Over Optimization | Wearables: How to Optimize Without the Data Anxiety | Ft Ashley Negron

Welcome to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. I'm Josh Negron, and this show's all about sharing lessons, ideas, and strategies that sharpen your thinking, strengthen your habits, and push you to grow beyond comfort zones. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the show. I'm joined again by my co-host, Ashley, my wife. Welcome back, Ashley.

Hello.

Yes, and today we want to talk about the overoptimization of wearables and overwhelming amount of health data that we can be assaulted with really in today's age and how it can be useful and how it can also be detrimental to some, why some people have abandoned their devices, changed to different ones, or changed their outlook on performance data in today's age. So let's get it kicked off. So I would say just to joke around that we are a house divided. And what I mean by that is that I have a Whoop device that is on me 24/7. And, uh, and as far as my statistic says, I've been using, I've been a Whoop user for 2,306 days nonstop. That is, I calculated 6.31 years. And according to Whoop, I am in their top 0.2% of users. Um, and Ashley, you, you tried a Whoop for a little while and you ditched it.

Yeah.

And you also had an Apple Watch for a hot minute and also ditched that. Now I'm being kind of funny when I say we're divided because we both used to have Apple Watches and have since abandoned those like analog normal watches. This is the Seiko that I'm rocking today. So let us start both by giving a quick statement as to why so many people are dropping their Apple Watches or their smartwatches.

Well, for me, Kind of was twofold, and I think for a lot of people it is. You know, while an Apple Watch is nice because you, you don't necessarily always have to have your phone, you could answer a text message or a phone call like on your watch. At the same time, you were always getting a buzz, like it was always buzzing. And I felt just this tie to my phone all the time, like, oh my gosh, where did I leave it? Like, I can't— I need to answer text messages, I need to do this. Like, I couldn't leave anything undone because I was getting this physical response. to every phone call, every text message, every notification. And like, even though I had pared down my notifications on what was even available on my Apple Watch compared to my phone, it was just a lot. And honestly, until I ditched it, I didn't realize how much control it had over my life and actually how much anxiety that it was giving me. It actually kind of put my phone back into its rightful place in my life by ditching the Apple Watch. The second thing that, the reason I actually started it, the byproduct was the lack of the anxiety tied to everything. The real reason that I started it was, um, sort of doing research and learning around the EMF that was emitted by an Apple Watch. Um, and studies are starting to show like how toxic that that can be to your body. And as people who optimize our food, our sleep, what we drink— I mean, all the things, right? Like we get up earlier, we need to go to the gym. Like, I felt like for me, I was, I was actually potentially like undoing all of that by wearing this watch. Um, and so For me, that was kind of the start of it. And then the lack of anxiety and tied to my phone was actually an incredible, wonderful byproduct. And you'll never catch me wearing an Apple Watch, at least on a day-to-day basis again. Now, I still wear it because I like to track my running, but we've had conversations around maybe a different kind of watch, and I don't need the full gamut of an Apple Watch. I really just need like maybe a basic Garmin or some basic trackable to track my miles, my pace, like all of those kinds of things. Um, When, when I'm running outdoors. So yeah, that, that's kind of been my journey. And we'll talk more about this later, but I do wear an Oura Ring, and that is because of the low, um, EMFs that it emits. And it even has an airplane mode. So, but we'll talk more about that down the line.

Yeah, absolutely. The, the connected piece is, like you said, it, it has parts of it that are really advantageous. Like, I remember being able to, you know, tell my watch, like, hey, your hands are full or whatever, you can just Pull up your watch and be like, I closed the garage door or whatever, turn on some lights, you know, some, just send this text message. And it's, it's, there were periods, like I definitely missed certain aspects of it, right. From a convenience standpoint, but you're right. There was this aspect where it's, it's really unique where I had a psychologist guest last week that talked about, we're, we're more connected than ever. However, anxiety and depression are also at its highest, and people are more open to therapy. But all of those things don't make for a less anxious generation, right? So the aspect of being too connected, a lot of people will say that there's some disadvantages there, that you're missing the real world, right? The more you're connected to that device, the more that you're missing. Just think about like a funny illustration for this is like, Think about a concert, right? And when everybody's got their phones out, they're not absorbing that concert the way that they would organically. And so there are some concerts now that where like phones are banned, you know? And I hear friends that have gone to experiences like that, they're like, man, that was really refreshing. Like, and it was really, you know, analog and just really stimulating in a different way. So that presence, I think there's something to that. And I could definitely say not having my Apple Watch, I mean, I had one for, gosh, I wanna say at least 5 or 6 years.

Mm-hmm.

It definitely was an adjustment. I definitely had one before you, 'cause I'm more of that techie person. But now, and you know, there's people that'll say, well, yeah, you mentioned paring down your notifications. There may be others that like are masters of the iPhone, Apple Watch focus modes. You know, you're like, no, I make sure that the only thing that comes through on my Apple Watch or even my phone, you know, they're not controlled by their notifications. And if you can really harness the power of those tools, then more power to you. You can definitely be a power user in that way. It's not anything that I ever got into. Like I use Do Not Disturb and sleep focus mode and then normal. Like I've never gotten in there to really customize those things. And so by a byproduct, you're just getting notifications all the time. And you're absolutely right that, that, that really feels like you have a phone strapped to your wrist and the, the anxiety spike of always feeling connected and always having something to do and not being able to relax is a real thing. And so that's from, from when I researched and saw a lot of influencers and bloggers are talking about how they're ditching their smart devices, especially in the watch arena. That makes a total, a lot of sense. I mean, I wear it, like I said, I wear a Whoop. It's got no screen. People are like, what is that? Is that a watch? I'm like, nope. Just tracks some of my stuff, no big deal. And that Oura Ring, no screen, you know? So let's move on to that. You talked about the EMF radiation. Now, you know, some people could be like, oh man, that's bro science. Like there's no definitive research to that, or these devices, they're, tested, you know, and they're within acceptable tolerances, right? And it's one of those things where like, and obviously, I wear a Whoop. And this still emits more— less EMF than, than an Apple Watch, allegedly, but way more still than an Oura Ring. You chose that because the radiation was the lowest in your research of any wearable. And like you said, it has an airplane mode that you can set it to. That means it's not transmitting. Mine's transmitting all the time. Right. And so walk us through kind of what you, what led you to that? Like, you know, you made a really good point. There's, yes, there's not a lot of research behind it, but if it's 24/7, is it worth the information you're getting by the price you're having to pay for maybe something that's not good for you? Right. So walk us through kind of your thought process there.

Yeah. I don't know. More and more stuff was popping up online. We, we have some family members that don't do a lot of any kind of electronic kinds of things that it can affect things. You know, our— I don't know that our bodies were made to have to fight that off, right? Like, we bought an EMF mat to try to help, like, get that, like, those toxins out of our body and try to get that where it would help harness that. You've got some of these longevity health doctors that talk about going outside and putting your feet in the dirt on the ground and letting the earth do what it's supposed to do. I, I don't know about all of that, but like you said, why really take the risk. Like, I, I wasn't sure that that was a risk that I wanted to take. And so for me, the little amount of EMF that the Oura Ring emitted, um, even on a regular basis, was better than what I was wearing. So I figured that was, that was better. I can put it on airplane mode. What I did discover by doing that is, while it's not transmitting any data, it's not tracking anything either. What I did discover was it didn't track sleep, it didn't track workouts, any of those kinds of things when it was on the airplane mode. So for For me, I figured the little amount that it was emitting, that was gonna be okay. And I would just, I would do that 'cause I'm not gonna remember to shut it off and on like before I go to sleep or in the morning. Like I'm, I'm not that connected to my data. I might be lucky if I look at it once a week. Like I really just don't. But that's one of the things that like for me, like I tried wearing a Whoop for a while and I think that I felt like I had to check the data every day because it was giving me this, what's your recovery? Where are you at with things? Are you in the green? Did you do all your stuff? And I'm just like, this, this is causing me more anxiety than it's helping me. Like, I'm not— it's not helpful data to me. So again, I think I maybe tried it for what, 30, 60 days? Like, I— it, it was not for me. Also, I like to wear really cute bracelets and it was getting in the way of all that. So there was that too.

Yep. Yep. The ring is more like jewelry, so it makes it easier there. And honestly, you picked the Oura. When we did the research, the, the, the radiation was so significantly lower compared to the Whoop and then especially the Apple Watch that it just made A ton of sense if that was something that was worrying you that, you know, let's just get rid of the risk. If there is a risk that, you know, even if you want to call it perceived risk, if it's something that there is some doubt around, again, it could be bro science, totally have no idea. Um, but if, if there's an alternative that you liked, then why wouldn't you choose it? And so that was like, we had friends that had Oura Rings and it was, it's, it's been good. You really enjoyed it. And like you mentioned, you're not married to the data anyway. So something that was more of a passive device was something that kind of matched your Mm-hmm. Your kind of style anyway. So moving on into the anxiety-producing aspect of all this, what some people label as orthosomnia, and that is a, is a word thrown around to describe the people's obsession specifically about sleep tracking, but I feel like it can extend outside of just anxiety surrounding sleep tracking. And then more broadly, the anxiety surrounding just what the trackers and what all the data is telling you seems to, for some people, be like an anxiety amplifier, which is what you described. And how these can be panic triggers or kind of plugging into people's tendencies for perfectionism or maybe OCD of like, I've got to keep the streak going or it's not green or I got to close the ring. And so, and there's also the concern that you may wake up feeling great, but then look at your Whoop or whatever and have it say, oh, you're in the red. You got to feel like crap and then feel Like, is that a self-fulfilling prophecy? Like, are you actually in the red? Does that get to dictate how you feel? And vice versa, maybe it says you should feel great and you feel like smashed buttercups. So I remember being challenged by Trey Frisbee, who was a guest on the show previously, who's been a great coach to me for a long time, saying like, hey, this is a tool. Don't let it dictate everything as far as like how you should feel and how you should perform. I always took that with a grain of salt because the data can sometimes tell you more than you know.

I mean, I'll never forget, like, you had a CrossFit competition coming up one weekend and you had done all the things all week long. We'd been to bed early, you'd rested, you'd done all the things, and you open up your Whoop app the day of the first day of the competition and you were in the red and you're like, what the crap? And it messed with you mentally for a giant chunk of the day. And again, it took Trey to go, hey dude, Do you feel fine? Yeah, I feel great. Awesome. Forget what Whoop says. Like, let your body tell you what you're feeling. I think, you know, that story sticks out to me because like you were, you were fighting what that data was telling you. How true it was, I don't know. A lot of the times it probably is true. Like the days that you're in the red, like probably need to listen to your body and pay special attention to things and like not overtrain and not overdo it. But in that moment of like, you have something you have to perform for, how is that helping you mentally? I think it put you in a different mental space and it took you a chunk of the day to get out of that space and to go in and to attack, I think, you know, the workouts that you and Trey were getting ready to do. And so I do think too much data can be a bad thing. Now, that's just one particular instance that sticks out in my mind very, very clearly.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I remember that day. Uh, and that's, yeah, that's why Trey came to mind because he's the one who challenged me and we butted heads about it, you know, cuz in, in a normal day that doesn't have high stakes and you're just, just a normal day in the gym, you know, listening to the data and, and how you feel make total sense. But like you said, when, when it's, when you're, when you have to run a race that day or a CrossFit competition or whatever, and you have to perform regardless of what the stat says, then is it worth any head trash or associated with looking at that, and then training yourself to, can you get to the point where you can look at it and use it for only the benefit that it can offer you and not absorb anything that it could offer you that maybe wouldn't be beneficial? So the negative, you know, is it gonna help you mentally? And if not, then just don't open it that day. But it takes that degree of self-control to not take whatever you're seeing to go with the bad. And for some people, that means they go more analog, like maybe they don't use a device or maybe they don't check it as often. And like you said that for you, you don't check it all the time. And so I think it's really important to not let the device dictate to you because sleep's, sleep's a big part of this for a lot of people because they'll have, maybe they'll have sleep trackers specifically for that purpose. And, uh, and you know, there's this stress of like, I got to get to sleep. I got to get to sleep. And every sleep expert out there will tell you that that kind of anxiety, like forcing, trying to force yourself and your brain to shut off to go to sleep is never something that works. And so that's a perfect example of this anxiety that is produced by, I need to have some sort of good metric or those kinds of things. And I remember when I made the goal to increase my sleep, like I've talked about before, I used only a sleep metric that I could directly control. So my commitment was in my Whoop, because Whoop will track multiple sleep metrics. It'll track sleep quality and like Like whatever you were in all the zones and all the stuff. But one of the metrics was time in bed. And that was the one I latched onto. And I said, okay, what's my 6-month average time in bed? Okay, great. Well, I'm going to increase that by 30 minutes at a time. So at that time it was 6 hours. I was like, cool, I'm going to do 6.5 hours in bed. And then if I have a decent amount of sleep, great. If not, great. Doesn't matter. The quality of sleep I'm just committed to increasing the time in bed. And if every other metric stays relatively the same, I'll see an increase of sleep of about 15 to 25 minutes. And I'll get a net positive out of that and then increase it to 6, you know, 7 hours, 7.5 hours if I can. And that really worked for me because that was a direct metric that I can control. It had nothing to do with my tracker. My tracker was just helping me calculate that metric. So that was the shift for me. And again, I've been a user for over 6 years. I definitely for the first 4 years probably had some unhealthy tendencies with that data. So I think it's absolutely right. And that's what, what's been labeled by a lot of people as the closing the rings trap, right? So, you know, the Apple Watch made it famous. They're like, oh, you got to close your rings. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Let me stand up for just 90 seconds so it tracks and then sit my butt back down, you know, and like, gotta, you know, gotta close my exercise ring and the move ring. I don't think any of those things inherently are bad, but there are some things that I saw that just with the Apple Watch specifically, it was like those rings kind of, you know, if someone needed, if maybe someone was in desperate need of rest, like sometimes they could push people to, 'cause you gotta close that exercise ring, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so it kind of pushes people to maybe push too hard. I think that's why I like Whoop in that regard, 'cause it measures things in as far as strain goes. And sometimes it'll tell me like, hey, maybe it'll say, you pushed really hard 2 days this week. You didn't feel the full effects of it yesterday, but today everything's catching up. So if you can, if you want, if you absolutely need to move, do some walking. And it'll kind of guide you in that, like how you can, different ways you can respond, right? Now, one of the things I remember about that is I had a water tracking app, 'cause years ago I wasn't really good about drinking enough water. Trey challenged me on that. He goes, man, you're super healthy, but you don't drink a lot of water. And that's really lame because your body needs it. And he was absolutely right. So I used an app, A water tracking app and it worked great, but I got attached to that streak and having that on my device. And I'm like, man, and I remember sometimes knowing that I drank enough water for that day, like absolutely knowing that I was well above the goal, but I hadn't entered it in yet. And I had forgotten, put my head on my pillow, get ready to go to sleep. And then I remember, oh man, I didn't put that in there. And then I'm like, well, I gotta go back and do it. Do you? It's meant to be a tracking device to help you fulfill a habit, one that I had been fulfilling, but because of the gamification of the app itself, I felt, you know, perfect recovering perfectionist, maybe a little OCD, whatever. I, for, for an embarrassing long period of time, I would go back and put all that in. Which is just ridiculous. So these trackers, these devices, these methods, they're designed to help you build good habits, but in the right place. Yeah. So that takes us to our last segment where we're talking about how data needs to be moved from an idol, like I just talked about, to a tool, to something that can help you truly optimize your life versus, uh, Versus control you. Because it's this illusion that it seemed when I was researching this, it seemed like people's biggest frustration was that the data gave them, at least early on, this illusion of control over their life. But over time, they started to realize that they actually became controlled by the data and they were changing their behavior Sometimes not in the greatest ways, like compulsive ways, because of the data. And so I think it's super important to talk about the juxtaposition of those two. And, you know, what's the difference of using that data for education purposes, for learning, for feedback about what you're trying? Like, the sleep thing was perfect for me. I increased my time in bed. I did it by small increments, and it helped me.

Mm-hmm.

get my sleep from the last 6 months and improve it drastically to another 6 months. That's totally, totally amazing. I have a great water habit now, which is great, but I don't use the app anymore. And so, Ashley, walk us through how you view the data.

Well, obviously, I've already talked about that I might check it once a week or so. And it's probably every couple times a week, just depending on, honestly, if I remember to go in and like verify my sleep and to verify that I worked out and to, you know, do all the things. One of the things I do about the Oura is obviously with the sleep tracking. There are days that I wake up and I'm like, man, I think I was awake a lot in the middle of the night. And I'll pull up my sleep data and it's like, oh no, you were really only awake like kind of maybe actually one time. The rest of it was like awake, asleep, awake, you know, like it was a, it was, it was a different kind of, of rest. It may not have been asleep asleep, but it was a different kind of rest. And so I think it helps like put me mentally in that. I think too, like When we tell ourselves we're tired, like, then we make that a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like, man, I think I'm really tired today. And then we just live in that being tired. And so, you know, learning to get those words out of my vocabulary, like not letting that be true. Like even if I didn't get a lot of sleep, like now it's like, nope, I'm, I am okay. I, you know, I think there's some of that mind over matter too, like that you have to just, sometimes you have to just tell yourself like, I am okay. But also like the, the Oura Ring measures my stress, um, in a day as well and it will give me similar to the are you in the red, green, yellow of, um, of Whoop. It'll give me a readiness score, and sometimes I look at that and sometimes I don't. And sometimes it goes, hey, you were really stressed yesterday, you didn't sleep good a couple nights ago, you've got a lot going on, you need to be kind to your body today, right? It's not saying like don't do things, but hey, be kind, be aware. I think too, like, the older I get The more appreciation I have for not pushing it crazy in the gym. Like, I would rather go do the StairMaster, or I'm gonna go do weight machines or whatever. Like, that has become more something that fits where, where, what my body feels like. And so, you know, it's— it is learning to listen to your body. Like, we were given a natural intuition to understand and know how we're feeling, where our bodies are at. And sometimes I think we lose that ability when we rely too We lose that natural intuition to be able to listen. And like you mentioned, like, it can cause you to overtrain, it can cause you to have an injury, it can mentally mess with you and cause this unnecessary anxiety and stress that's actually doing the opposite of what it was intended to do. And so I think you just have to really figure out what works for you and what parameters you're going to put in your life and what, what data you're going to allow in, and then what you're going to allow, like, That you're gonna stick to and that's gonna be what you really look at, right? Like some of it you can look at and go, yep, doesn't matter. Yep, doesn't matter. You know, but there are, what are gonna be the key metrics that are really important to you? And like you said, for a while it was the amount of time in bed. And so, you know, we made some, some shifts in our life. Um, I, I, you know, I don't need as much sleep as what you do. And so why will lay in bed and read while you, while you go to sleep, right? But it just like, there, there is a such a thing as too much. But each person has to figure out what that is for them, cuz we're 2 very different people. And I don't— I didn't need as much as what you did.

That was something that was helpful in, like you said, finding the bits of information that are helpful to analyze in those trends and finding out for you, you had 3 different trackers. You had your Apple Watch season, you had the Whoop season, which was pretty short, but still, and now the Oura Ring. And all of them told you that your sleep need was significantly less than mine. And that was something that I was frustrated by because I'm like, man, like what in the heck? Like why aren't we, you know, basically we're not on the same sleep schedule to an extent. And so that was frustrating to me, but just realizing that unfortunately we're different and there's evidence that there's different types of people that need more or less sleep. And that's just a reality right now. And so the devices were helpful in giving some context and explanation to that. I think it's important to also know, like, again, to have that information And be able to know what to wield and when. So yeah, we focused specifically on one thing, which was sleep. All that other data was still being collected. And honestly, there's times, especially when I still had analysis paralysis or maybe unhealthy view of my metrics of how they would control me, I would go through seasons where I, like you, didn't consume it.

Mm-hmm.

And I would still wear it. So it's still collecting the data. Because there might be a moment in the future where I check it out, figure it out, whatever, but I'm not consuming it in that moment. So there are times, there are still seasons now where like, you know, I won't read it, I won't interact with the AI. The AI is cool now in Whoop where I can, it has access to all my metrics. I'm a Whoop Labs subscriber as well. So like all my labs are uploaded in there. So now the AI is completely integrated with all my health data inside of Whoop. From my heart rate to sleep to strain to stress to labs, and so now I can say, "Hey, I have increased my sleep. How did that affect my labs?" And they're like, "Yeah, in the last six months you increased your sleep by this much percent. Your testosterone raised by this, and did it completely naturally." And that's the only thing I changed. I'm like, "Yeah, I'll take that. That's pretty sweet." And so, and then the clinician gave some feedback this last time that was pretty specific about a specific metric, and I was like, "Hey, no, I can't talk to the guy." So But I had a sidebar with ChatGPT and I was like, hey, this was my lab metric that they didn't like. This is what he suggested. What he didn't know was this. So should I follow his advice or actually make this other adjustment? And GPT was like, yeah, given that info, make the change. So I think it's helpful to know what to focus on because sometimes none of us can focus on all the data of any data, not just health data, but you put a ginormous spreadsheet in front of somebody, there's no way they can consume all of that. So I think that's why I like the AI integration and some of these things, because I've been a member for so long and I don't, I haven't had any interest in switching platforms because at some point I know that I knew that all of this would, would be able to be filtered down in some more actionable ways. And so now that there are clinicians involved, that's pretty cool. That was just a recent development. They've, this program is only like 6 months old. And so So yeah, just learning how to use those metrics over time, focus on ones that are really important for you and for like the low-hanging fruit, right? So we're always looking for ways that we can optimize. It's pretty basic, like, um, move, you know, we talk about it all the time, movement, water, sleep. Those are some pretty easy ones to tackle. And people always ask me like, hey man, what supplements do I need to buy? I'm like, how about nothing? How many hours do you sleep a night? What's your diet look like? Supplements are supplements to supplement your diet for a reason. So if you're eating garbage every day, you don't need any supplements. You need to eat better food. So yeah, data as a tool, not an idol. You don't want to— people who are listening to this probably have tendencies where they want to customize, perfect, and really dial it in. But recognizing that that can take you the wrong direction as well with those tendencies. is important to remember. Thanks for listening to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. Remember, growth happens when you take action. So subscribe, share this with a friend, and most importantly, put what you learned into practice, because as we know, daily anything changes everything.