Your Wearable Says You're Dying. Calm Down.

I think we need to have a little chat about our wearables.

Not because they're bad. They're actually brilliant little things, and as a nurse I quite like having access to all this information. Steps, heart rate, sleep, activity, recovery, HRV, stress levels. Very clever.

What I do question is the moment we collectively decided that a tiny electronic device strapped to our wrist, finger or wherever we've decided to attach it should become responsible for assessing our entire existence.

Because apparently waking up and thinking, I feel absolutely exhausted today is no longer sufficient.

No.

We need data.

We need evidence.

We need a score.

And preferably a graph, because nothing says I'm coping beautifully quite like opening an app at 6:47am and discovering that your body has apparently filed a formal complaint.

You wake up after a terrible night's sleep, reach for your phone and there it is.

Your wearable has reviewed the evidence and, frankly, it is not looking good.

You, meanwhile, know perfectly well why you slept badly.

Your three year old appeared in your bed at 2am, your partner was snoring like a farm animal, the duvet had mysteriously migrated to the other side of the bed and you spent the remaining four hours balanced on approximately 14 centimetres of mattress.

But apparently this isn't just a bad night's sleep.

This is a recovery issue.

Possibly a nervous system issue.

Potentially a cortisol issue.

And if you've been on Instagram for more than seven minutes, almost certainly a magnesium issue.

The Investigation Begins

So naturally, you begin your investigation.

Perhaps you need more electrolytes.

Maybe magnesium glycinate.

Possibly creatine.

Definitely better sleep hygiene.

Perhaps a cold shower.

Red light therapy.

Breathwork.

A new pillow.

A new mattress.

A different wearable.

And obviously another supplement, because the seventeen already sitting in your kitchen cupboard have clearly failed you in their duties.

Before long, you've spent forty-five minutes analysing your sleep rather than actually recovering from it.

Congratulations.

You have successfully turned being tired into a project.

Every Fluctuation Is Not Breaking News

And this is where I think we've got ourselves slightly confused.

Wearables can be incredibly useful. They can help you understand patterns in sleep, activity, heart rate and recovery, and over time that information can give you a much better understanding of your own baseline.

The problem starts when we treat every little fluctuation as breaking news.

Your HRV is slightly lower today.

ALERT.

Your resting heart rate is three beats higher.

CONCERNING.

You slept 42 minutes less than Tuesday.

WE NEED ANSWERS.

You have now spent the first twenty minutes of your morning investigating yourself like a particularly boring episode of CSI.

And somewhere along the way, your Apple Watch, Oura Ring, Whoop, Garmin or Fitbit has been promoted from useful piece of technology to Head of Medicine.

It hasn't.

I checked.

Your Wearable Is Not Your Doctor

Your wearable can measure things.

It cannot understand you.

It doesn't know you've had a stressful week at work. It doesn't know your children have been waking every night. It doesn't know you've been travelling, you've had a glass of wine, you're fighting off a cold, you've started a new medication, you've just gone back to the gym after six months or you've simply had one of those weeks where everything feels slightly harder than usual.

It has numbers.

You have context. And context matters. A lot.

If your wearable tells you your recovery is terrible but you feel completely fine, you probably don't need to cancel your plans, take the day off work and lie horizontally in a darkened room while listening to a podcast about vagal tone.

You can probably just get on with your day.

Equally, and this is rather more important, if your wearable tells you everything is absolutely wonderful but you feel genuinely unwell, please don't let a cheerful little green circle convince you that you're imagining it.

Your body gets the final vote.

Your wearable is not your doctor.

And neither, despite what the internet would have you believe, is Google.

I know. Shocking. Google is very confident.

Google will happily take your headache, tiredness and slightly funny feeling in your left arm and, within approximately 90 seconds, have you choosing between six rare neurological diseases and wondering whether you should update your will.

Please don't.

When to Actually Speak to Someone

If something is new, persistent, unexplained, getting worse or simply doesn't feel right, speak to your Serenity nurse case manager rather than diagnosing yourself on Google.

You don't need to arrive with a diagnosis, a spreadsheet of your symptoms, three screenshots from your wearable and a carefully colour coded timeline of your bowel movements, complete with photographic evidence.

Although, if you do, I promise we have seen worse.

Just tell us what is happening.

We can help you make sense of the situation, work out what needs attention, what can reasonably wait, what questions you should be asking and what the next step should be. If you need a doctor, specialist, investigation or further support, we can help coordinate that too.

Because sometimes the hardest part isn't getting healthcare. It's knowing what you're actually supposed to do next. And occasionally, the answer is not another app.

I know. Controversial.

But Some Things Really Can't Wait

There are, of course, times when you really shouldn't wait for anyone.

Severe chest pain, significant difficulty breathing, sudden weakness or numbness, sudden confusion, loss of consciousness or other symptoms that feel like a medical emergency need urgent medical attention.

That is not the moment to check your recovery score.

It is not the moment to Google it.

And please, for the love of all things medically sensible, it is not the moment to message your nurse case manager saying:

"Hi, sorry to bother you, just a quick question..."

Get urgent help.

Take the Watch Off Occasionally

Otherwise, I would like to suggest that we all take our health technology slightly less seriously.

Use your wearable.

Look at the trends.

Notice patterns.

Learn what is normal for you.

But perhaps don't allow one particularly tragic sleep score to dictate the emotional direction of your entire day.

You're allowed to have a bad night's sleep without turning it into a research project.

You're allowed to feel tired without immediately ordering six supplements.

You're allowed to have a stressful week without deciding that your nervous system is fundamentally broken.

And you're certainly allowed to take your wearable off occasionally.

Go outside.

Have a coffee.

Talk to an actual human being.

Eat something.

Laugh.

Do absolutely nothing productive for twenty minutes.

It won't ruin your recovery score.

Probably.

Because being healthy does not mean achieving 100% on an app every morning while living like some impossibly well organised person who apparently has never had to find a missing school shoe at 7:48am, answer 14 WhatsApp messages or remember whether they actually switched the washing machine on.

Sometimes you're tired because you didn't sleep.

Sometimes you're stressed because life is stressful.

Sometimes your body is telling you something important.

And sometimes you just need a cup of tea and five minutes where nobody asks you for anything.