Thanks to fitness trackers, we are all flooded with a large amount of data.

We can all know our resting heart-rate, real-time heart rate or the amount of time we spent last night in REM sleep, deep sleep, light sleep, or laying awake in bed. We also have a count of how many steps we took, and how many minutes we spent at an elevated heart-rate each day.

Despite having all this data, only a minority acts upon it. Only a fraction of people set fitness targets, track them and use them to get in better shape. For the rest of us, that data is harmless at best. Data we cannot / do not act upon can turn into a source of stress – more so if those metrics fluctuate.

More data isn’t always a good thing. Data that we act upon is information. Data that acts upon us, but we do not act upon is a liability.