Again, what’s helpful will depend on your goals, but some metrics you may find useful include heart rate data-which can show how your body is recovering from exercise or other stressors-as well as reminders to take a moment and just breathe, says Brauer. Then, adjust your settings accordingly, says von Stietz. To help personalize your device, do some self-reflection to determine which data points are useful, motivating, and encouraging. For example, if you find the calories burned metric spurs you into obsessive thoughts or behaviors around food, eliminate notifications for it and change your settings so it’s not staring you in the face with each turn of your wrist. To reduce information overload, personalize your watch notifications as well as your watch face so that you’re only exposed to metrics that personally matter to you and are not bombarded by pings that stress you out. What’s more, the sheer number of metrics at your fingertips can be overwhelming. You notice increased negative emotions in response to the watch, including things like anxiety, low mood, or a change in how you look at yourself.You develop a dependency on the watch, relying on the device in place of your own feelings and sensations (for example, letting a bad sleep score make you feel like you won’t be able to manage your day) feeling like you have to do what the watch is telling you or thinking your movements don’t “count” unless they were logged by the watch. You have obsessive thoughts or behaviors around your watch or its metrics.The watch is interfering with other areas of your life-maybe you continually cancel plans with friends to meet certain watch targets or you leave work early to close your rings.For example, instead of just strapping one on to gauge your run, you start wearing it to track every single movement. You’re using the watch more frequently or intensely.For example, you may start labeling your workouts (or even yourself) as “good” or “bad” depending on certain watch metrics. You start to judge whatever activity you’re doing.Here are specific signs your watch dynamic may be unhealthy, according to Brauer. If your device is “creating negativity in your life, it’s probably time to question your relationship with it,” says Ross. How do you know if you have an unhealthy relationship with your fitness watch? When that doesn’t happen, they can feel so discouraged that they give up on their fitness goals entirely. Lastly, the watches can sometimes encourage “all-or-nothing” thinking, says von Stietz, which basically means that people may feel like they have to achieve everything the watch is telling them to do. “And then if they don't do it, then they can feel like a failure.” “People can get bombarded with notifications, and then every time they see a notification, they can feel pressure to do it,” says von Stietz. They’re always on your wrist and often pinging, which can “interrupt the process of using your own intuition and listening to your body,” she explains. Your watch may tell you that you’re “recovered” and ready for a HIIT routine, when in reality, what your body really needs is a gentler form of activity to help regulate your mental stress.Īnother downside of fitness wearables is that they can be very intrusive, says Brauer. For example, maybe you’ve been really stressed at work and have missed a few of your regular workouts. Wearers can also make “unhelpful assumptions or inaccurate conclusions about the data,” says Brauer. Watches can also encourage you to fixate and stress over metrics that may not be all that accurate in the first place, such as how much REM sleep you got last night. For instance, on his runs, Ross’s watch tracks vertical oscillation (how much you move up and down with each step) and stride length (the distance between footstrikes)-two variables that are not very useful for most recreational exercisers. On the flip side, fitness watches can encourage you to ruminate on numbers that may not really be relevant, or be actual measures of true health, says Ross.
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