Unlocking Your Apple Watch’s Potential: A Deep Dive into Health Features
Explore how your Apple Watch can be more than just a gadget – it’s a powerful tool for proactive health management.
Maximizing Your Apple Watch for Health and Wellness
The Apple Watch, frequently enough seen as a stylish accessory, is packed with features designed to enhance your health and well-being. Beyond simple fitness tracking, it offers a suite of tools to monitor vitals, protect your hearing, aid in family planning, and even provide critical assistance in emergencies. Let’s delve into some of the most impactful health features, offering practical advice and insights for U.S. users.
The Apple Watch has many different health apps and notifications that aim to help you get in shape, monitor your hearing and heart health, spend more time outdoors, and so much more. It can even alert you about potential health issues so that you can discuss them with your doctor.
1. The vitals App: Your Overnight Health Snapshot
Imagine waking up each morning with a personalized health report right on your wrist. The Vitals app on Apple Watch aims to provide exactly that. By tracking key metrics overnight,it offers insights into your overall health and potential areas of concern.
The Vitals app tracks a range of health metrics, including:
- Heart rate
- Wrist temperature (apple Watch Series 8 or later, and all Apple Watch Ultra models)
- Respiratory rate
- Sleep duration
For users who purchased an Apple Watch sold in the U.S. before January 18,2024,blood oxygen measurement may also be available.
Dr. Lauren Cheung, a clinician at Apple, explained the app’s function: “When two or more of your metrics are out of range, we will notify you with information about why that might be. How it works is just after you wake up, you might see a notification from the Vitals app. Such as,maybe your heart rate and wrist temperature were high — this could be due to illness or alcohol consumption.”
This proactive approach allows you to make informed decisions about your health, whether it’s prioritizing rest or consulting with your doctor. As a notable example, a consistently elevated heart rate could prompt a visit to a cardiologist for further evaluation.
Setting Up the Vitals App: A Quick Guide
- Wear your Apple Watch consistently for at least seven days to establish your baseline ranges.
- Ensure the watch fits snugly on your wrist for accurate readings.
- Enable notifications by going to Settings > Vitals on your Apple watch.
- For sleep tracking, activate “Track Sleep with Apple Watch” and enable Sleep Focus in the Health app on your iPhone.
2. Noise Notifications: Protecting Your Hearing in a Noisy World
In today’s world, we’re constantly exposed to loud noises, from bustling city streets to concerts and sporting events. The Apple Watch’s Noise app monitors environmental sound levels and alerts you when your exposed to possibly harmful noise. This is especially crucial for U.S. residents, where noise-induced hearing loss is a significant public health concern.
According to Dr. Cheung, “The world can be loud, and we believe it’s critically important for you to be educated and empowered about how your environment, and the noise around you, can impact your hearing health over time. That way, you can take action; whether that’s moving to a quieter space or popping in AirPods Pro 2 with Hearing protection.”
The AirPods Pro 2 further enhance hearing health with features like a built-in Hearing Test, providing a baseline for your hearing and allowing for personalized audio adjustments.They can even function as hearing aids for individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss, a game-changer for accessibility.
Setting Up Noise Notifications:
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone.
- Tap “My Watch,” then “Noise.”
- select “Noise Threshold” and choose a decibel level based on world Health Association (WHO) recommendations.
3. Ovulation Estimates: Empowering Women’s Health
For women planning a family or simply seeking to understand their bodies better, the Apple Watch Series 8 and later, along with all Apple Watch Ultra models, offer a groundbreaking feature: ovulation estimates. By leveraging advanced temperature-sensing technology, the Cycle Tracking app can predict ovulation with greater accuracy.
Dr. Cheung highlights the remarkable technology: “We created new temperature-sensing capabilities on Apple Watch that help you understand nightly changes from your baseline temperature, which can be caused by exercise, jet lag or even illness.The unique two-sensor design improves accuracy by reducing bias from the outside environment, detecting changes as small as 0.1 degrees Celsius.”
She further explains the science behind it: “The reason we can do that is as after you ovulate, there is a biphasic shift, or simply put, an increase in temperature in response to changing hormones.” This information can also refine the app’s period predictions, providing a more complete view of a woman’s cycle.
Enabling Ovulation Estimates:
- Set up Cycle Tracking in the Health app on your iPhone or iPad, enabling fertility predictions and ensuring no ongoing cycle factors are logged.
- Enable “Track sleep with Apple Watch” and ensure Sleep Focus is active for at least four hours per night for five nights.
4. Fall Detection: A Lifesaver in Emergency Situations
Falls are a leading cause of injury among older adults in the U.S. The Apple Watch’s Fall Detection feature is designed to automatically detect hard falls and, if the user is unresponsive, contact emergency services. This feature can be a lifeline for seniors living alone or anyone at risk of falls.
According to Cheung, many Apple Watch users have reported the benefits of Fall Detection, sharing stories of how it has alerted emergency services and provided peace of mind to both users and their families. While the feature is automatically enabled for users over 55, it can be manually enabled for anyone.
Enabling Fall Detection:
- Open the Watch app on your iPhone.
- Tap “My Watch,” then “Emergency SOS.”
- Ensure “Fall Detection” is turned on. You can choose to have it always on or only on during workouts.
5. Handwashing Detection
In a post-COVID world, hand hygiene has become even more critical. The Apple Watch includes a handwashing detection feature that automatically detects when you start washing your hands and encourages you to wash for the recommended 20 seconds.
Enabling Handwashing Detection:
On your Apple Watch, open Settings, tap Handwashing and turn on the Handwashing Timer. You can do the same on a managed Apple Watch and set up handwashing reminders.
