Jeanette Cajide has been equipped with an elite heart rate variability monitor since September. And a temperature-controlled mattress topper. And a continuous glucose monitor for levels. And an Oura ring, which measures heart rate variability as well as resting heart rate, breathing rate and temperature. “Yeah, I’m a little bit crazy about the devices,” says Ms. Cajide, director of strategy and operations at consulting firm Clareo.
She has a good reason. After returning to figure skating four years ago, she won a national championship. Then, last September, she broke her leg landing an axel jump. Ms. Cajide, 44 years old, will compete again in eight weeks – against many skaters who are half her age.
She tries to overwrite nearly two decades as a “sedentary adult” working in technology and investment banking. “I try to make up for lost time. I’m against time, ”she says. “With the sensors and data I can optimize in order to get the greatest possible mileage out of my body.”
One cannot escape the movement of the quantified self. Measuring biomarkers used to be the main concern of extreme athletes and extreme freaks. No more.
“I think the attitude is changing. The severity of the pandemic has made people realize that having a sensor is not a good idea, ”says Michael Snyder, chairman of the genetics department at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, whose research suggests data from smartwatches, among other things – Changes in heart rate, steps and sleep – can be used to detect Covid-19 as early as nine days before symptoms.
