I have been pretty active so far today, since I haven't been sitting as much as normal, but I still have a ways to go to be active enough. The Oura ring tracks my movement and most days I am sedentary (not including sleep) between 7-10 houra a day. That is quite a lot, however I don't think it tells the whole story, since I usually only sleep around 5-6 hours a night, whereas most are 7-8. The evenings are the worst for my activity of course, since I sit down and write until well past midnight most evenings, barely moving. The days though, I am pretty active, though I could get some more steps in.
Looking at some of the general trends though, I am doing pretty well at meeting daily goals (which seems to mostly calculate based on steps, but I add in my gym workouts there, where I am currently averaging 5.5 a week for the last six months, which is well above my year average of 4.2. I must have been pretty lazy last year!
Today my "resilience" ticked up into the Strong range for the first time, with the last four months seeing quite a shift as for the year prior, I have spent most of the time in the Adequate range, which is largely because I don't recover enough at night when sleeping, or during the day. This is likely also affected by my workout frequency, but it is working for me at this point of life.
As a kid I was athletic, but I can't remember a time in my adult life where I didn't have aches or pains in my body. I think I have become accustomed to feeling uncomfortable to the point that it is my normal and when I feel a little better, it feels great. But I suspect that if the "average" person could experience the feelings of my body for a day, they wouldn't enjoy it a lot. But, I am in better condition than many others, albeit comparing how we feel is impossible and quite futile. Perhaps one day with AI, AR and some nerve stimulation, we could experience "walking in another's shoes" accurately.
Though like all tech, it would mostly be used for porn.
Tracking everything is pretty useless unless it is changing behaviours, and I think since I got the ring a little more than a year ago, I have changed many parts of my daily activity to walk a little more, go to the gym a little more, eat a little better, but also take time to rest when I have the chance. It has been a relatively passive reminder (I don't get many notifications from it) to stay active and perhaps more importantly, shows when I am inactive.
I reckon a lot of people overestimate how much they do and underestimate how sedentary they actually are. It is the same with screen time spent, where those who actually use a tracker and check it, tend to use their phone less. Most of life is about getting more, but with the screen time trackers, it is about keeping the number as small as possible. I monitor my daughter's phone usage and she is under thirty minutes a day most days, and 80% of that is listening to an audiobook or singing karaoke. Her phone is usually on silent, and has no notifications.
My own usage is far, far worse.
But I have only just started tracking the screen time on my phone and also seeing where that time goes. Now, my goal is to cut out the unnecessary, non-value-adding activity and push that time to something more useful that I really enjoy. Or rest more.
As said, tracking is useless information unless it is going to be used to change behaviour, and I think quite a few people get attracted to checking the numbers, but not using those numbers to make new choices. If we don't make new choices, the path we are on remains the same, and if we are heading downhill, our decline will get faster.
Do you track something?
Taraz
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