Haier M80F vs LG G5: Which TV reigns supreme?<\/a>Say it with numbers<\/p>\nFor many, wearables first enter life as tools for structure. Shashwat Modani, a 22-year-old analyst based in Jaipur, uses Strava to guide his running. If he plans a run at a five minute per kilometre pace and slows down, the app alerts him kilometre by kilometre. \u201cIf I see I\u2019m lagging, I push myself to maintain the overall pace,\u201d he says. The numbers don\u2019t replace effort, but they sharpen it. Over months of marathon training, Modani has become more aware of metrics such as resting heart rate and target BPMs during runs, things he barely noticed before. He insists he doesn\u2019t overthink them, but the data offers reassurance. \u201cIt gives me a confidence boost when I know I\u2019m improving,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Mumbai-based psychologist Dr Alisha Lalljee sees this desire for numbers as part of a broader push towards self understanding. \u201cPeople today want to be more aware of their bodies,\u201d she says. \u201cWearables give them a language for that.\u201d The challenge, she adds, is when numbers start replacing internal cues rather than supporting them. That language often extends beyond the individual. Strava\u2019s social layer, with its streaks, mileage totals and shared activities, introduces visibility into what might otherwise remain private. Modani describes it as an \u201cunsaid competition\u201d. He hasn\u2019t broken his weekly activity streak in over 30 weeks. If a month looks light, he increases his mileage. Fitness platforms don\u2019t explicitly demand being competitive, but their design rewards consistency and presence.<\/p>\n
The same dynamic plays out differently for Gayatri Thumboochetty, a 26-year-old Bengaluru-based wellness manager who began with Strava and later moved to a smart ring and Garmin watch. Most of her friends use Apple Watches, where activity rings and workouts are visible to one another. The sharing is casual rather than competitive, but it creates a background awareness of who is moving, resting or slowing down, making personal tracking faintly performative even when no one is actively comparing scores.<\/p>\n
Over time, the data changed how Thumboochetty understands effort. \u201cEarlier, I only cared about pace,\u201d she says. \u201cNow I focus much more on heart rate.\u201d Garmin\u2019s Body Battery feature, which estimates energy levels based on sleep, stress and activity, plays a role in her daily decisions. Waking up with a lower score often prompts her to scale back. \u201cIt helps you know when to stop,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Second-guessing the body<\/p>\n
But the guidance is not always seamless. On days when she feels fine but the score is low, the data introduces hesitation. \u201cYou start questioning whether you\u2019re actually tired,\u201d she says, \u201cor whether the watch is just saying you are.\u201d The numbers don\u2019t dictate her choices, but they enter the decision making process.<\/p>\n
Dr Lalljee notes that this is where emotional responses to data begin to diverge. \u201cHumans seek dopamine,\u201d she says. \u201cHigh scores reward you. Low scores don\u2019t. They make you question your progress.\u201d Some users respond by pushing harder to improve their metrics. Others disengage entirely. In both cases, behaviour becomes reactive, shaped less by feeling and more by feedback.<\/p>\n
For long term runners, experience helps balance out the feedback from wearable devices. Divya Sachdeva, a 44-year-old Delhi-based teacher who has run five marathons, has been using Garmin devices since 2015. Years of exposure have taught her how to contextualize the numbers rather than respond to them immediately. \u201cIf my heart rate spikes on an easy run, I know I\u2019m not recovered and should slow down,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Sachdeva acknowledges the pressure to stay consistent, but no longer lets metrics define her self-worth. \u201cI\u2019m in my best running form now,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I also know when to pull back.\u201d Even so, she admits that wearables make rest mentally harder. When effort is tracked so precisely, rest can feel less like an intentional pause and more like a gap in data.<\/p>\n
For some users, the emotional tone of feedback matters as much as the metrics themselves. Mumbai-based beauty experience curator Anjan Sachar began using the Ultrahuman Ring to track sleep and daily movement, later experimenting with Whoop. While she appreciated Whoop\u2019s depth, the recovery scores felt severe. \u201cWaking up to a 10% recovery score after a late night would actually unsettle me,\u201d she says. \u201cIt felt harsh.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ring, by contrast, felt easier to live with. Sachar focuses primarily on sleep timing, sleep quality and calorie burn. One metric she watches closely is the point at which her heart rate drops to its lowest during the night, signalling deep rest. At a wellness retreat, she noticed this drop happened earlier and more consistently. Back in the city, it shifted later. \u201cIt confirmed what I already felt,\u201d she says, \u201cbut seeing it made it harder to ignore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Influencing behaviour<\/p>\n
Calorie tracking influences behaviour in quieter ways. Sachar doesn\u2019t chase step counts, but she aims to burn a baseline number of calories each day. On days she feels unmotivated, she\u2019ll go for a walk simply to cross that threshold. \u201cThe number is a motivator,\u201d she says. It doesn\u2019t push her to extremes, but it nudges her to move slightly more than she otherwise might have.<\/p>\n
That influence became clearest when the data disappeared. When her ring stopped working temporarily, Sachar felt unexpectedly unsettled. \u201cI felt handicapped,\u201d she says. Without the ability to track, effort felt incomplete. \u201cI kept thinking, what\u2019s the point of pushing myself if I can\u2019t see the calories burned?\u201d The moment made her aware of how closely accomplishment had become tied to quantification.<\/p>\n
Dr Lalljee cautions against letting that link harden into dependence. Continuous monitoring, she says, can increase screen time and reduce trust in bodily signals if left unchecked. \u201cWe all know when our body is tired,\u201d she says. \u201cThe issue is whether we wait for an app to tell us what we already feel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Across conversations, what emerges is not rejection, but negotiation. Wearables rarely feel neutral. They can encourage, affirm or unsettle, even when framed as helpful information. When every run, night\u2019s sleep and slow day is graded, the shift is subtle but significant. Wearables promise insight, and for many they deliver it. But learning when to look at the numbers, and when to look away, may be the most important balance they quietly ask users to strike.<\/p>\n
Also Read | Can AI replace your personal trainer?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One drink, and your recovery score drops the next morning. A late dinner shows up as elevated resting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,28883,48,407,19619,94295,84,419,59069,191072,9306],"class_list":{"0":"post-468761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-calorie-tracking","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-fitness","12":"tag-fitness-trackers","13":"tag-garmin-devices","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-heart-rate","16":"tag-strava","17":"tag-ultrahuman-ring","18":"tag-wearables"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}