Today’s technology makes monitoring and improving your health easier than ever. Whether you utilize a smart watch that can track everything from glucose levels to heart rate (both irregular and normal), or a device that delivers and monitors insulin, technology can help you manage, and possibly prevent, a life-altering event.

The National Institute for Health (NIH) estimates nearly a third of adults in the United States utilize a smart wearable device. These devices can contain health trackers that help provide a snapshot of your up-to-date health status, as well as help your provider monitor remotely your conditions, if needed.

Some examples of wearable health tech include blood pressure monitors, glucose monitors, ECG monitors, and various fitness trackers that record everything related to workouts, daily steps and even sleep stages. Benefits of these can enhance health monitoring, detect potential health issues earlier, help with chronic disease management, and discounts to healthcare plans.

Heart Health Tracking

Current smartwatches are great and helping in this area. You can utilize a smart watch to measure your daily steps, and it can even remind you to get up and take a stroll. Smart watches can monitor your heart rate, and some watches will allow you to utilize an ECG to alert a user to an irregular rhythm. They can also detect high heart rates while you’ve been inactive, possibly pointing out a situation a user wasn’t aware of.

You can also utilize your smart watch to keep track of workouts and runs. These devices can measure your heart rate during the workout, as well as the distance you have traveled, even recording your route and marking splits for each mile traveled. If you’re interested in a weight-training program, some smartwatches even keep track of your reps throughout the workout.

With this data being recorded, it is also readily available to share with your healthcare professional during a checkup. Other things that can be checked and kept track of include your blood oxygen levels and blood pressure.

Diabetic Uses

People living with diabetes can use wearable tech to manage and even correct their condition. From measuring your glucose levels to administering insulin, technology can incorporate with smartwatches to help better monitor and understand what foods affect your glucose levels.

Continuous glucose monitors (CGM) monitor your glucose levels in real time and give you instantaneous readings that can both help you know when to change eating habits or administer medication. These monitors are also available over the counter.

CGM’s can also administer the medication directly for you when used with an insulin pump. Closed-loop systems (insulin pumps combined with a CGM) can take much of the guess work out of dealing with glucose levels. This system monitors and can either administer or suspend insulin delivery to the patient based on current glucose levels.

General Healthcare and Workout Uses

Wearable tech is also great for those who don’t have a medical condition they need to monitor. Whether you want to track your food, record your distance on a run, or make sure your heart rate is at optimal levels on a workout, smart tech is optimal for this. Wearable tech can help promote adequate recovery from workouts by suggesting what type of hydration to consume.

According to the American Heart Association, typical steps needed daily vary based on age, but usually ranges between 6,000 to 10,000 steps daily to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The AHA even goes as far to say that as few as 2,200 steps daily can help bring an individual back into healthy habits.

Research has also shown those who record what they eat daily tend to lose more weight than those that don’t. Wearable technology can log your meals and water intake, while keeping track of calories consumed, and even plan menus and recipes to help in your journey to a better you.

But probably the most important, and most overlooked, part of a healthy lifestyle is sleep. None of us get as much as we need, but utilizing wearable tech can help you understand your sleep habits and get a better picture of how to improve on the easiest thing we can do to improve our health. Wearable tech can also help indicate sleep apnea, meaning a discussion with your healthcare provider is necessary.

 Technology can be intimidating. But it is most definitely here to help in our everyday lives. Utilizing what is available to us, as well as discussing your health with your provider can lead not only to a better way of life, but also could add a few more years to enjoy it.