How I went from Apple Watch skeptic to devotee in one health scare

CNN

28-01-2025

The deluge of gym and fitness advertisements at the start of the year can feel smothering, but I need to tell you about how the Apple Watch played a major role in my personal health journey over the last few years. Not only did Apple's watch help keep me honest about my activity, but its health-tracking features brought it especially close to my heart.
Hilariously, I never thought I'd say anything close to this. I got my first Apple Watch in 2019, after years of thinking it wasn't important, and it only took three years for the smartwatch to truly become a critical part of my life. While I was hitting my daily activity goals in the watch's Fitness app, I was quietly in need of some improvements that workouts alone couldn't make.
Apple Watch Series 10
The latest Apple Watch upgraded the wearable to a larger display with even faster performance, without adding any bulk to its slim design.Read our review My story starts when I repeatedly resisted my colleagues' suggestions to get an Apple Watch. Just as I am now, I was a tech reviewer who prided himself on having strong opinions about the industry — and I definitely didn't want notifications on my wrist. I feel like my tech pings me more than enough as it is, taking me out of the moment to a frustrating degree. And yet, the true value in the Apple Watch arrived through its heart rate-monitoring notifications, when I got a high heart rate alert as I filed my taxes a couple of years ago. I wrote it off as nothing to be concerned about, because I swore my anxiety was just playing tricks on the tech. I was never in the best shape, not since I was a child at least, but I wasn't inactive either.
But these heart rate notifications did not end there, as I got another while watching the middling film 'Avatar: The Way of Water', where the surprising use of varying frame rates disoriented me and practically gave me a headache. I tried to act like that notification wasn't a huge concern, and I also wrote off a similar moment when watching Darren Arronofsky's 'The Whale,' a film where Brendan Fraser played a morbidly obese man. Again, I thought, 'nothing to see here, just some stress.'
My experience of getting this data and not processing it speaks to something I discussed with Dr. Rohan Khera, MD, MS, an Assistant Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Biostatistics at Yale. Dr. Khera confirmed my suspicions about the gap between collecting and acting on data, saying, 'the ability of health information to be captured on devices that consumers have access to has far outstripped our ability to process that information, both as patients and as clinicians.'
But it was one spring evening when I realized I needed to pay attention to these notifications. Soon after I upgraded my Apple Watch Series 5 to a Series 8, I had one more incident when I arrived at a venue after running around town. This time I had an added concern: My hands felt weird.
When I finally told my primary care physician about these notifications and incidents, I started to realize I should have been taking my Apple Watch alerts more seriously. Not only was he concerned about the specific high heart rates, but further testing revealed I was prediabetic, meaning my blood sugar levels were high enough that I was risking becoming diabetic. The news was a shock to my system, but the solution was exactly what I needed to hear: My doctor told me to simply lose weight. If I lost enough weight, I could get past this prediabetes diagnosis — though some just get stuck in that limbo state between the two.
Coincidentally, I'd just signed up for a gym membership (my first since the Covid-19 pandemic began), and I began to seek more advice on what to do. A personal trainer at that gym would later tell me that change was more weighted towards diet than I'd realized, with a 3:1 ratio in favor of my food and beverages impacting me — or, as they said, '75% diet and 25% exercise.'
And, so, I changed my habits. Tasty IPA beers from my local brewery became a rare treat instead of a nightly occurrence, and gone were the frozen snacks procured at the drug store and my interest in odd new limited edition Oreo flavors. In the year and a half since, I've found a basic moderation on treats, while also shifting my diet towards whole grains and alternatives such as chickpea-based pastas and pizzas.
Of course, that's not everything one can do for their own blood sugar health, as I learned while talking to Hannah Derrickson, a integrative health coach and functional practitioner. She told me that while it's good to have macronutrient diversity, she's worried that there isn't enough attention to how 'stress can have the same impact on blood sugar as a meal high in carbohydrates or the IPAs, all that kind of stuff,' and that 'people need to be aware of the fact that things like excess blue light access, caffeine, lack of sun, poor sleep … those can all impact your blood sugar as well.' The conversation with Derrickson felt perfectly timed, as I was already scheduled to begin talking with a therapist for my anxiety.
This reminded me of how a friend of mine who's in better shape than I am is probably wondering how he got a prediabetic diagnosis. Derrickson notes that 'even overworking or over-exercising can be stressors for some people, so this concept of stress and blood sugar can extend far beyond just the exercise and the diet even though that still is a huge focus.'
Just looking at the excess blue light question, I'll advise you to change your phone's settings, especially at night. On the iPhone, go into Settings, tap Display & Brightness and select Night Shift. Over on Android, look for Eye Comfort Shield or Blue light filter in the Samsung Galaxy phones' settings app, Night Light settings on Pixels and Eye Comfort settings on other Androids. Oh, and if you've heard about blue-light-filtering glasses, a 2023 study suggests those don't help with eye strain.
One thing Derrickson told me to watch out for is how cortisol, the stress hormone, is produced, because 'cortisol and blood sugar are best friends, so if you're raising that stress hormone, you're ultimately raising blood sugar as well.' Which means that even when you're doing right for yourself by working out, you're also raising your cortisol, so you have good reason to make sure you're not constantly spiking your cortisol with caffeine and workouts and a stressful day at work. Basically, consider everything in moderation to avoid sending your blood sugar on a rollercoaster-like path.
In that time, I also repeatedly upped my Move loop goal on my Apple Watch, eventually settling on 1,350 calories — which requires about 40 minutes or so of daily exercise and plenty of other movement too. I've downgraded that goal to 1,000 calories during these colder winter months.
This summer, I got the good news I was hoping for. Visiting my doctors again, I was told that I'd actually beaten the prediabetes diagnosis, though I can't quite do a victory run through all the favorite treats of my past. Instead, I'm pushing myself to keep to my own goals and standards, and upgrade everything as need be. I met with a dietician who gave me some advice about eating better, and I'm trying to learn more recipes so I can consume a greater variety of food.
I've currently settled into a mix of the elliptical machine at my local gym and at-home cardio thanks to the hyper-convenient Supernatural VR workouts I do in the Meta Quest 3. The latter's become my favorite way to break a sweat during busier days, and it also connects to my Apple Watch so it can track my heart rate to see how effective the workouts are and also log time spent and calories burned in the Apple Fitness app.
There's more to be done than just simple cardio, though. Derrickson recommended building muscle mass through the likes of strength training, something I've long put off. She explained that 'muscles can absorb glucose, which reduces the amount of sugar in the bloodstream, helping to combat prediabetes.' She also condensed it down further, saying, 'Muscle helps your body use the fuel, aka food, you're eating more efficiently.' And that's given me a renewed interest in adding strength training to my cardio routines. As for how to build muscle mass on your own, she recommended strength training for beginners using the Ladder app (which trains you to use kettlebells at home) and Evlo app.
Once you've got a wearable tracking your vitals, you'll need to realize that it's not as simple as showing your doctor the same notifications you got. The context of what you were doing when the notification happened is also crucial; Khera himself has had one high heart rate notification from stress that turned out to be something he could ignore. 'Your general state during that time of the notifications is very important, and if you've had more than one, then it should be raised to get some sort of attention.' If you're wondering, I've already forgiven myself.
But don't just bring that heart rate notification, because Khera notes that while it's derived from sensors constantly 'assessing heart rate, what it does not capture is electrocardiogram, the actual heart electrical activity. And most of these devices now have on-board ECG capacity.' The Apple Watch has its own ECG app, Samsung's Galaxy Watches have an ECG function in the Health Monitor app and there's an ECG app in the Google Pixel Watch (you'll need the Fitbit app installed, too). Getting the results from this combination of these tests is much more telling, and the ECGs in the wearables are often FDA-cleared, giving them more credibility.
Explaining all of this to a doctor can be more difficult. Khera told me that 'clinicians end up being very visual people,' and that presenting information to them verbally may not be as effective or as clear as providing a chart from the Health app on your devices.
My general advice for anyone who's paying attention to their health and wants to keep better track of it is to get an Apple Watch — if you're an iPhone owner, of course. As someone who repeatedly claimed he didn't need the Apple Watch for years before buying one, I'm completely surprised that I don't spend a day without it on my wrist these days.
I know people who just don't use theirs, or forget to charge it, but I'm on the other side of the coin, thanks in part to the 3-in-1 iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods charging stand I keep at my desk and bed. I'm even looking at the Apple Watch Series 10's larger screen with a bit of envy and curiosity. Heck, I've become so used to the convenience of using the Apple Watch for easy payments that I spent a whole week in London using it for all payments and public transit rides. I never even once had to think about conversion rates.
Because the Apple Watch nudged me to take my own health more seriously, and see my doctor, I see this accessory as something as powerful as anything I own. Not only that, it's helped me keep myself honest about my daily exercise goals as I fought back against my own personal health scare. So, if my story gives you any pause about how you're handling your health, or how a loved one might benefit from the Apple Watch, I'd heartily recommend it.
Rohan Khera, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) and of Biostatistics (Health Informatics) at the Yale School of Medicine. He leads the Cardiovascular Data Science Lab, which is working to create new strategies that improve outcomes for patients with or at risk for cardiovascular disease.
Hannah Derrickson, integrative health coach and functional practitioner who earned her health coaching certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and a practitioner certification from Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. CNN Underscored thoroughly tests all the products we cover, and we provide full transparency about how these products are tested, so you know they'll meet your standards. Our experienced writers and editors have many years of testing experience and work to ensure each article is carefully edited and all recommended products are properly vetted.
This story's writer, Henry T. Casey, has been using various Apple Watches for five years, and made sure to talk to medical experts to ensure this piece was responsibly written. He's spent several years of experience testing all sorts of electronics, including headphones, laptops and phones.
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