El gusto es mio

When my Misfit Ray’s batteries became flat on 4 June, I decided to give my #quantifiedself tracking (obsession) a bit of a break. Even though I was participating in a World Walking competition with a group at work, and so really needed to continue to count steps because every step counts, I ended up just using the figures captured by AppleHealth when I was carrying my phone, i.e. when wearing pocketed clothing. Which left me a little short of the mark, especially on Sundays. But I didn’t break and rush to a tracker shop! Although the situation did change yesterday…

Yesterday saw the informal launch of the Living Knowledge Network – a collaboration of @aboynejames, @SymboticaAndrew and myself. Watch this space for more details on that, but for now you can know that it involves us wearing  Mio Global SLICEs, as the picture shows. Mine is black, just in case you wondered (thanks, James!).

First impressions – el gusto es mio indeed! Of course, I’m glad in general to be tracking again, but I find the PAI feature – personal activity intelligence (which means that ‘everything counts’) – very exciting! I’ve yet to record a score, although I haven’t read the instructions properly and so perhaps it takes a few days…

I’m excited about the prospect of using this feature, and to be tracking my heart rate again (which my Misfit Ray did not allow). I was glad to get a sleep reading too – 1h35m deep sleep last night – and that prompted me to revisit my 23andme results to have a look at my likelihood of being a deep sleeper: I am a CC on this line and so not likely to be an especially deep sleeper. Phew. I was beginning to think that I’d need to put my recent exposure to sleep training, through my work on the InS:PIRE project (which involves sleep hygiene support for people who have been in intensive care and their carers), into practice. Back to the genes – they’re also a part of our new project! More posts on that to follow.

Meantime, it really is my pleasure to be tracking again. I miss it when I don’t track. I’ve also missed having the time displayed on my wrist (which my Misfit Ray did not allow either) – perhaps I’ll be on time more often now!