A Case for Not Tracking It

I was running along the Hudson recently, sans Apple Watch, a tech item I have been having a quiet mental tug of war with, and realized that I was having a genuinely great time. No mile markers. No zone tracking. No wrist vibrating every sixty seconds with whatever incoming notification had decided it couldn't wait. I had my playlist, so I wasn't completely untethered, but I found myself noticing the rhythm of my steps, looking around, actually present in a way I realized had been slowly compromised by the anticipation of the next data point.

I was just running. Because I love it.

And being the elder millennial that I am, I felt a wave of nostalgia for my teenage self, the one who would head out without knowing exactly how far, how fast, or what elevation had been traversed. I knew a general distance and set out on it. That was enough.

Staying in that late 90s world for just a moment, where tech had just started to make its way into our everyday lives (shoutout to AOL Instant Messenger and MySpace), life just sort of unfolded. Naturally. We were able to fully engage in a conversation, an activity, a car ride, without the low hum of anxiety that comes from an alert telling us when we've been sitting too long or what our sleep score was or whether our steps were on track. It is not a secret that we had a lot less screen-induced anxiety then. Times were simpler.

Which brings me to the question I have been sitting with: do we actually need to measure and track every biometric?

I understand wanting to live a healthy life. I know wearable devices serve genuinely important health purposes for many people. But I keep wondering whether, for the majority of us, these tools are quietly taking something away, pulling us out of the direct experience of our bodies and replacing it with a number that tells us how to feel about what just happened.

I am deep into facilitating the anatomy module for a 200-hour yoga teacher training right now, and we recently completed a lecture on the nervous system, respiration, and the physiological systems that keep us alive without conscious effort. We talked about allostatic load, the body's cumulative effort to meet the daily stress and demands put on our systems, and how recognizing when our baseline has shifted is the first step toward course correcting. The stress load of living in 2026 is significantly higher than it was before technology became quite so pervasive and addictive, and the irony is: the very tools we are using to optimize our health are often increasing that load, pulling us further away from the practice of actually tuning in to ourselves and making intentional decisions about how we want to feel.

There is an eager willingness to hand our authority over to technology simply because it claims to be science-backed, even when many of these wearables and their sleep scores and "real age" calculations are proprietary estimates rather than medical-grade clinical data. The Daily recently did an episode on exactly this, and it landed at the perfect moment. It asked what I have been asking: do we actually need all of these metrics, or are we being sold a very well-constructed marketing campaign that tells us we do?

When should we rely on technology, and when should we trust our own internal knowing?

Does every facet of life need to be quantified?

There is, as always, a middle ground somewhere. My argument is simply for actively participating in finding it. Use the tools where they genuinely serve you. Take them off when they don't. Let there be moments that go unscrutinized. Come to your own conclusions.

After practicing and teaching yoga for over a decade, I notice the difference between the student with the wearable, perhaps distracted by a calorie count or an incoming text, versus the one who is listening to their breath, moving from the inside out, engaged in something ancient and honest. The contrast is visible.

I have been actively applying this to all of my movement lately. And while I am not training for a marathon, nor do I have a PR to chase, I have been rediscovering that wonderful harmony that happens when the mind and body are finally allowed to fully sync, what some call the Flow State. The act of being fully immersed. The experience of being here.

There is something sacred in doing something good for yourself and receiving the reward of noticing how you feel, both during and after. After all, longevity seems to be the overarching goal behind all of these metrics. And if you aren't able to enjoy the ride, doesn't that rather defeat the purpose?

"Health Trackers Are Everywhere. Do Babies Need Them, Too?", The Daily