You don’t need a fancy Apple Watch to get details on your heart health. With this trick, you just need a phone.
Can't get a good night's sleep? This wearable tech might be the solution
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We all understand the importance of getting a good night’s sleep, yet when it comes to actually banking a solid eight hours of bed rest, many of us fall short.
And it’s not just carving out the time in your schedule to get those hours of shuteye that’s the problem; for many of us, it’s the quality of the sleep we get that needs improvement.
But how do you go about improving your sleep quality when you’re asleep? You start by collecting data, and that’s where GO2SLEEP: The AI-powered Device For Restful Sleep comes into the picture.
The device measures key data while you snooze, but the makers of the GO2SLEEP realize you don’t need any more impediments to a good night’s rest. So all the sensors are incorporated into a silicone band that you wear around your finger.
It’s comfortable enough that it won’t disturb you and secure enough that it won’t slip off. It’s also waterproof, in case you forget to take it off before your morning shower.
Through motion sensors and pulse detectors, you get an impressive range of data about your sleep habits in the morning.
These include your heart rate, the number of times you tossed and turned (and when), and perhaps most importantly, your AHI. That stands for Alpha Hypopnea Index, and it’s a measure of the oxygen saturation level in your blood. If it drops significantly several times a night, that’s an indicator you may have sleep apnea.
That information is an important first step. Once you have it, the GO2SLEEP companion app can make an estimation of your sleep apnea and the level of severity. It will also offer tips you can use to actively improve the quality of your sleep, or recommend you see a doctor in acute cases.
For simple tweaks to your habits, its vibration alerts can encourage you to change position and avoid severe instances of apnea.
GO2SLEEP is by no means a substitute for seeing the doctor, but it’s a great way to get a better understanding of your quality of sleep. Komando readers can get GO2SLEEP: The AI-Powered Device For Restful Sleep for $129 today.
“Destroying my mind”: That’s how 22-year-old Sarah Hills felt about her Oura Ring (paywall link). Every spike in heart rate or dip in her “readiness score” sent her into a panic. It’s called “Oura paranoia,” and she’s not alone. Oura’s own head of science says he takes breaks from wearing his ring. You might want to do that with a wearable, too.
10 minutes
That’s how long a Lufthansa flight cruised without a pilot. The copilot passed out mid-flight while flying solo, because the captain was on a bathroom break. Autopilot kept things chill, but it took five unanswered chimes, an emergency code and some serious heart rate spikes before the captain could break back in and take over.
Watching your life: Meet Van Hutcherson, a 60-year-old from Chicago, who thought he was in great shape. Then his Apple Watch woke him up one morning with high heart rate alerts. He found out he had an atrial flutter that could’ve led to a stroke. Thankfully, he got treatment. Thinking twice about your own health? Here are the latest Apple Watches.
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⌚ Her watch saved her life: Dr. Amanda Faulkner, a 51-year-old psychiatrist from New Zealand, thought her new Apple Watch was faulty for always nagging about her heart rate. Then it spiked to over 90 BPM, and doctors found she had acute myeloid leukemia. This rare cancer was caught just hours before her organs could have failed. Thankfully, she’s now in remission.
I 🫶 this: Apple Watch to the rescue for Sue Dumbault from Atlanta. The 48-year-old got an alert that her heart rate was at 137 bpm for more than 10 minutes. That’s about how high mine gets when I sprint! Many hospital visits later, Sue had open-heart surgery that saved her life.
20 minutes
Of dancing is just as good as a gym session or jog. Researchers found shaking your booty can get your heart rate up to a health-enhancing level (paywall link). Need a speaker? Here’s a cool one on sale.
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I 🫶 this: Apple’s new $250 Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds have built-in heart rate monitoring that kicks in when you start working out. Whoa, no more clicking buttons on a watch to track a run? Its battery life is good, too, at 45 hours with the charging case and 10 more hours if you turn off noise cancellation.
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💊 He takes 54 pills a day: Tech millionaire Bryan Johnson, on a mission to reverse aging, figured out one of his daily supplements was actually making him older. The culprit was rapamycin, which comes with rough side effects like a higher resting heart rate and skin infections. Catch my podcast with Bryan here.
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