanks for this, Shmuel! Impressed you are such a dedicated runner!