THE TRACKER TRAP

Your Fitbit or Oura Ring is meant to help your health by motivating you to exercise more, sleep better, and lower stress levels. But for some, fitness wearables have become yet another source of anxiety, fueling perfectionism and keeping them from feeling great. Here's how to make sure your tracker is working for you (and not you for it).

- LESLIE GOLDMAN

When it comes to getting her steps in, Mary Faith Green has a one-track mind. The 66-year-old retired claims consultant started wearing a fitness tracker in 2013 as part of a program at her workplace that rewarded employees with an insurance-premium reduction if they met certain goals. Green strapped on her Fitbit and aimed for the de rigueur 10,000 steps a day, three or four times a week. Seven years later, when the COVID-19 pandemic came, getting outside to walk those steps became a chance to connect safely with her St. Louis neighbors and escape the confines of lockdown.

But counting her steps eventually became an obsession for Green, who found that the more days she hit her goal, the more determined she was to preserve her streak. "Rain, snow, COVID—nothing stopped me," says the grandmother of nine. She even invested in a pair of crampons to help her better navigate the ice on winter walks. She kept her roll going for four years until, in 2024, a severe bout of the flu sidelined her for five days, "devastating" her. "Though I desperately wanted to get out and walk," she recalls, "I knew I finally had to throw in the towel and focus on rest."

A week later, though, Green started a new streak—and she admits to having gone to some extremes to keep it going. When traveling, she books early flights so she'll have time to get her steps in at her destination. At airports, she pulls her rolling suitcase only with the arm that's not wearing her Apple Watch, a choice she feels "more accurately captures every step." And if bedtime rolls around and Green still hasn't sufficiently appeased her tracker, she'll take a quick spin through her neighborhood park (2,500 steps) or around her cul-de-sac (500 steps) or walk laps around her house. "If I circle every room, it's 0.14 miles, so I do that about eight times for a mile, which is about 2,250 steps for me," she says.