Watch Me: Learning to Live a Quantitative Life

After a friend's fitness tracker alerted her to a rapid heartbeat, she learned at the hospital that she'd had a small heart attack and required a stent. The same day, after a warning from a smart watch about an abnormal heartbeat, another friend's sister-in-law had a pacemaker put in.

And so the campaign accelerated — pressure from friends and family members for me to get some sort of smart device to monitor my health, as I live alone.

"I don't want to," I replied to one and all. (I learned that empowering sentence from my grandson when he was a Wee Boy.) Why not? I don't want to live a quantitative life.

I'm here for the quality — for laughing with friends, savoring theater performances, dancing on the edge of the continent, sipping an expensive cocktail once a month, enjoying gorgeous sunsets, sharing festive family dinners, reading wonderful books and savoring happy surprises, such as discovering I don't have to unzip my jeans to get them on or off.

Besides, charts, graphs and financial statements of any kind intimidate me, and I don't want to spend precious time attempting to interpret information delivered by a device that's trying to talk numbers to me.

I once tried a step-counting gizmo for a time because it was a gift, but most of my walking (and marching and skipping and other fancy footwork) takes place in a pool at the gym. The device was not waterproof, so I never got credit for three hours of steps each week. That seemed so unfair.

My smart phone wants to talk to me about fitness goals, but again, I don't take it into the pool, so any conversation is moot. My smart bed wants to tell me how well I slept, but I turned off that function. (I sleep very well, thank you.) Plus, I like the freedom of unembellished arms, and some step-trackers and smart watches are chunky, on the heavy side. I know because I test-drove a friend's for a few days, and it annoyed me.

When I left my full-time reporting job at a daily newspaper in 2005, I removed my petite Movado watch with the stunning red leather band from my wrist, and had not donned a timepiece since.

Furthermore, as I told the people eager for me to embrace a nosy health-monitoring device, I am under the impression I have inherited my dad's strong heart, a heart that his doctor told me kept him alive three years after he was diagnosed with a serious health condition.

I've always aced stress tests and I enjoy stable blood pressure. At one point I pondered having a T-shirt made that read, "Ask Me About My Triglycerides" because they are so fabulous.

On the other hand (arm?), I do fret about falling. The National Institute on Aging, on a site that also offers practical advice on how to stay upright, reports that the risk of falling and the problems related to taking a tumble rise with age. The Centers for Disease Control notes that more than one out of four people age 65 years or older fall each year.

I know some of those people!

One friend tripped as she carried a basket of laundry up her winding staircase. Fortunately, she fell forward, and not backward down the stairs. Her smart watch immediately asked if it should summon help. Another friend miscalculated how high up she was on a stepladder and fell off.

I kept my stepladder, even after hearing her story, but I gave away the clock that hung high on the kitchen wall and required that I climb up two steps. Now, I only go low. After writing articles about how to decrease the risk of falls at home, I also gave away my throw rugs and area rugs. I bought motion-sensor nightlights that illuminate the path from the bedroom to the bathroom at night. And I own a just-in-case cane, which currently is gathering dust.

Still, falling is an ever-present concern. Ever since my Achilles tendon surgery — an antibiotic caused that mighty tendon to snap completely — I pay strict attention to where I place my feet. I avoid staircases that fail to offer a railing and I maneuver curbs carefully. Back pain, common in older adults due to degeneration of the spine, sometimes slows my pace further, but in a world where uneven pavement abounds, mindful walking does not always prevent falls.

Long story short: I caved, and got a smart watch as a peace-of-mind purchase. When setting it up, I immediately turned off all sounds: No ringing, pinging, dinging or buzzing allowed. But right away, this thing on my wrist besieged me with numbers; numbers I thought probably were just fine — but what do know?

Made anxious by my friend's experience, I quickly became obsessed with tracking my heart rate. I sent some numbers to my doctor, confessing the problem might be my obsession with my new gadget. She replied that everything looked normal to her, so I quit checking that. Mostly.

Sometimes, I sleep with the watch on, and even read the report the next morning. Too quickly, I found myself scouring the Internet to determine what constitutes "normal" percentages of core sleep, R.E.M. sleep and deep sleep for people my age. So much for peace of mind — it's enough to keep you up at night.

I did inform my watch what time I like to go to sleep and wake up, and just before my usual bedtime, my smart-aleck watch quietly plays the first few notes of a lullaby. If I wake before my appointed time, the watch flashes a message noting that I appear to be up, and asks whether I'd like to start my day. Yes, please, but with no conversation of any sort, even from electronic devices. Maybe especially.

One day, while using my foot to push a heavy box of groceries down my entry hall to the kitchen, the watch flashed a message that my gait was uneven, and I was at risk of falling. I was impressed, but made it to the kitchen safely.

One month in, I'll admit that I do like using the watch to quickly determine whether an email or message needs immediate attention. I also like that it reports the outside temperature and weather conditions. Most of all, ironically, I like that it tells time.

Previously, to learn the hour of the day, I had to find my phone or ask my smart wireless speaker. I'm always reluctant to bother the guard dog within, a seemingly sentient device that perks up whenever it hears "Alex" or "elect," and once got excited when a chef on television mentioned "polenta." 

As this new personal monitor and I continue to adjust to one another, I am confident we'll learn to get along. How confident? I bought a new red leather watch band.

Patricia Corrigan is a professional journalist, with decades of experience as a reporter and columnist at a metropolitan daily newspaper, and also a book author. She has written for Next Avenue since February 2015. Read more from Patricia at latetothehaight.blogspot.com. Read More