Apple Watch needs a sick-day function

I had an Apple watch on. I was reminded to stand. I would make progress toward my goal if I just moved for a minute. I think I have bigger problems than thanks for the nudging.

I had a mild bout with a Viruses. The fatigue followed. Exhausted in bed, I decided to leave the watch on. Tracking my heart rate is important. I turned on the Apple Watch's irregular heart rhythm detection feature to make sure it was safe. I temporarily paused fitness goal notifications because I didn't want to wake up from a two hour nap with a message to exercise more.

When I received the watch as a gift, I was still a new user, but I enjoyed keeping track of my movements. My watch celebrated my activity streaks. The notifications made me feel good. I figured the Apple Watch would let me rest and not count against my hard-won momentum because of the global epidemic that claimed millions of lives and led to long-term chronic illness and disability.

I discovered that Apple does not make this easy. Change your goals completely is one way to do that. I ignored and manually silenced notifications after a few days, but there was no rest day option. If you stop taking care of yourself you will ruin your streak.

Users have been pushing for Apple to include sick mode for a long time. The Apple Watch is a high end item. The scale of the crises we face might make it seem laughable. This missing feature is indicative of cultural values that insist on the power of pain to make you a better person.

Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles chose not to compete in high-profile events in order to preserve their emotional and physical well-being. They were vilified by people who thought they were quitters. Apple, the most influential personal tech company in the world, has an opportunity to demonstrate that rest is the key to wellbeing. The company didn't comment on pleas for a sick day mode.

The onus is on the wearer to come up with a temporary solution so they don't betray their goals or streaks. The director of the Media Psychology Research Center told me that people shouldn't have to use hacks to maintain their health. A placeholder exercise that just counts time in order to satisfy a fitness tracker could be created.

"You should not have to hide illness or be ashamed that you need to take some time off," said Rutledge, adding that constant reminders of the goals you're not meeting sends a specific message. It's kind of negative, like you're not good enough. You've invested in this streak, or you've invested in these numbers, and now you're failing.

There are streaks that can be meaningful. Humans can detect patterns in their environment. The patterns reflect our efforts. Our streak makes it much harder to break.

Adam Alter is a psychologist and author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. He believes that streaks encourage obsessive engagement rather than healthy engagement by making it possible to turn a pleasurable or healthy activity into a habit when you're sick or tired.

Alter said that companies that develop streak-based products are unlikely to make it easier for consumers to stop engaging in related habits.

Alter said that giving people the option to turn off a streak function took all the power from the platform and gave it to the user. Allowing people to take a break is not something a company would want to do.

Apple Watch doesn't have a rest or sick-day option, but it does have a daily readiness score to help users decide if they should work out or not. There is a "pause" function that hides the wearer's status. The Oura ring, which provides detailed data about physical health but didn't start as a fitness tracker, will tell a person to rest based on its interpretation of heart rate, sleep, and temperature data. The ring's app suggests that the wearer turn on rest mode if it discovers that something is off. Balance of rest, recovery, and activity is emphasized by the function.

Oura's science communications lead and product marketing manager told me that the ring does not have any streaks. Users write to the company to say that its voice reminds them of a big sister who might say, "Hey, go to bed early, you don't seem well."

Many users use rest mode. Users with chronic illness or physical limitations use the function frequently. It wasn't a response to widespread illness that prompted rest mode to launch in October 2020. The Oura ring was first and foremost designed to detect sleep patterns so that wearers could improve their nighttime rest.

Sleep is the foundation for everything you want to accomplish.

I can definitely say that. A case of insomnia was caused by my tangle with Covid. It's not unusual for sleep problems to be caused by a COVID infection. More than 40% of long COVID patients had moderate to severe sleep issues after their illness, according to one study. I haven't been able to return to early-morning training since I contracted the virus 10 weeks ago. I'm trying to play the long game with my recovery, respecting my body's limits with the belief that doing so will make me stronger and healthier. I would have liked my Apple Watch to have made it easier to do that in the first place.