Garmin’s lifestyle journalization reflects one of Whoop’s best features

It turns out that the functionality of “lifestyle journalization” introduces with Garmin Watch Watch Announcement is not limited to this watch – it seems to be available for all Garmin users, which means that the application has made a huge stride to catch up with competitors like Whoop.

What is the journalization of the lifestyle?

This feature allows you to follow different habits, behaviors or factors that may have an impact on your health measures. For example, you can connect when you have caffeine or alcohol at night, and see how it affects your sleep. (Garmin tends to qualify them as “behaviors”, even if some of them are more like environmental factors or states of being illustrated, for example – but I allow it.)

Crythe tracker without screen with the expensive subscription (but probably worth it), Long had this kind of functionalityAnd this will give you detailed breakdowns of how your habits have affected your recovery. THE Apple Watch App Bevel also provides similar features, while the Oura Ring has “tags” in its applicationAlthough they are more for labeling than analysis.

Garmin’s version uses your recorded behaviors to generate reports that show how the factors you have recorded affect:

• Your sleep score

• Your night VRC

• Your night stress

These seem to be the only results, so you will not see if these behaviors affect, say, your current performance. And as for any feature of this type, the application cannot tell you if your behavior is deposit The positive or negative results you get.

For example, Whoop told me That I sleep worse the nights, I take melatonin, but it is only a correlation: melatonin probably does not aggravate my sleep; It is more likely that the connection is because I take melatonin on the nights when I am already late or I expect to have trouble sleeping.

What Garmin devices can use lifestyle journalization?

The recording of your behaviors does not require any specific device; I was able to activate it on an account that had no paired portable device. However, Garmin notes that to obtain significant reports, you will need a device capable of measuring the VRC (which also contributes to your sleep score and night stress). Most popular Garmin actors have VRC capacities, including coming, VivoAnd Precursor watches, and the new Index sleep instructor.

How to use Garmin’s lifestyle journalization

The functionality is sort of hidden, so I would not blame you for not knowing that she is there. Make sure your Garmin Connect application is up to date, then press the three-point menu in the lower right corner. Go to Training and planningSO health statisticsand then Lifestyle journalization.

The first time you do this, you will get some information screens explaining the functionality and asking you to recognize that it is not medical advice.

You will then select the items you want to save. Garmin recommends choosing “only some” elements to connect both, so you can know more about these specific things rather than trying to browse the data mountains. The application information screen judiciously emphasizes that if you record many different factors, “you can get contradictory data and have trouble determining what really has an impact on your health statistics.”

A non -exhaustive list of what you can save

• THE lifestyle The category includes alcohol, caffeine (morning or late), exercise (light, moderate or vigorous), late meals and intermittent fasting.

• THE Self-administered care The category includes cold showers, newspapers and sunlight.

• The treatments category includes acupuncture and massage.

• The sleep -related category includes the use of the CPAP machine, eyes for the eyes, reading in bed and having a pet in your room.

• The state of life category includes allergy symptoms, care, illness and holidays.

You can also create personalized items to connect. You can give them a quantity if you wish, or simply configure them as an yes / no response. You can also indicate whether the item is linked to the day or at bedtime. Finally, after choosing the behaviors you would like to connect, the application will ask you if you want related recalls morning and / in the evening.

To see the results of one of your behavior, you will have to accumulate five yes and five our for each. (As with the version of Whoop of this functionality, it is not useful to follow a behavior that you always do or never – there is simply not enough data to work.)

You can display your results from the training and planning menu, as above, and you can also add a card to the “A glance” section of your Garmin Connect application screen. The card will show if you have recorded your behavior for the day, and the boating will show what you have recorded today and in the past. The 4 Watch coming also has a widget for the connection of the lifestyle on the watch itself.