Health Hacks: Owning a Smart Watch

Fitness Tips • Personal Fitness

Many moons ago, I used to chuckle at my partner’s morning ritual—checking his Apple Watch for sleep stats the moment he woke up. It seemed excessive to me. After all, didn’t we just know if we slept well or not? I assumed I could feel it in my body, and besides, how accurate could all that data really be—aside from maybe the resting heart rate?

So, I dismissed the need for a smartwatch.

Fast forward a year. I was training for the Big Sur Marathon and decided to buy an Apple Watch to track my program. I figured, why not try one of those sleep apps everyone was talking about? For $2.99, I downloaded a top-rated sleep tracker that syncs with the Apple Health app.

And just like that, I ate my words.

Wearing the watch nearly 24/7 (except for charging), I began to see just how valuable this little device was. The app broke down my sleep into deep, restful, and total hours—and gave me a sleep score from 1 to 100. Here’s what I learned:

Experts say alcohol disrupts sleep, and now I could see it in real time. On nights I had more than a single glass of wine, my sleep scores dropped to 50–70%. That’s a C– to an F. My resting heart rate also spiked—10–20% higher than usual!

The fix? Avoid drinking before bed. Sure enough, my scores jumped to 90–100%, and I felt better, too. After weeks and months of consistent data, I finally saw the connection between sleep score and how I actually felt—something I hadn’t been able to sense on my own.

Another eye-opener? Eating too close to bedtime. While some people say a bedtime snack helps, my watch told a different story. Every time I ate late, my heart rate rose and my sleep suffered—again landing in that 60–70% range.

So, I made a change: no snacks within 3 hours of bedtime. The result? My sleep scores improved, and my resting heart rate consistently dropped by 10%.

My suggestion: Get a smartwatch. Wear it. Use it. You’ll be amazed by what you learn about your own body.