Wearables & tracking
Your body is already producing data every night. The technology byte is about reading it — and knowing which numbers to ignore.
Why track at all?
"How did you sleep?" gets a guess. A wearable gets an answer — and after three weeks, a pattern. Patterns are what we coach on: the nights that go wrong after a late dinner, the week HRV drops before you feel run down, the hot flashes that cluster around a certain time.
Tracking is not about hitting scores. It's about replacing guesswork with evidence, then acting on it.
No device required
If you don't own a wearable and don't want one, a symptom journal or a free phone app works. Most clients start with what they already have. When a device would help, I'll say which one and why — I don't sell them and I'm not paid by any brand.
Devices I work with
Each one is good at something different. We pick based on what you need to see.
Oura Ring
Best for sleep stages, resting heart rate, HRV and nightly skin temperature — useful for spotting hot flashes and cycle shifts.
Apple Watch
Good all-rounder. Sleep, heart rate, workouts, wrist temperature (Series 8+), and it's often already on your wrist.
Garmin
Strong on training load, recovery and "body battery." Best for people who are already active and want to train smarter.
Whoop
Recovery and strain focused, no screen. Good if you want a daily readiness signal without a watch face.
Fitbit
Affordable entry point. Sleep, steps, heart rate and stress tracking that's good enough to start seeing patterns.
Continuous glucose monitor
Two-week sensor (Lingo, Stelo, Libre) that shows how your meals, sleep and stress move your blood sugar. Eye-opening at midlife.
Cycle & symptom apps
Balance, Clue, Natural Cycles or a simple notes app. For perimenopause, a log of symptoms and timing is often the most useful data of all.
Smart scale
Weight trend, not daily weight. Useful mainly for body composition over months, never for daily judgement.
The numbers that matter in midlife
Most dashboards show twenty metrics. These are the six I actually look at.
Sleep duration and deep sleep
Total time and how much of it is deep and REM. Falls with age and with dropping estrogen or testosterone. The first thing we protect.
Heart rate variability
A stress and recovery signal. We watch your own trend, not the number itself — a drop usually means you need rest, not another workout.
Resting heart rate
Rises with poor sleep, alcohol, illness and overtraining. One of the most reliable early warnings.
Skin temperature trend
Nightly deviation from your baseline. Shows cycle phases in perimenopause and picks up night sweats you slept through.
Glucose response
How high and how long your blood sugar rises after meals. Insulin sensitivity changes at midlife for both women and men; this shows what your body does with what you eat.
Training load and steps
Enough movement to protect muscle and bone, not so much that recovery collapses. The balance shifts by stage.
Ready to switch on your first byte?
Start with a free 20-minute call, or take the two-minute quiz to see which byte needs attention first.
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