In the data driven culture of today, more and more people are turning to self-monitoring devices to track their progress. From the Oura Ring to the Fitbit Charge, people who were only ten years ago relying on yoga, Pilates and a whole foods diet, are now turning to Big Data to track everything from heartrate variability (HRV) to blood oxygen, glucose levels, body temperature, metabolic activity and sleep. Approximately 40% of the population today are reported to use a wearable 24/7. With the proliferation of AI, now you can punch your biodata into the Big Robot and have it synthesized, analyzed and assessed in mere span of seconds.
Test results color perceptions around well-being. If lab work or images show signs of spinal stenosis, high blood pressure, or precursors for dementia, it may be valuable as people can seek treatment, change their lifestyle, or take preventive measures. However, it may also trigger worry and anxiety. If I receive an imperfect sleep score or high blood pressure read-out, I may find myself stewing over my deficiency. Along with lab visits, expensive supplement purchases, and late nights poring over AI assessment, worry can aggravate a condition. For those keen to optimize their health, body metrics may become an all-consuming, obsessive preoccupation.
In our somatic-yoga practice we use interior “tracking devices” to sense our heart rate, listen to pulses, attune to our breath and become mindfulness of the thoughts we are telling ourselves. This is old “technology”, designed thousands of years ago to generate clear mind and open heart. If we spend oodles of time monitoring data from an external patch, ring, or watch, does it supplant the time and care we might devote to perceiving inwardly what is happening? If not mindful, might we fall under the spell of our Fitbit algorithms and buy (as corporate date would like us to) into the idea that health is determined numerically? Sleep scores, peptide levels, calorie formulas, and glucose monitors are all the rave. In a technology culture ridden with surveillance, where every Google search, store purchase, download or Spotify request is tracked, are we willing to surveil our bodies, mining them for data?
Ultimately, yoga demands that we spend time with that which cannot be calculated or put to scale. It suggests yoking to an all-pervading, immeasurable source, one that will never show up on a blood oxygen scan or hormone test. It is a practice to cherish the very life force we are given, not to measure and analyze it in a never to be satisfied pursuit of trying to make it better.
Photo: FitNish Media / Unsplash
