Regular exercise works hand in hand with nutrition to aid in mental well-being, longevity, and of course chronic disease prevention and management. You’ve likely also heard that “sitting is the new smoking”, weight training is key to longevity, and walking pads with standing desks are a must. While navigating your next step for health and fitness along the way you might have turned to, or considered a fitness tracker for some accountability.
Maybe you started tracking your step count to try to reach 10,000 per day, started logging all of your activity into a calorie counting app, are getting really into HRV, or just want that reminder to stand up during the work day. No matter why you’re interested in data or are already using it for motivation, it’s important from a physical and mental health perspective to understand the pros and cons of fitness trackers. Not only will this help you use them in a more realistic manner that works holistically with other wellness tools, but it may help you decide whether a tracker is right for you at all. The end goal is finding tools to improve your health after all, not give you something else to stress about. So, read on to see if fitness trackers are right for you.
How Exercise Benefits Mental Health
Before talking pros and cons, we have to acknowledge the large role movement plays in not only physical health, but also mental health. Some refer to the results of global inactivity as an epidemic while the surgeon general says parents are so stressed they can’t function, with 48% indicating most days their stress is completely overwhelming.
Exercise offers everything from an immediate endorphin release to long term increases in confidence. While beneficial for those struggling with mental illness, these advantages extend to anyone subject to normal stress, including those parents mentioned above.
Endorphins are often referred to as “feel-good” compounds. When physically active, there’s a natural release of chemicals called “endogenous opioids” and “endocannabinoids”, credited for improvements in mood and emotional state. While immediate responses are helpful in stress reduction, evidence shows activity is associated with lower rates of depression and anxiety as well as increased quality of life.
On top of the short term endorphin release, studies on varied groups groups show long-term benefits of activity include improved self-esteem and confidence with one adult study indicating associations between physical activity level and positive self-esteem and body image (regardless of a person’s weight!).
Time as a Barrier to Exercise
I know, I know, how does anyone, especially those stressed out parents, find time for more movement? A lot of it may come down to habits. A 2019 study showed that regardless of race, gender, or economic status, Americans have hours of free time each day, but choose to spend that time using devices such as their phone, tablet, or TV. I’m the first to admit I love to watch a couple episodes of reality TV each week to get my brain away from my own stress. I also know when we go on a family walk versus end the night in front of the TV, we all feel better and sleep better.
Don’t let these stats feel like a personal attack. Use them as a way to assess your current habits and see where you might be able to fit in movement. Whether using a tracker or not, you may find you can trade social media scrolling for an evening walk, a run during one of your child’s sports practices, or 15 minutes of You Tube yoga on your lunch break.
General Benefits of Fitness Trackers
As we assess the pros and cons of fitness trackers, let’s start with the positive! We’ve come a long way from pedometers and original FitBits and now in addition to counting steps, most trackers come standard with the ability to measure distance traveled, heart rate, altitude, estimate calorie expenditure, and whether you’re sitting or standing. This information used to only come with expensive running GPS/HR monitor devices such as Garmin and Polar. Now even your Apple Watch offers information on blood oxygen levels, sleep quality, fall detection, and even VO2 max while it allows you to keep your phone away and only get important alerts and calls while you need to be productive to eliminate distractions.
General movement data and heart rate info taken when in “exercise” modes may be most beneficial from a motivation and accuracy perspective. I find my Apple Watch to be pretty comparable to my Polar running watch when it comes to distance and heart rate, and have client’s whose Whoop and Garmin data are similar for distance and HR, too.
For those who have high activity levels in terms of planned exercise, such as daily gym sessions, runs or rides, trackers can be helpful to increase movement the rest of the day, even if it means a five minute walk in the afternoon after sitting for 6 hours. While 10,000 steps per day isn’t necessarily a goal rooted in science, and 7,000 steps per day may be a more accurate goal for health benefits, anyone can use their tracker to determine personal goals that work for their stage of life, or even day of the week.
For a personal anecdote, on the weekdays I weight train early morning versus run, bike or swim, my step count can be pretty low. This workout replaces the walk to school with my son, too, and is often followed by computer work. While I don’t aim for 10k, or even 7k steps on these days, my apple watch data allowed me to make a conscious effort to get up more during the day, even if its for a walk around my own backyard or a few flights of stairs in the house. It absolutely improves my mood and my productivity.
While I don’t personally love wearing trackers at night while I sleep, some people gain a lot of benefit from their sleep data, too. Seeing the info can encourage them to put their phone down earlier, or set a goal for when to get to sleep if those are habits they need to work on. For some, it doesn’t even need to be wearing a tracker and could just mean setting your iphone to remind you of your bedtime!
Athletic and High Risk Benefits of Fitness Trackers
For those under high stress or with a chronic illness, real time data and alerts on irregular heartbeat, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels can be key to managing health. This can even be beneficial for athletes in intense training in hot and humid environments, for example. A current marathon client of mine has been dealing with intense life stress as he is in a heavy period of training, and while he has reduced his mileage while focusing on nutrition, his Garmin is alerting him at night of when his heart rate is in an unsafe range as he sleeps. This data is helping inform his healthcare team and helping him feel more confident in detection if a cardiac event were to occur.
Devices like the Whoop and Oura ring provide “strain” and “readiness” information to help you determine if you’re pushing yourself too hard in your current training. This data – and your workouts of course – can be impacted by life stressors, lack of sleep, nutrition and more, so it’s important to assess why your strain may and readiness may vary and remember these are not the only tool, but one piece to your health or athletic puzzle.
Fitness Tracker Drawback: Accuracy
If you’ve worn a fitness tracker, you should know it’s an imperfect tool and will never be 100% accurate. That’s in terms of estimated calorie expenditure (it doesn’t know your muscle mass, genes, or microbiome), minutes spent exercising, how long you’ve been standing, and more.
Some people know these numbers aren’t accurate and still let it upset or frustrate them. If that’s you, and you feel like your walk or weight training session “didn’t count” because you forgot to hit start on your apple watch, it may be time to re-evaluate your relationship with the data. If you, like me, can go through 45 minutes of weight training circuits, PR in your deadlifts, and laugh at the fact that the watch logged 4 minutes of exercise and 24 calories burned, keep loosely using the data when it is accurate.
You might also relate to being in the kitchen cooking and cleaning for 2 hours, only for it to alert you that it’s “time to stand”. If you were standing, moving, and doing your thing, great! Your body reaps the benefits even if your watch doesn’t log it. Being stressed about the accuracy certainly isn’t helpful to your health.
While distance traveled is often very accurate (as long as your battery isn’t low!), steps may be another story for people of different builds. Myself and colleagues have seen some devices track steps inaccurately for taller vs. shorter clients.
Fitness Tracker Drawback: Mental Health
While we may be moving for mental health, obsession with these trackers can have the opposite effect for some people. Anyone with a history of anxiety, eating disorder, disordered eating, or who is used to using exercise as their only coping mechanism for stress may want to reconsider their use of a tracker. These individuals may have worked hard to, or be working towards, better listening to their body’s cues versus numbers.
Having a device connected to your body, alerting you to move more can take away from listening to your body’s cues when you need to rest, slow down, or just have a day where the amount of movement you desire isn’t possible. Similarly, seeing numbers related to calorie expenditure, even if you know they’re inaccurate, can be very triggering for anyone who has struggled with an unhealthy relationship with food, exercise, or their body, making them second guess nourishment or the type of movement they had planned for that day.
If comparing yourself to others is something you’re working on, I encourage you to use your fitness tracker without connecting with friends. Your progress toward health goals should be rooted in internal motivation, rather than doing a workout just so your friend, sister, or co-worker can get a notification that you completed it.
Is a Fitness Tracker Right for You?
If you’re looking for a little extra motivation and accountability, and can let the flaws of fitness trackers roll off your shoulders, keep on going or grab a device that can work for you. If you’re just looking for the basics, this could be a Fit Bit, Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch or similar.
Want to take it a step above and assess your heart rate, stress, and exercise readiness? The Whoop or Oura may be for you. Just know when to take a step back if any additional stress or anxiety result from your activity or sleep data.
If you ever struggle with your relationship with exercise and your body, get frustrated when a tracker is inaccurate, or feel stressed about numbers, it’s a good idea to skip a tracker. Consider journaling your activity daily and reflect on how movement makes you feel in the short and long term. These mental connections may be all some people need to push forward with habit change.