Connected Health: Tracking Health, Activity, and Sleep
Warning: Your clothes may suddenly feel loose if you track sleep, food, and movement progress.
The new Apple Watch 10 offers advanced health tracking features such as sleep tracking and analysis, EKG assessment, heart rate averaging, step counting, activity monitoring, workout logs, standing reminders, and screen use reports. Other comparable devices include Fitbit, Garmin, and Google Pixel. Additionally, there are many fitness apps on smartphones and watches to help with tracking and logging.
While these devices may not provide the same accuracy as medical-grade studies, they are valuable tools for promoting better sleep habits and more physical activity.
Smart devices and apps make tracking progress engaging and mindful. They encourage awareness about sleep and can even help detect potential issues like sleep apnea with an average accuracy of 88%. 1,2
Pros
Health Awareness: Tracking habits like sleep, steps, and screen time fosters goal setting and promotes positive changes. The apps use gamification, which makes goal setting and tracking more fun and motivating. Achieving one goal is motivating to do more!
Behavioral Improvements: Tracking sleep can encourage better routines, such as getting enough sleep, while step and workout goals motivate more physical activity. Getting enough sleep fuels better habits and more organization.
Dietary Changes: With calorie-tracking apps, these devices can inspire healthier and more mindful eating habits, like incorporating more fresh vegetables and planning meals. Fruit and yogurt for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and a home-cooked meal for dinner became the norm and part of the routine.
Weight Loss: Consistent use of these tools often leads to small but impactful lifestyle changes—like losing over 4 pounds without rigorous dieting after 4 weeks.
Mindful integration. The Apple Watch tracks your health habits in real-time and pairs with the iPhone for analysis.
Patients, students, and clients can also share health-tracking information with health professionals.
I reduced my caffeine intake to one cup of espresso per day, went to bed earlier at 8 PM, joined a gym with fun classes, commuted to the gym by bike, walked the dogs three times a week, and cooked almost all my meals from scratch. I attribute this to tracking all my data on the health app and organizing myself to have a routine.
Cons
Cost: The connected electronic devices are expensive, which can be a barrier for some individuals, although zero-interest payment plans on Apple are available to help. Some insurance companies will cover all or part of a smart device for health tracking. The Apple Watch must be paired with an iPhone. Mechanical step counters are cheap and often found in discount stores, as are paper journals, so there are more affordable options for recording activity and steps.
Sleep Tracking Limitations: Wearing the device to bed may feel uncomfortable for some users. In this case, you can keep a written log of your sleep.
Battery Life: Smartwatches and fitness trackers require daily charging, which can be inconvenient for busy schedules. I found that charging it at my desk was manageable so it would be ready to track steps and sleep when needed.
References:
Lee T, Cho Y, Cha KS, Jung J, Cho J, Kim H, Kim D, Hong J, Lee D, Keum M, Kushida CA, Yoon IY, Kim JW. Accuracy of 11 Wearable, Nearable, and Airable Consumer Sleep Trackers: Prospective Multicenter Validation Study. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2023 Nov 2;11:e50983. doi: 10.2196/50983. PMID: 37917155; PMCID: PMC10654909.
Miller DJ, Sargent C, Roach GD. A Validation of Six Wearable Devices for Estimating Sleep, Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability in Healthy Adults. Sensors (Basel). 2022 Aug 22;22(16):6317. doi: 10.3390/s22166317. PMID: 36016077; PMCID: PMC9412437.
