2025 is coming to a close and the holiday season is rapidly approaching. While for most people the holiday season is a time of joy and excitement, for many it can be very stressful. From the overloaded schedule due to all of the holiday activities to racing around finishing up last minute shopping, many people experience a lot of added stress. People who have lost loved ones experience loneliness around the holidays. As the year wraps up, maybe you’re under pressure to hit certain deadlines to finish out the year. All of these added stressors make it incredibly easy to let your health and wellness goals drop by the wayside and take a backseat. A skipped workout here, a missed chiropractic appointment there. Before you know it, you’re off of your routine.

 The good news is that thanks to modern innovation, a myriad of wearable fitness trackers exist to help keep you accountable to yourself. Maybe you’re familiar with fitness trackers, and maybe you’re not. That’s perfectly fine. It is estimated that roughly 1 in 5 people wear some sort of device that monitors various health variables. A fitness tracker is a wearable device (oftentimes worn on the wrist) that tracks your health and physical activity by collecting data such as steps, calories burned, heart rate, sleep quality, active minutes, strain, etc.

So who are fitness trackers meant for? They’re meant for anyone who wants to live a healthier life, track their progress, and stay motivated. Maybe you’re a beginner who is just starting your fitness journey. That’s fantastic, as there’s a device right for you. If you’re trying to lose weight or just simply be more active, a fitness tracker that monitors your daily step count and heart rate changes (which almost all of them do) is a great way to start holding yourself accountable to hitting your daily movement goals. Are you an athlete or active/regular gym-goer? You might already have a favorite wearable device, but if you don’t, there’s an option for you too.

One of the biggest differences between fitness trackers is the data that they collect. Something simple like a pedometer will only measure your steps based on how far you move throughout the day. Other, more advanced devices such as a Fitbit, Whoop, Oura Ring, Garmin Smart Watch, or Apple Watch (I’m sure I’m leaving some out – my apologies) can give an in-depth look at various other health metrics. There are a vast number of benefits to wearing a fitness tracker. Let’s explore a few of them.

• Monitor Heart Health → allow tracking of heart rate, blood pressure (in some devices), and overall cardiovascular health
• Tracking Daily Activity → many devices will count steps, distance, and “active minutes” to help you further understand your daily movement trends
• Boost motivation → many devices will give you a reminder to get moving if you’ve been sedentary for too long; some devices have a goal-setting feature
• Stress Management → some trackers analyze heart rate variability (HRV) to help users better understand their stress levels

One of the features that I have enjoyed most with my fitness tracker is its ability to monitor my sleep and recovery. I started wearing a Fitbit back in February of 2024 and it gave me great insight early on as to how well I was sleeping at night. From an entry-level cost standpoint, the Fitbit is incredibly accurate in terms of sleep tracking. I recently switched to a Whoop 5.0 and I have been blown away with its sleep-tracking ability. It can show me my how many minutes per night I spent in light/deep/REM sleep, how efficient my sleep was, how many times I woke up at night, and even track my sleep debt. Another feature I’ve loved regarding sleep tracking is that it will actually suggest a bedtime for me, so that I’m awake and energized for my 5:00 AM wake-up. My device wakes me up in the morning too, giving me a score that factors in all of the different aspects of my sleep the previous night. This article is not going to be an advertisement for Whoop, as I’m certain many of the other more advanced devices do a lot of these same things. This is just the device that I have the most experience with. I think I’ve written two newsletters so far on the importance of sleep and how you can improve it, so you should understand now how important having a good understanding of our sleep habits is to help improve our overall health.

One primary benefit of wearing a fitness tracker is improved accountability. By providing periodic reminders to get moving and encourage regular physical activity, this makes it easier to maintain a consistent routine. The Hawthorne effect is a phenomenon whereby individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed. By wearing a device, you are now actively monitoring various aspects of your health and lifestyle. The longer you monitor your lifestyle choices, the more you will see improvement in those areas. Since I’ve started wearing one, I’ve made countless changes in my nighttime routine to set myself up for sleep success, amongst other positive changes.

It is important to note that while wearing a fitness tracker offers many benefits, there can be some cons associated with them. The first and most obvious one being the cost associated with them. Prices can range anywhere from $75 on up to nearly $1000, with some requiring monthly memberships to access certain features. The good news is that there is a device for every budget. Data overload is another potential con, in where the user can become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data their device tracks. It took me almost a month to feel confident using and navigating my Whoop 5.0. Obsession & Dependency are other potential cons, where the user becomes obsessed with the numbers to the point where specific values/scores take precedence over the total picture of their health and fitness routines. It is important to weigh the various pros and cons, while taking your budget into consideration when determining if one of these devices is a good option for you.

If anything you’ve read today has sparked an interest within you, I encourage you to research a few different devices and see what might be the best fit for you. Also, feel free to talk to myself or Dr. Dulmes, as we each have experience with a couple of different devices. If purchasing one of these devices isn’t in the cards, that’s totally fine, as a lot of the smart phones perform many of these tasks for us as well. The only drawback being that if the phone is not on your person, it won’t register things such as steps taken or distance walked. The best way to reach your goals is through making multiple small modifications to your lifestyle and to hold yourself accountable. Maybe one of these devices can help you reach that next level.

Dr. Wade Bemis

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