You’d think I would have been more self-conscious about walking around New York City while wearing no fewer than six health trackers at a time. For the first six months of this year, I wore smart rings on both hands, fitness bands on both wrists, biosensors plugged into my arms, and sometimes even headphones that monitored my brain activity. I was a little embarrassed, sure, but mostly I was anxious.

This health tracking ensemble was part of an experiment — a failed one, I’ll admit. By tracking as many health metrics as possible, I thought I’d find a way to feel younger, more energetic, and more fit. Products like the Oura ring, the Whoop band, the Apple Watch, and a growing variety of continuous glucose monitors promise to track things like your heart rate, body temperature, and metabolic health metrics, while their companion apps crunch that data into actionable advice about how to live your life. If one health tracker is good for you, theoretically, half a dozen should be great.

What I learned from obsessively tracking my health for half a year is that paying too much attention to what your body is doing can ruin your life. Or at least it can ruin your understanding of healthy living, since too much information can steer your brain toward assuming the worst. Looking at the readouts from these fitness tracking apps sent me down dark holes of Googling symptoms and self-diagnosing conditions that my doctor assured me I did not have. But, I reasoned, he did not have all of the data that the health tracker collected, so he could be wrong, and AI, which is increasingly embedded in this tech, is very good at diagnosing things.

I wouldn’t caution against any and all health tracking. Now that the experiment is over, I’m only ever wearing one health tracker at a time. I’ve gained a new appreciation for how technology could become an essential part of healthy living in the near future, if you do it right. I’m not saying I have all the answers, but there are some things I would recommend to tracker-curious readers. And there are some things I would avoid at all costs.

Do wear a smart ring when you sleep

Out of over a dozen gadgets tested, the one device that I added to my daily routine........

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