In an era where every aspect of our health and well-being can be tracked, measured, and optimised, I find myself questioning the long-term costs of outsourcing our health to systems and algorithms.
With wearables that track our sleep quality and apps that remind us when to breathe, move or drink water, you’d think we’re becoming more attuned to our body’s needs. Yet paradoxically, many of us feel more disconnected from our bodies than ever.
As a holistic well-being coach who has navigated both personal health challenges and supported others on their journey to improved health, I've observed a subtle but significant shift in how we approach our wellness. While technology can offer us valuable tools and insights, there's a deeper conversation to be had about what we might be losing in our rush to digitise and optimise every aspect of our well-being.
The Seduction of Outsourcing Our Healthy Choices
The promise is alluring. Wear this device, download this app, follow this algorithm, and achieve optimal health. It's a compelling narrative that aligns perfectly with our modern desire for quick solutions and data-driven decisions. It also promotes the ideals of health sovereignty; we can take our well-being quite literally into the palms of our own hands. Yet beneath this digital wellness revolution lies a more complex reality.
When we override our intuition and delegate our decisions to devices, we risk disconnecting from our body's natural wisdom. Wisdom that has evolved over millennia. Our ancestors didn't need an app to tell them when to rest or how to breathe. They lived in harmony with natural rhythms, understanding the profound connection between their bodies and the world around them.
This might be a controversial perspective, but unless we consider the long-term impacts of relying on technology to inform our choices, we may be teaching ourselves to become incapable of ever being empowered sovereign beings.
Like this post so far? Subscribe to be notified about future posts
What Technology Can't Measure
Our current healthcare paradigm, built largely on (arguably) masculine-centred principles of measurement, control, and linear progress, often overlooks the subtle, cyclical nature of true holistic well-being. While technology excels at gathering data; steps taken, hours slept, and time between each heart beat. It struggles to capture the nuanced language of our bodies.
The intuitive knowing when something feels right or wrong for us.
The subtle shift in energy that precedes the manifestation of physical symptoms.
The deep wisdom and remembering that emerges in moments of stillness.
The profound impact of emotional and spiritual well-being on our physical health and visa versa.
The standardisation of wellness through our newly adopted technology often misses the nuanced cycles of our energy and vitality.
While a device might designate a window of "optimal focus time" based on general population data, it can't account for your unique creative rhythms or the subtle influence of the lunar cycle on your energy.
The menstrual cycle offers another powerful example where apps reduce a profoundly sacred journey to a simple bleed and fertility window, missing the rich layers of emotional, spiritual, and creative energy that flow through each phase.
The Hidden Costs of Wellness Tech
When we outsource our health to technology, we often pay in ways that aren't immediately apparent.
Diminished Body Literacy
Take the simple act of eating and nourishing our bodies with food, something our bodies have always instinctively known how to regulate. Today, many of us rely on apps to tell us when, what, and how much to eat, gradually drowning out our natural hunger and satiety signals.
What was once an intuitive conversation between our organs, cells and tissues has become a mechanical response to phone notifications and pre-set meal times.
The irony is that we often choose tech to help us make healthy choices about what to eat and when. Dismissing the reality that our body's innate wisdom always communicates what it truly needs for nourishment. We just don’t or have forgotten how to listen!
Disconnection from Natural Rhythms
Consider how our ancestors naturally adjusted their sleep patterns with the seasons. They understood the importance of longer rest periods in winter. They followed the guidance of the sun. Now, we override our body's seasonal wisdom to maintain the same rigid sleep schedule year-round, because our devices tell us that's optimal. Let’s not forget that our devices have been built to optimise our habits for a masculine-centred society!
This disconnection from natural light cycles and seasonal rhythms creates subtle but persistent stress on our systems, manifesting as unexplained fatigue, mood changes, and hormonal imbalances.
When we prioritise artificial metrics over natural rhythms, we risk disrupting the very systems we're trying to optimise.
Dependency Over Empowerment
The rise in the use of continuous glucose monitors perfectly illustrates our growing detachment from body wisdom. Rather than developing an intuitive understanding of how different foods affect our energy, mood, satiety and nervous system response, many now compulsively check their glucose spikes after every meal. The natural practice of listening to how food makes us feel is becoming replaced by an obsessive focus on numerical data. While these devices can offer valuable insights, an overreliance on them to ‘tell us what we feel’ often creates anxiety around eating and diminishes our natural ability to select and respond to food intuitively.
While tracking tools can provide valuable insights, the shift towards outsourcing our basic bodily awareness gradually erodes our confidence in making simple health decisions without technological validation. True health sovereignty requires us to balance external information with internal wisdom.
Reclaiming Our Regenerative Power
This isn't about rejecting technology entirely, it's about remembering that our bodies are inherently regenerative systems with an incredible capacity for self-healing. When we create the right conditions and remove obstacles to health, our bodies naturally seek balance.
Consider this: before the age of wearables and health apps, our bodies successfully regulated:
Sleep cycles
Hunger and satiety
Energy expenditure
Stress responses
Healing and repair
These innate capabilities haven't just disappeared. They've been drowned out by the constant stream of external inputs and digital metrics we’ve become conditioned to trust.
Notice how all of this tech costs money. Something doesn’t add up (to me).
How to Find Balance in the Digital Age
The path forward isn't about choosing between technology and natural wisdom. There can be a conscious integration built on the premise that technology can be a supportive addition to help us back into homeostatic balance.
Here's how we can begin to reclaim our natural healing wisdom while thoughtfully incorporating helpful technologies:
1. Practice Listening to Your Body
Start your day by checking in with your body before checking your devices. Notice how you feel. What is your energy like? What do you feel like you need?
2. Question the Metrics
When your app or device suggests an action, pause and check in with your body. Does this recommendation align with what you truly need right now?
3. Reconnect with Natural Rhythms
Spend time in nature observing the seasonal changes and notice how your body responds to different phases of the day and month. How do you feel when the sun is setting? How do you feel when the spring flowers begin to bloom?
4. Designate Tech-Free Days
Choose a day or more to disconnect from any wellness trackers you use and create more opportunities where you rely solely on your internal guidance system to choose what you eat, how you move and when you go to bed.
Moving Forward with Intention
From my point of view, the future of wellness doesn’t lie in complete technological dependence nor its total rejection but in conscious choice and collaboration. It's about recognising when technology serves us and when it separates us from our innate wisdom. It's about creating space to hear our body's whispers before they become cries for help.
Like any language, if we don't practice listening to our body's wisdom, we become less fluent in understanding its messages.
As you consider your own relationship with wellness technology, I invite you to pause and reflect:
How might your health journey shift if you balanced digital insights with listening to your body?
What might be possible if you reclaimed your power as the leading authority on your well-being?
The most sophisticated technology we'll ever encounter is our own body. Perhaps it's time we remembered how to honour it.
If you're feeling called to explore a more intuitive approach to well-being, I invite you to book a complimentary 20 minute call.
During this session, we'll:
- Explore your current health challenges and aspirations
- Identify what's holding you back from optimal vitality
- Discuss how we might work together to support your transformation
Together, we'll explore how you can create a more balanced relationship with technology while deepening trust in your body's wisdom.
About Farah Winning: As a certified holistic wellness practitioner specialising in the foundational principles for life-long health and harmony, I support women in finding sustainable approaches that empower them to experience lifelong health & vitality.
Comments