Use the Health Checklist for a safety overview, not just ignoring the Health app’s setup.
The Annual Safety Inspection for Your Body
Your car gets an annual inspection to ensure the brakes, tires, and safety systems are all working. The Health Checklist is that same comprehensive safety inspection, but for you and your devices. In two minutes, it runs through a list of powerful but often-overlooked features, like Fall Detection and Medical ID setup. It’s a simple, proactive guide that helps you enable the crucial safety nets that are silently built into your phone, ensuring they are ready to protect you in an emergency. It’s a health check for your health features.
Stop just tracking your steps with the iPhone. Do pair it with an Apple Watch for heart rate and ECG data instead.
The Pedometer vs. The Heart Monitor
Tracking your steps with just your phone is like having a simple pedometer. It tells you how far you’ve walked, but it knows nothing about the engine that’s powering the journey. Pairing it with an Apple Watch is like strapping on a professional-grade heart monitor. Suddenly, you’re not just counting steps; you’re seeing your heart rate during a workout, your resting heart rate over time, and can even take an ECG. It elevates your tracking from a simple motion sensor to a serious, insightful health tool.
Stop guessing your calorie burn. Do use a connected workout app or Apple Watch for more accurate tracking instead.
Guessing Your Car’s MPG vs. Reading the Dashboard
Guessing how many calories you burned on a walk is like trying to guess your car’s fuel economy by how long you drove. It’s a wild, inaccurate estimate. Using an Apple Watch or a connected workout app is like looking at your car’s smart dashboard, which uses data from the engine, your speed, and the distance to give you a precise “miles per gallon” reading. By using your heart rate, your body weight, and the workout type, your device can give you a much more accurate and scientific measure of your true energy burn.
The #1 secret for consistent fitness is sharing your Activity rings with a friend for accountability.
The Private Gym vs. The Workout Buddy
Working out alone is like having a private, solo membership to a gym. It’s easy to skip a day because no one will ever know. Sharing your Activity rings with a friend is like signing a pact to be each other’s workout buddy. Suddenly, there’s a social connection. You get a notification when they finish a workout, which inspires you to get moving. That little bit of friendly competition and mutual support is a powerful psychological trigger, turning a lonely, internal struggle into a fun, shared journey.
I’m just going to say it: The Mindfulness app’s “Reflect” prompts are more effective than most paid journaling apps.
The Wise Friend vs. The Complicated Workbook
Many journaling apps are like complicated, expensive self-help workbooks. They have complex interfaces and can feel like a chore. The “Reflect” feature in the Mindfulness app is like a wise, calm friend who, once a day, asks you a simple, single, insightful question. Prompts like “What is one thing you’re looking forward to today?” or “Recall a time you felt a sense of accomplishment” are gentle, powerful nudges toward gratitude and self-awareness. It’s a free, minimalist, and surprisingly profound tool for mental well-being.
The reason your sleep tracking is inaccurate is because you’re not setting a consistent Sleep Schedule.
The Blurry Photo vs. The Focused Portrait
Just wearing your watch to bed without a schedule is like asking a photographer to take a portrait in a dark, chaotic room. The resulting picture of your sleep will be blurry and out of focus. Setting a consistent Sleep Schedule is like telling that photographer, “I’m going to be sitting in this specific chair from 11 PM to 7 AM.” This instruction allows the camera to prepare, focus its lens, and use all its advanced tools to capture a sharp, detailed, and accurate portrait of your sleep stages.
If you’re still using a third-party app to track your medications, you’re losing the secure, integrated Reminders in the Health app.
The Sticky Note on the Fridge vs. The Smart Pillbox
Using a separate app to track your pills is like leaving a sticky note on your fridge. It’s a decent reminder, but it’s not very smart. The Medications feature in the Health app is like a secure, intelligent pillbox. Not only does it send you a discreet reminder, but it also keeps a secure log of every time you take a dose. Most importantly, it’s connected to your master health file and can warn you about potentially dangerous interactions between different medications—a safety feature that a simple reminder app could never provide.
The biggest lie you’ve been told about iPhone fitness is that you need expensive subscriptions to get in shape.
The Fancy Gym Membership vs. The Park Across the Street
The fitness industry wants you to believe that getting in shape requires an expensive, exclusive gym membership with fancy machines. That is a lie. Your iPhone is the free, beautiful, and incredibly effective public park across the street. The built-in Fitness app can track your runs, walks, and hikes. The free workouts on YouTube and the web are your “park benches” for bodyweight exercises. You don’t need a fancy membership to go for a run; you just need to open your digital “front door” and start moving.
I wish I knew about setting up my Medical ID when I first got my iPhone; it could save my life.
The ‘In Case of Emergency’ Card in Your Wallet
A Medical ID is the digital version of the “In Case of Emergency” card in your wallet, but it’s a hundred times smarter. First responders are trained to look for it on your lock screen, even if your phone is locked. They can instantly see your blood type, your allergies, your emergency contacts, and your medical conditions. It’s a silent advocate that can speak for you when you are unable to speak for yourself. It takes two minutes to set up and is the single most important health feature on your entire phone.
99% of users make this one mistake with their health data: not backing it up to iCloud.
The Medical File in a Cardboard Box
Your Health app contains the entire medical history of your life. Not backing it up to iCloud is like keeping that priceless, irreplaceable file in a single, flimsy cardboard box. If a “fire” happens (you lose or break your phone), that entire history is gone forever. By simply flipping the iCloud switch for the Health app, you are placing that file inside a secure, encrypted, fireproof vault in the cloud. Now, if you ever get a new phone, your entire medical history will be there waiting for you, safe and sound.
This one small action of adding emergency contacts to your Medical ID will give your family peace of mind.
The ‘Who to Call’ Note for First Responders
In an emergency, one of the first things first responders look for is who to call. Adding an emergency contact to your Medical ID is like pinning a clear, simple note to the front of your shirt that says, “If found, please call this person.” A paramedic can access this information from your lock screen without needing your passcode, and can immediately get in touch with your family to inform them of the situation. It’s a simple, 30-second action that provides a critical communication link when it matters most.
Use the Cycle Tracking feature for health insights, not just for predicting your period.
The Weather Forecast vs. The Climate Report
Predicting your next period is like a simple weather forecast. It’s useful information for the near future. But the real power of the Cycle Tracking feature is that it also acts as a climate report for your body. By logging symptoms like headaches or mood changes, the app can help you discover powerful, long-term patterns. It can show you how your cycle might be affecting your sleep, your energy levels, or your emotional state, transforming a simple calendar into a profound tool for understanding your overall health.
Stop just looking at your daily steps. Do pay attention to your “Walking Asymmetry” and “Step Length” for deeper insights.
The Odometer vs. The Car’s Alignment Check
Your daily step count is the odometer on your car—it tells you how far you’ve gone. But deep inside the Health app are metrics like “Walking Asymmetry” and “Double Support Time.” These are the high-tech sensors performing a professional alignment check on your car. They can reveal subtle imbalances in your gait or a change in your stability over time. These are the kinds of early-warning signs a physical therapist would look for, providing a much deeper, more clinical insight into your mobility and health.
Stop getting distracted during workouts. Do use a custom “Fitness” Focus Mode to silence notifications.
The ‘Do Not Disturb’ Sign on the Gym Door
Getting a work email or a social media notification in the middle of a workout is like having a delivery person knock on the gym door while you’re in the middle of a heavy lift. It shatters your focus and your intensity. A custom “Fitness” Focus Mode is like putting a big, clear “Do Not Disturb: Workout in Progress” sign on that door. It can automatically silence all non-urgent notifications the moment your workout begins, creating a protected, distraction-free zone that allows you to be fully present and get the most out of your session.
The #1 hack for better hearing health is using the headphone audio level checker in Control Center.
The Speedometer for Your Ears
When you’re driving, you use your speedometer to make sure you’re not going at a dangerously high speed. The Headphone Audio Levels feature is that exact same tool, but for your ears. You can add it to your Control Center, and it will show you a real-time “speedometer” of the decibel level inside your headphones. It will even warn you when you’ve been listening to music at a “speed” that could cause long-term hearing damage. It’s a powerful, simple tool for protecting one of your most precious senses.
I’m just going to say it: Apple Fitness+ is the best value fitness subscription for anyone with an iPhone.
The Netflix of High-End Workout Classes
A single boutique fitness class, like SoulCycle or Barry’s Bootcamp, can cost a lot of money. Apple Fitness+ is like a Netflix subscription for those same high-end classes. For one low monthly price, you get unlimited, on-demand access to a massive library of beautiful, well-produced workouts with world-class trainers, across dozens of categories from HIIT to yoga to kickboxing. If you already own an iPhone or Apple Watch, it’s a stunningly affordable way to get a premium, boutique fitness experience in your own living room.
The reason you can’t stick to a meditation habit is because you haven’t tried the simple “Breathe” sessions.
The One-Minute Mental ‘Reset’ Button
The idea of starting a 20-minute daily meditation practice can feel daunting, like deciding to run a marathon. The “Breathe” feature in the Mindfulness app is not a marathon; it’s a simple, one-minute “reset” button for your brain. It’s the mental equivalent of stepping outside for a single, deep breath of fresh air when you’re feeling overwhelmed. The beautiful, simple animation guides you through just a few, calming breaths. It’s an accessible and deeply effective entry point into mindfulness that anyone can stick with.
If you’re still manually logging your water intake in a separate app, you’re losing the convenience of logging it from your watch face.
The Manual Logbook vs. The One-Tap Counter
Using a separate app to log your water is like having to find a special logbook and a pen every time you take a sip. It’s a hassle. By using an app that has a complication for your Apple Watch, you can put a tiny water droplet icon right on your watch face. Now, logging a glass of water is as simple as raising your wrist and tapping the droplet. It turns a clumsy, multi-step chore into an effortless, one-second action, making it dramatically easier to stay consistent and hydrated.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that the step counter in your iPhone is perfectly accurate.
The Car’s Odometer vs. The Surveyor’s Laser
Your iPhone’s step counter is like the odometer in your car. It is a very, very good and reliable estimate of the distance you’ve traveled, and it’s perfect for tracking your general progress. However, it is not a surveyor’s laser. It’s not a scientifically precise, millimeter-perfect measurement tool. It can be fooled by bumpy roads or by you just shaking your phone in your hand. It’s a fantastic guide and a powerful motivator, but you shouldn’t treat its final number as absolute, indisputable gospel.
I wish I knew that the Health app could securely store my medical records from my doctor.
The Secure, Digital Master File for Your Medical History
For most of us, our medical history is scattered across a dozen different doctor’s offices in a collection of messy, paper folders. The Health Records feature is like a secure, encrypted, digital master file. If your doctor or hospital is part of the network, you can have them send a copy of all your lab results, your immunizations, and your prescriptions directly to your phone. It allows you, for the first time, to have a single, unified, and easily accessible copy of your own medical history, all in one place.
99% of people don’t know they can use their iPhone’s camera to measure their respiratory rate.
The Sci-Fi Medical Scanner in Your Hand
This feature is straight out of a science fiction movie. It’s like a medical tricorder that can read your vitals from a distance. By propping up your phone and letting the camera watch your chest rise and fall for a few seconds, the Health app can use advanced computer vision to accurately measure your respiratory rate—the number of breaths you take per minute. It’s a powerful and futuristic health metric that is completely hidden, requiring no special sensors, just the camera you already use every day.
This one small habit of reviewing your “Trends” in the Fitness app will show you if you’re actually making progress.
The Coach Reviewing Your Game Tape
It can be hard to tell if your fitness efforts are actually paying off. The “Trends” section of the Fitness app is like a wise coach who sits down with you to review your “game tape” from the last few months. It will show you a simple arrow—up, down, or flat—for your key metrics. It can tell you if your average walking pace is getting faster, or if your daily calorie burn is trending upwards. It cuts through the noise of daily fluctuations and gives you a clear, honest assessment of your long-term progress.
Use the “Handwashing” timer on Apple Watch, not just guessing if you’ve washed for 20 seconds.
The Automatic Kitchen Timer for Your Hands
We all know we’re supposed to wash our hands for 20 seconds, but most of us just guess. The Handwashing feature on Apple Watch is like a smart, automatic kitchen timer for your sink. Using the motion sensors and the microphone to listen for the sound of running water and soap, it senses when you start washing and automatically starts a 20-second countdown timer on your wrist. It’s a brilliant and simple piece of automation that helps you effortlessly build a healthier habit, no guessing required.
Stop ignoring high heart rate notifications. Do consult a doctor if you receive them unexpectedly.
The Smoke Alarm for Your Body
A high heart rate notification from your Apple Watch is the smoke alarm for your body. Nine times out of ten, the alarm might go off because you’re “burning the toast” (you’re just exercising or stressed). But there is always that small, crucial chance that the alarm is signaling a real, hidden “fire”—an underlying medical issue that you are not aware of. You should never, ever just ignore the alarm. It’s a potentially life-saving early warning system that is designed to be checked out.
Stop just tracking your runs with GPS. Do pay attention to your running power and cadence for better form.
The Speedometer vs. The F1 Race Car’s Telemetry
Tracking your run with just GPS and time is like judging a race car’s performance by only looking at its top speed. Professional drivers use a dashboard of advanced telemetry. Your Apple Watch has this same dashboard for your run. Metrics like “Running Power” (how much work you’re doing), “Vertical Oscillation” (how much you bounce), and “Cadence” (your steps per minute) are the professional-grade data that can help you improve your form, run more efficiently, and avoid injuries.
The #1 secret for a healthier diet is using a food logging app that syncs with the Health app.
The Chef and the Doctor Sharing Notes
Trying to manage your diet and your fitness separately is like having your personal chef and your doctor working in two different buildings, with no way to communicate. When you use a food logging app that is connected to Apple Health, it’s like your chef and your doctor are in the same room, constantly sharing notes. Your Health app can see exactly how the “fuel” you’re eating is affecting your “engine’s” performance—your workouts, your weight, and your energy levels—creating a powerful, holistic view of your health.
I’m just going to say it: The “Stand” ring is secretly the hardest one to close consistently.
The Annoying Coach Who is Always Right
The Exercise and Move rings can often be closed in one or two big, heroic efforts. The Stand ring is a different beast. It is the annoying, nagging coach who doesn’t care about your heroic sprints; he cares about consistency. He demands that you show up and do a little bit of work, every single hour, all day long. It’s a test of consistency over intensity. And in our modern, sedentary lives, this quiet, hourly demand to simply get up and move for one minute is often the most challenging demand of all.
The reason you feel groggy is because your alarm is waking you in the middle of a deep sleep cycle, which sleep tracking can help identify.
The Fire Alarm in the Middle of a Deep Dream
Being jolted awake by a loud alarm is like having a fire alarm go off in the middle of your deepest, most restorative sleep. It leaves you feeling disoriented, confused, and groggy. Sleep tracking on your Apple Watch can show you your sleep stages. By seeing when you are in “Deep” sleep versus “Light” sleep, you can better understand why you feel the way you do when you wake up. Some apps can even use this data to intelligently wake you during a period of light sleep, which feels much more natural.
If you’re still using a noisy alarm, you’re losing the gentle wake-up of haptic feedback from an Apple Watch.
The Loud Alarm vs. The Gentle Tap on the Shoulder
A traditional, audible alarm clock is a brute-force instrument. It’s a loud, blaring noise that wakes up not just you, but your partner, your kids, and probably your dog as well. The silent alarm on an Apple Watch is a gentle, civilized, and personal tap on the shoulder. The watch’s Taptic Engine produces a series of distinct, gentle vibrations on your wrist that can slowly and quietly bring you out of sleep without making a single sound. It’s a peaceful, private, and deeply futuristic way to start your day.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to “close your rings” every single day to be healthy.
The ‘Perfect Attendance’ Award vs. A Real Education
Chasing an unbroken, year-long streak of closing your rings is like a student who is obsessed with getting a “perfect attendance” award. It feels good, but it’s not the same as getting a real education. Your body, like your brain, needs rest and recovery days to get stronger. A healthy lifestyle is not about achieving a perfect, unbroken streak of digital awards. It’s about long-term consistency, listening to your body, and understanding that a rest day is not a failure; it is a crucial and productive part of the process.
I wish I knew that I could show my Medical ID from the lock screen in an emergency.
The ‘Break Glass in Case of Emergency’ Button
In an emergency, a first responder can be faced with your locked, unresponsive phone. But your Lock Screen has a secret “break glass in case of emergency” button. By tapping “Emergency” and then “Medical ID,” anyone can get access to the life-saving information you’ve entered—your blood type, your allergies, your emergency contacts—without ever needing your password. It’s a crucial, bypass feature that is specifically designed to give helpers the information they need to save your life.
99% of users don’t customize the metrics they see during a workout on their Apple Watch.
Customizing Your Car’s Dashboard for the Racetrack
When you’re driving your car on a racetrack, you don’t need to see the radio station or the fuel economy. You need to see your speed, your RPM, and your lap time. Your Apple Watch is the same. During a workout, you can have a custom “racetrack dashboard.” You can choose to display your heart rate, your distance, and your pace, and hide the metrics you don’t care about. It’s a powerful customization that allows you to create the perfect, at-a-glance dashboard for your specific fitness goals.
This one small action of enabling Fall Detection, especially for older relatives, can be a literal lifesaver.
The Automatic ‘Life Alert’ Button
Fall Detection is like a modern, intelligent “Life Alert” button that you don’t have to remember to press. If you, or an older family member, takes a hard fall, the Apple Watch can detect it. If you don’t respond after a minute, it will automatically call emergency services and send a message to your emergency contacts with your exact location. It’s a powerful, proactive safety net that can be the difference between getting immediate help and being left alone after an accident. It is a literal lifesaver.
Use the ECG app to take an electrocardiogram, not just relying on the heart rate sensor for heart health.
The Stethoscope vs. The EKG Machine
The standard heart rate sensor is like a doctor’s stethoscope. It’s a great tool for listening to the rhythm and rate of your heart. The ECG app, however, is like wheeling in a full, hospital-grade EKG machine. It takes a much more detailed, clinical measurement of the electrical signals of your heart. It’s a powerful diagnostic tool that can detect signs of atrial fibrillation, a serious heart condition. It’s the difference between a routine check-up and a detailed, medical-grade cardiac screening, right on your wrist.
Stop just tracking the time you’re in bed. Do analyze the stages of your sleep (Core, Deep, REM) instead.
Knowing You Were ‘at Home’ vs. Knowing What Rooms You Were In
Just tracking your total sleep time is like knowing that you were “at home” for eight hours last night. It’s not very useful. Analyzing your sleep stages is like having a report that shows you exactly how much time you spent in each room: two hours in the “kitchen” (Light sleep), two hours in the deep-cleaning “utility room” (Deep sleep), and two hours in the creative “dream studio” (REM sleep). It’s a much more insightful and actionable picture of the quality and structure of your nightly rest.
Stop ignoring your cardio fitness (VO2 max) levels. Do work on improving it as it’s a key indicator of overall health.
The ‘Miles Per Gallon’ Rating for Your Body’s Engine
Cardio Fitness, or VO2 Max, is the “miles per gallon” rating for your body’s engine. It is a clinical measure of how efficiently your body can take in oxygen and deliver it to your muscles during exercise. It is widely considered by doctors to be one of the single best indicators of your overall long-term health and longevity. Your iPhone and Apple Watch can give you a very good estimate of this crucial number and track it over time, providing a powerful, data-driven incentive to improve the efficiency of your most important engine.
The #1 hack for staying motivated is competing in a seven-day Activity Challenge with a friend.
The Friendly, Week-Long Marathon
A seven-day Activity Challenge is like spontaneously challenging your friend to a friendly, week-long marathon. It’s a private competition to see who can earn the most activity points over the next seven days. You get points for closing your rings, and you can see your friend’s progress in real-time. It’s a powerful dose of gamification and social accountability. That little bit of friendly rivalry is often the single most effective hack for pushing yourself just a little bit harder than you would have on your own.
I’m just going to say it: You don’t need a Peloton; an iPhone with Fitness+ and a basic spin bike is just as good for most people.
The World-Class Trainer vs. The Brand of the Treadmill
A Peloton is an excellent piece of hardware, but its real magic is in its motivating, high-quality classes. But you don’t need to buy their specific, expensive “treadmill” to get a great workout. You can buy any good-quality, affordable spin bike or treadmill, place your iPhone or iPad on it, and stream a world-class Apple Fitness+ class. For a fraction of the price, you get the same essential experience: a great piece of equipment and a brilliant, motivating instructor. You are paying for the trainer, not the brand name on the machine.
The reason you have trouble focusing is because you’re not using the Mindfulness app for short mental breaks.
The Mental ‘Coffee Break’
When you’re working hard, you take a short coffee break to rest your body. The Mindfulness app is designed to be a “coffee break” for your brain. The one- to five-minute “Breathe” and “Reflect” sessions are like stepping away from your desk, closing your eyes, and taking a few, slow, deliberate breaths. This small, intentional act of disengaging from the chaos can be a powerful reset button for your focus and your nervous system, allowing you to return to your work with a calmer and clearer mind.
If you’re still not syncing your third-party scale with the Health app, you’re losing a seamless way to track your weight.
The Scale That Automatically Emails Your Doctor
Using a “dumb” scale and manually typing your weight into your phone is a chore that’s easy to forget. A “smart” scale that is connected to Apple Health is like having a scale that automatically and securely emails your “doctor” (the Health app) your weight the moment you step off it. There is no manual entry, no friction, and no forgetting. It creates a seamless, automatic, and long-term graph of your progress, making it dramatically easier to stay on track.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that health tracking is complicated; Apple Health makes it simple.
The Automatic, Private Diary
The idea of “health tracking” can sound like a complex, scientific chore, requiring spreadsheets and manual data entry. This is a lie. The Apple Health app is like a simple, private, and mostly automatic diary. Your phone and watch are already silently and automatically recording dozens of data points—your steps, your sleep, your heart rate—without you having to do anything. All you have to do is occasionally open the “diary” and see the beautiful, easy-to-read charts that tell the story of your health.
I wish I knew I could export all my health data to share with a doctor or coach.
Printing Out Your Entire Medical File
Your Health app contains a massive, detailed, and rich history of your personal health journey. And it’s your data. Hidden in the app is an “Export All Health Data” button. This is like going to your hospital’s records room and asking for a complete, printed copy of your entire medical file. It will generate a single, comprehensive file that you can then take to a new doctor, a specialist, or a personal trainer, giving them an unprecedented, data-rich insight into your long-term health trends.
99% of users don’t use the “Time in Daylight” sensor to ensure they’re getting enough sunlight for their mental health.
The Light Meter for Your Well-Being
We know that getting enough sunlight is crucial for our mood and our health. The Apple Watch has a hidden ambient light sensor that acts as a “light meter” for your life. It silently and automatically tracks the number of minutes you spend outdoors in the daylight. The Health app then presents this in a simple chart. It’s a powerful and completely new kind of metric that can give you a data-driven nudge to get outside, transforming an abstract piece of wellness advice into a concrete, measurable goal.
This one small habit of checking your resting heart rate trend will alert you to potential overtraining or illness.
The ‘Check Engine’ Light for Your Body
Your resting heart rate is one of the most powerful indicators of your body’s overall condition. It’s like the “idle speed” of your car’s engine. A consistent, downward trend is a great sign of improving fitness. However, a sudden, unexplained spike in your resting heart rate is like the “check engine” light on your dashboard. It can be an early warning sign that you are over-training and need a rest day, or even that your body is fighting off an illness before you’ve even started to feel the symptoms.
Use the “Audio Transcripts” feature for Fitness+ workouts if you have trouble understanding the instructor.
The ‘Subtitles’ for Your Workout
Sometimes, in a fast-paced workout with loud music, it can be hard to catch every single word the trainer is saying. The “Audio Transcripts” feature is the “subtitles” for your workout. With a simple swipe, you can see a real-time, written transcript of the instructor’s coaching. It’s a fantastic accessibility feature for the hard-of-hearing, but it’s also incredibly useful for anyone who wants to double-check the instructions for a specific move without having to stop and rewind the video, ensuring your form is always perfect.
Stop just using your iPhone for workouts. Do use it to download and listen to “Time to Walk” episodes for inspiring stories.
The Podcast That’s Also Your Personal Walking Buddy
“Time to Walk” is a completely unique and brilliant feature. It’s like a podcast, but it’s also your personal walking buddy. Each episode features an interesting person—from a scientist to a musician to an actor—who goes on a walk with you and tells you a series of personal, inspiring stories. They even describe the sights and sounds of their own walk, and will pause to show you photos they “took” along the way. It’s a beautifully produced and deeply immersive experience that can transform a boring walk around the block into an inspiring journey.
Stop trying to remember your prescriptions. Do use the Medications feature with its custom visuals and schedules.
The Picture of the Pill on the Pillbox
The Medications feature is a brilliant tool for managing your prescriptions. It goes beyond a simple reminder. When you add a new medication, you can customize its shape and color within the app. This is like having a perfect, clear picture of the exact pill you need to take right on the front of your digital pillbox. This visual confirmation is incredibly helpful for anyone taking multiple medications, as it provides a simple, at-a-glance check to ensure you are taking the right pill at the right time.
The #1 secret for understanding your health is looking for correlations between different data points in the Health app.
The Detective Connecting the Clues
The Health app is a room full of clues. The real secret is to play detective. The “Highlights” section will start to do this for you, showing you charts that overlay multiple data points. You can look for correlations. You might see that on the weeks you got more “Time in Daylight,” your average mood was higher. Or that on the nights you had a late-night workout, your “Time in Deep Sleep” was lower. By looking for these patterns, you can move from just collecting data to gaining real, actionable insights into your own body.
I’m just going to say it: The built-in Noise app on Apple Watch is one of the most underrated health features.
The Guardian Angel for Your Hearing
The Noise app on your Apple Watch is a silent, vigilant guardian angel for one of your most precious and irreplaceable senses. It is constantly and silently monitoring the decibel level of your environment. It’s not recording you; it’s just measuring the volume. If you find yourself in a place—like a loud concert or a noisy subway platform—where the volume is high enough to cause permanent hearing damage over time, it will give you a gentle, discreet tap on the wrist. It’s a simple, brilliant, and potentially life-altering health feature.
The reason your posture is bad is because you’re constantly looking down at your iPhone.
The Heavy Book You’re Always Hunched Over
Your head is a heavy object, like a 10-pound bowling ball. When you are standing up straight, your spine is perfectly designed to support it. When you are hunched over, looking down at your phone, it’s like you are holding that 10-pound bowling ball out in front of you with a fishing rod. The strain on your neck and your upper back muscles is immense. That chronic, downward-looking posture is a modern epidemic of pain and a direct result of the heavy “book” we are constantly holding in our hands.
If you’re still using a generic workout app, you’re losing the personalized recommendations of Apple Fitness+.
The Generic Workout Poster vs. The Personal Trainer
A generic workout app is like a poster on the gym wall. It shows you a great workout, but it’s the same workout for everyone. Apple Fitness+ is like a personal trainer who knows you. It knows your workout history, it knows what you enjoy, and it knows your current fitness level. Its recommendation engine will suggest new workouts that are specifically tailored to you, helping you to discover new trainers and new types of exercise that you are statistically very likely to enjoy, making your fitness journey feel personal and curated.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you can “biohack” your way to health with a dozen apps; consistency is key.
The Fad Diets vs. The Simple, Healthy Meal
The world of “biohacking” is like the world of fad diets. It promises a magical, quick-fix shortcut to health through a complex combination of gadgets, apps, and supplements. This is a lie. The real, boring, and undisputed secret to health is not a hack; it’s consistency. It’s the simple, unglamorous, and deeply effective act of eating well, moving your body, and getting enough sleep, day after day. Your iPhone is a powerful tool for tracking that consistency, but it is not a magical replacement for the hard work itself.
I wish I knew that the Health app could help me track my symptoms when I’m feeling sick.
The Detailed Diary for Your Doctor
When you go to the doctor, they will ask you a lot of questions about your symptoms. The Health app has a comprehensive “Symptom Tracking” feature that is like a detailed, private diary for when you’re feeling unwell. You can log the severity and timing of dozens of different symptoms, from a cough to a headache to fatigue. Arriving at the doctor’s office with this detailed, timestamped log of your symptoms can provide them with a huge amount of valuable data, helping them to make a more accurate and faster diagnosis.
99% of people don’t add their blood type to their Medical ID.
The Most Important Piece of the Puzzle
In a serious medical emergency, knowing your blood type is one of the most critical pieces of the puzzle for the doctors and paramedics who are trying to save your life. It can save precious, life-or-death minutes in a trauma situation. Yet, it is the one field in the Medical ID that almost everyone leaves blank. Taking the time to find out your blood type and add it to your phone is a simple, one-time action that could have a profound and life-saving impact in a worst-case scenario.
This one small action of adding the Health app’s “Favorites” to your summary will keep your key metrics front and center.
The Dashboard of Your Car
The Health app collects hundreds of different data points. It can be overwhelming. The “Favorites” feature is like customizing the dashboard of your car. You can choose the few “gauges” that are most important to you—like your steps, your sleep, and your resting heart rate—and put them right on your main “Summary” screen. This creates a simple, clean, and at-a-glance dashboard that shows you your most important vital signs without you having to dig through a hundred different menus.
Use your iPhone to track your mobility metrics, not just your steps, as you get older.
The Mechanic Checking Your Car’s Suspension, Not Just the Odometer
As we get older, how far we walk (our steps) is less important than how well we walk. The “Mobility” section of the Health app is like a wise mechanic who is checking the “suspension” and “alignment” of your body. It uses the sensors in your phone to track things like your “Walking Steadiness” and “Stair Ascent Speed.” These are powerful, clinical-grade metrics that can be an early indicator of an increased risk of falling, providing you with data that you and your doctor can use to maintain your mobility and independence.
Stop just counting reps. Do use an app that tracks your form using the iPhone’s camera.
The Virtual Coach Who Watches You
Counting your reps is just one part of a good workout. Proper form is everything. A new generation of fitness apps can use your iPhone’s camera and intelligence to act as a virtual coach. It’s like having a personal trainer who can actually watch your squat or your push-up in real-time. The app can then give you immediate, corrective feedback on your posture and your form, ensuring that you are performing the exercises safely and effectively, preventing injury and maximizing your results. It’s the future of home fitness.
Stop being sedentary. Do enable “Stand Reminders” to nudge you to get up throughout the day.
The Gentle Nudge from Your Colleague
Sitting at a desk all day is terrible for your health. The “Stand Reminders” on your Apple Watch are like a friendly, polite colleague who gently taps you on the shoulder ten minutes before the end of the hour and whispers, “Hey, we’ve both been sitting for a while. Let’s get up and stretch for a minute before our next meeting.” It’s a simple, quiet, and surprisingly effective nudge that can break the long, unhealthy periods of sedentary behavior that define our modern work lives.
The #1 hack for post-workout recovery is using the Mindfulness app for a guided cooldown meditation.
The Deep, Relaxing Sigh After the Race
After an intense workout, your body and your mind are in a high state of stress. A proper cooldown is crucial. The Mindfulness app contains a collection of short, guided “Cooldown” meditations. These are like a long, deep, and restorative sigh for your entire nervous system. The trainer’s calm voice guides you through gentle stretching and mindful breathing, helping to lower your heart rate, reduce muscle tension, and transition your body from a state of intense work into a state of deep recovery and calm.
I’m just going to say it: The gamification of fitness with rings and awards actually works.
The Gold Star Chart for Adults
The rings, the awards, and the streaks in the Fitness app can seem a little silly and childish. But they work because they are tapping into a deep and fundamental part of our human psychology. They are the “gold star chart” for adults. That little burst of dopamine you get when you close your rings or earn a new “Perfect Week” award is a powerful, positive reinforcement that tricks your brain into wanting to do it again tomorrow. It’s a simple, brilliant, and surprisingly effective psychological hack.
The reason you don’t stick with running is because you’re not using “Audio-Paced Workouts” to stay on track.
The Running Coach Who Whispers in Your Ear
Many new runners fail because they start out too fast, get exhausted, and give up. An “Audio-Paced Workout” is like having a professional running coach who is jogging right next to you, whispering the perfect pace in your ear. It can guide you through a run with a specific tempo of beats or spoken cues, helping you to maintain a consistent, sustainable effort. It takes the guesswork out of pacing and allows you to just focus on your form and your breathing, making your runs more effective and more enjoyable.
If you’re still not using your iPhone to track your nutrition, you’re ignoring a huge piece of the health puzzle.
The Fuel You Put in Your Engine
You can have the most powerful race car in the world, with the best training and the most advanced tracking, but if you are putting cheap, low-quality fuel in the tank, it is going to perform terribly. Nutrition is the “fuel” for your body. It is the single biggest and most important piece of the entire health puzzle. By using an app to track your food intake, you are finally paying attention to the quality of your fuel, which will have a more profound impact on your performance than almost any other variable.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that the health features are only for serious athletes.
The Gym That’s Open to Everyone
There’s a misconception that the advanced health features on the iPhone and Apple Watch are like an exclusive, intimidating, high-performance training facility that is only for Olympic athletes. This is a lie. These features are a public park and a community health center. They are designed to help normal, everyday people move a little more, sleep a little better, and be a little more mindful. They are powerful, accessible, and democratizing tools that can help anyone, at any fitness level, on their own personal health journey.
I wish I knew about the “Stair Speed” metric to assess my risk of falling as I age.
The Agility Test for Your Daily Life
As we get older, our risk of a dangerous fall increases. The “Stair Speed” metric in the Health app is a powerful and surprisingly simple agility test that runs silently in the background. By using the sensors in your phone, it can measure the speed at which you ascend and descend stairs. A significant decrease in this speed over time can be a powerful, early clinical indicator of a declining sense of balance and an increased risk of a future fall. It’s a proactive, data-driven insight into your long-term mobility.
99% of users don’t know they can sync their dental records to the Health app.
The Master Medical File for Your Teeth
For most of us, our dental history is a separate, isolated file that lives only at our dentist’s office. But your oral health is a crucial part of your overall health. If your dental provider supports it, you can now sync your dental records—from procedures to diagnoses—directly into your secure, encrypted Apple Health app. This allows you to add another huge, important chapter to your master medical file, creating a more complete and holistic picture of your health journey, from your heart rate to your molars.
This one small habit of taking a “mindful minute” with your iPhone before a stressful meeting will change your performance.
The Deep Breath Before You Walk on Stage
Right before you have to give a big presentation or walk into a stressful meeting, your heart is pounding and your mind is racing. The best thing you can do is take a single, deep, and calming breath. The “Breathe” feature in the Mindfulness app is the guided version of that one, perfect breath. Taking just one minute to follow the simple, calming animation on your screen can lower your heart rate, calm your nervous system, and clear your mind, allowing you to walk into that room with a sense of focus and calm confidence.
Use your iPhone’s screen time data as a mental health metric, not just as a productivity tool.
The Honest Mirror of Your Attention
Screen Time is often seen as a tool for productivity, a way to scold yourself for using social media too much. But it is also a powerful mental health metric. It is an honest mirror that reflects where you are choosing to spend your most valuable asset: your attention. A week where your screen time is unusually high, or where you spent hours mindlessly scrolling, can often be correlated with periods of high stress or low mood. It’s a data point that can help you understand the relationship between your digital habits and your mental state.
Stop just tracking your weight. Do track your body fat percentage with a smart scale for a more accurate picture of your health.
The Difference Between a Pound of Muscle and a Pound of Fat
The number on a traditional scale is a simple, dumb metric. It doesn’t know the difference between a pound of dense, healthy muscle and a pound of fluffy, unhealthy fat. You could be getting stronger and healthier, but the number on the scale might not budge. A smart scale that can measure your body fat percentage and sync it to your Health app gives you a much more intelligent and accurate picture of your body composition. It’s the difference between a simple odometer and a full engine diagnostic.
Stop ignoring your heart rate variability (HRV). Do use it as an indicator of your body’s recovery and stress levels.
The Stress Test for Your Body’s Engine
Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a complex metric, but it’s like a sensitive stress test for your body’s “engine”—your nervous system. A high HRV is like a car that is idling smoothly; it’s a sign that you are well-rested, recovered, and ready for a challenge. A low or declining HRV is a sign that the engine is under stress—from a hard workout, poor sleep, or emotional stress—and that it might need a recovery day. It’s a powerful, predictive metric that can tell you how ready your body is to perform.
The #1 secret for a custom workout plan is using the “Custom Plan” feature in Fitness+.
The Personal Trainer Who Builds Your Weekly Schedule
Walking into a gym without a plan is a recipe for failure. The “Custom Plan” feature in Fitness+ is like hiring a world-class personal trainer to build a complete, multi-week workout schedule just for you. You tell the “trainer” what days you want to work out, how long you have, and what types of exercise you enjoy. It will then intelligently build a balanced, day-by-day plan, queuing up the perfect classes for you and helping you to stay consistent and progress towards your goals. It takes all the guesswork out of working out.
I’m just going to say it: Your iPhone knows more about your health than you do.
The Silent, 24/7 Observer
You are the conscious pilot of your own body, but you are often a biased and forgetful observer. Your iPhone and Apple Watch are the silent, objective, and tireless co-pilots who are constantly monitoring the ship’s systems in the background. They are tracking your heart rate while you sleep, your walking steadiness as you move, and the volume of the world around you. They have a vast and ever-growing database of objective, unbiased facts about your health that your own conscious, subjective mind could never hope to match.
The reason your diet fails is because you’re not using an app that visualizes your macronutrient intake.
The Financial Budget for Your Food
A successful diet is like a successful financial budget. It’s not just about the total number of “dollars” (calories) you spend; it’s about what you spend them on. An app that tracks your macronutrients—your protein, carbs, and fats—is the detailed, itemized budget for your food. It can show you that while your total “spending” is on track, you are over-spending on “entertainment” (fats and carbs) and under-spending on “investments” (protein). This detailed breakdown is often the key to understanding why you’re not getting the results you want.
If you’re still relying on your memory, you’re losing the ability to track potential side effects with the Medications log.
The Science Lab Notebook for Your Body
When you start a new medication, your doctor will ask you to watch for any side effects. The Medications log in the Health app is the perfect, private science lab notebook for this experiment. By logging when you take your medication and also using the “Symptom Tracking” feature, you can create a detailed, timestamped record. This can help you and your doctor to see if there is a correlation between the new medication and any new symptoms you’re experiencing, turning a vague feeling into concrete, useful data.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that health data isn’t secure on your iPhone.
The Locked, Encrypted, Medical Safe
Your health data is the most personal and private information you have. The Health app is not a flimsy, cardboard box; it is a fortified, encrypted, digital safe. The data is encrypted on your device and in iCloud, and you hold the only key (your passcode or Face ID). Apple has deliberately designed the system so that they cannot see or access your health data. It is one of the most secure and private implementations of personal data storage in the entire tech industry. Your medical file is safe.
I wish I knew that I could use my iPhone to store my vaccination records.
The Secure, Digital Wallet for Your Medical Papers
Your vaccination record is a crucial piece of your medical history, but it’s often a flimsy, easily-lost piece of paper. The Health app allows you to create a secure, verifiable, digital copy of that record. It’s like having a dedicated, encrypted sleeve in your digital wallet for your most important medical papers. You can download your records from your healthcare provider, and then have a permanent, un-losable copy that you can access and show whenever you need it, right from your phone.
99% of users don’t realize the Health app can warn them about drug interactions.
The Personal Pharmacist in Your Pocket
When you take multiple medications, there is always a risk that they could have a dangerous interaction with each other. The Medications feature in the Health app is like having a brilliant, vigilant pharmacist living in your phone. As you add your medications to the list, it will automatically cross-reference them against a massive database. If it detects a potentially serious interaction between two of your prescriptions, or even with alcohol, it will raise a critical alert. It’s a powerful, potentially life-saving safety feature.
This one small action of sharing your health data with a family member can provide peace of mind for everyone.
The ‘Spare Key’ to Your Medical File, for Emergencies Only
The “Health Sharing” feature is like giving a trusted family member—like your spouse or your adult child—a sealed, “in case of emergency” envelope that contains a spare key to your medical file. You have complete control over what they can see. They can get notifications if you have a high heart rate alert or a fall, and they can check in on your general activity trends. It’s a powerful tool for families, especially with aging parents, that provides a huge amount of peace of mind through a secure and private connection.
Use the blood oxygen sensor on Apple Watch, not just for spot checks, but for understanding your respiratory health.
The Oxygen Gauge for Your Body’s Engine
Your body’s engine runs on oxygen. The Blood Oxygen sensor on your Apple Watch is the “oxygen gauge” for that engine. While a single spot check is interesting, its real power is in its ability to take measurements silently in the background, especially while you sleep. A consistent trend of low blood oxygen levels during the night can be a sign of a potential respiratory issue, like sleep apnea. It’s another powerful piece of the puzzle that can help you and your doctor understand your overall respiratory and sleep health.
Stop just going to the gym. Do use Fitness+ to try new workout types like kickboxing, yoga, or dance.
The Buffet vs. The Same Meal Every Day
Going to the gym and only ever using the same treadmill and the same set of weights is like going to a huge, beautiful buffet and only ever eating the bread rolls. It’s boring, and your body will quickly adapt. Fitness+ is the full buffet. It’s a fantastic opportunity to try a new “dish” that you would never normally be exposed to. Trying a kickboxing, dance, or Pilates class can challenge your body in new ways, work different muscles, and, most importantly, keep your fitness journey exciting and fun.
Stop carrying your insurance card. Do take a picture of it and store it in a secure note or the Files app.
The Secure, Digital Photocopy
Your physical insurance card is a flimsy piece of plastic that you need at the most inconvenient times. A simple and effective hack is to take a clear, high-quality photo of the front and back of your card. You can then store this “digital photocopy” in a locked note in the Notes app, or in a secure folder in the Files app. Now, you have a perfect, readable copy of your card with you at all times, saving you from that moment of panic at the doctor’s office when you realize you’ve left your wallet at home.
The #1 hack for staying hydrated is a smart water bottle that syncs with your Health app.
The Water Bottle with a Fuel Gauge
A smart water bottle is like a car that knows how much fuel is in its own tank. It has sensors that can tell how much you’ve had to drink, and it will automatically and wirelessly send that data to your Apple Health app. It is the ultimate, frictionless hydration hack. It removes the single biggest barrier to tracking your water intake: having to remember to do it. It puts the entire process on autopilot, giving you a perfect, effortless record of your hydration throughout the day.
I’m just going to say it: Paying for a calorie-counting app is a waste of money when so many free ones exist.
The Fancy Notebook vs. The Free One
A paid calorie-counting app is like a beautiful, leather-bound, gilt-edged notebook. It might have a few extra fancy features, but its fundamental purpose is to be a place where you write things down. There are a huge number of excellent, free calorie-counting apps that are the simple, clean, and perfectly functional notebooks from the stationery store. For the core task of tracking your food, the free options are more than powerful enough. Don’t pay for the fancy leather when the simple notebook does the exact same job.
The reason you’re not improving your run times is because you’re not using the “Pacer” feature on your Apple Watch.
The ‘Ghost Car’ on the Racetrack
In racing video games, you can often race against a “ghost car”—a translucent version of your best previous lap. The “Pacer” feature on your Apple Watch is that ghost car for your run. You can tell it you want to run a 10-minute mile, and it will show you a real-time, moving “pacer” on your watch face. Your job is to simply keep up with the ghost. It provides instant, visual feedback on your speed, taking the mental guesswork out of pacing and helping you to nail your target time.
If you’re still not using your iPhone to help you with mental health, you’re missing out on a huge range of resources.
The First-Aid Kit for Your Mind
Your iPhone is not just a tool for your physical health; it is a powerful and private first-aid kit for your mind. It contains a “journal” for reflecting (the Mindfulness app), a “meditation cushion” for calming down (the Breathe app), and a direct, private “hotline” to a huge number of therapeutic resources, from apps like Headspace and Calm to the mental health assessments in the Health app. In a world of stress and anxiety, it is an incredibly powerful and accessible toolkit for managing your mental well-being.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need a personal trainer; Fitness+ is a great substitute.
The World-Class Trainer on Your TV
A personal trainer is an amazing, but very expensive, luxury. The biggest lie is that this is the only way to get expert guidance. Apple Fitness+ is like having a team of the world’s best, most charismatic, and most motivating personal trainers living in your television, available on demand, 24/7. For the price of a couple of coffees a month, you get access to a level of professional instruction and motivation that was, until very recently, only available to the wealthy. For most people, it’s a revolutionary substitute.
I wish I knew how to use the “Mindful Cooldowns” after my workouts sooner.
The ‘Off-Ramp’ for Your Body and Mind
Ending an intense workout abruptly is like slamming on the brakes of a speeding car. It’s jarring. A Mindful Cooldown in the Fitness+ app is the long, gentle “off-ramp” for your workout. It’s a five- or ten-minute session that combines light stretching with guided meditation. It’s designed to not only cool down your muscles but also to calm your mind and your nervous system, helping you to transition from a state of high-energy work into a state of deep, restorative recovery. It’s the perfect, holistic end to any workout.
99% of people don’t use the mental health assessment quizzes available in the Health app.
The Private, Standardized Check-In for Your Mood
The Health app contains a set of standardized, clinical-grade questionnaires that are used by doctors to screen for anxiety and depression. These are like a private, confidential, and completely judgment-free check-in for your mental state. It’s a simple, multiple-choice quiz that you can take periodically. It can help you to better understand your own mental state, to recognize patterns over time, and can provide a concrete, objective starting point for a conversation with a friend, a family member, or a healthcare professional.
This one small habit of logging your mood will help you identify triggers and patterns in your mental state.
The Weather Diary for Your Emotions
Logging your mood in the Health app is like keeping a simple, daily weather diary for your emotions. Was today “sunny” (pleasant), “cloudy” (neutral), or “stormy” (unpleasant)? This one small, 10-second habit can, over time, create an incredibly powerful chart of your emotional landscape. By overlaying this “weather report” with other data, you can start to see the patterns. You might notice that your “stormy” days often come after a night of poor sleep, or that your “sunny” days often correlate with a morning workout.
Use the “State of Mind” logging feature, not just a third-party journal, to see how sleep and exercise affect your mood.
The Detective Connecting Your Body and Mind
The “State of Mind” feature is a brilliant detective. It doesn’t just ask you how you feel; it also asks you why you feel that way. But its real power is in its ability to connect the clues. It can take your log of a “pleasant” mood and automatically show you the other data from that day. It might highlight that on your happiest days, you also got eight hours of sleep and spent 30 minutes exercising. It’s a powerful tool for visualizing the direct and powerful connection between your physical habits and your mental well-being.
Stop sitting all day. Do use the stand reminders and a third-party app to guide you through office stretches.
The Personal Trainer for Your Desk
The stand reminders on your Apple Watch are the first line of defense against a sedentary life. But you can take it a step further. By pairing those reminders with a stretching app, you can create a complete “desk-side personal trainer.” When your watch tells you to stand up, you can open an app that will guide you through a simple, two-minute routine of neck, shoulder, and back stretches. It’s a powerful combination that can combat the aches, pains, and long-term damage of a desk-bound job.
Stop ignoring your environmental sound levels. Do use the Noise app to protect yourself from long-term hearing damage.
The Guardian for Your Ears
The Noise app on your Apple Watch is a silent, vigilant guardian for your hearing. It’s constantly and quietly measuring the decibel level of your environment. If you find yourself in a place—like a loud subway, a noisy restaurant, or a concert—where the volume is high enough to cause permanent hearing damage over time, it will give you a gentle, discreet tap on the wrist. It’s a simple, brilliant, and potentially life-altering health feature that protects one of your most precious and irreplaceable senses.
The #1 secret for a better doctor’s visit is coming prepared with well-documented data from your Health app.
The Organized Patient with the Detailed File
Going to the doctor with vague complaints is like going to a mechanic and saying, “My car is making a funny noise.” A much better approach is to arrive with a detailed file. By showing your doctor the clear, beautiful charts from your Health app—your heart rate trends, your sleep data, your logged symptoms—you are transforming yourself from an unreliable narrator into an organized, data-rich patient. This detailed file can provide your doctor with a huge number of valuable clues, helping them to make a faster and more accurate diagnosis.
I’m just going to say it: Your iPhone is the most powerful personal health device ever created.
The Medical Lab on Your Wrist
In the past, to measure your heart’s electrical signals (an ECG), your blood oxygen levels, or your detailed sleep stages, you would have had to go to a specialized medical lab and get hooked up to a dozen machines. Your iPhone, when paired with an Apple Watch, is that entire medical lab, shrunk down to the size of a watch and made available to you 24/7. It is a revolutionary and democratizing piece of technology that has put a previously unimaginable amount of personal health data directly into the hands of ordinary people.
The reason you can’t sleep is because you’re looking at your bright iPhone screen in bed.
The ‘Blue Sky’ Sun in Your Bedroom
Your brain is a simple machine. When it sees bright, blue-toned light, it thinks, “It’s the middle of the day, I should be awake and alert!” Your iPhone’s screen is a tiny, powerful “blue sky” sun. When you stare into that bright sun right before you try to sleep, you are sending the strongest possible signal to your brain that it is not, in fact, time for bed. The blue light from your screen is a powerful chemical signal that actively suppresses the melatonin your brain needs to feel sleepy.
If you’re still just using the Health app for steps, you’re only using 1% of its capabilities.
The Supercomputer You Use as a Doorstop
The Apple Health app is a vast, powerful, and deeply complex supercomputer for your personal wellness. It can track, analyze, and correlate hundreds of different data points, from your heart to your sleep to your medical records. Using it only to look at your daily step count is like buying a billion-dollar NASA supercomputer and using it as a simple, four-pound doorstop. You are ignoring the incredible, life-changing potential that is sitting, silently and powerfully, right there in your pocket, waiting to be explored.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to be tech-savvy to use the Health app.
The Automatic, Self-Writing Diary
The idea that you need to be a “tech expert” to use the Health app is a huge lie. The app is designed to be an automatic, self-writing diary. For the most part, you don’t have to do anything. Your phone and watch are already silently and automatically recording dozens of data points in the background. You don’t need to understand how the “ink” works; you just need to occasionally open the “diary” and look at the beautiful, easy-to-read charts that are telling the story of your health.
I wish I knew that my iPhone could graph my hearing test results over time.
The Personal Audiologist in Your Pocket
If you get a hearing test from an audiologist, you can ask for a copy of your “audiogram.” You can then take a picture of this graph, and the Health app will be able to digitize it and add it to your health records. It’s like having a personal audiologist in your pocket. Over the years, as you add new tests, the app can create a powerful, long-term graph of your hearing health, allowing you and your doctor to see if your hearing is changing over time. It’s a fantastic tool for taking proactive control of your auditory health.
99% of users don’t set up “Health Sharing” with their family for emergencies.
The ‘Emergency Key’ to Your Medical File
The “Health Sharing” feature is like giving a trusted family member a sealed, “in case of emergency” envelope that contains a spare key to your most important medical information. You have complete control over what they can see. They can get critical alerts, like a fall detection or a high heart rate notification, and they can check in on your general activity trends. It’s a powerful tool that provides a huge amount of peace of mind, especially for those with aging parents or medical conditions, through a secure and private connection.
This one small action of reviewing your health trends once a month will keep you more engaged with your well-being.
The ‘Quarterly Review’ for Your Body
In business, you have a quarterly review to see if you are on track to meet your goals. The “Trends” section of the Health app is that quarterly review for your body. Taking ten minutes once a month to look at the simple up-or-down arrows for your key metrics—like your resting heart rate, your steps, and your sleep—is a powerful habit. It cuts through the noise of daily fluctuations and gives you a clear, honest, and data-driven picture of the long-term direction of your health, keeping you motivated and informed.
Use all the health features your iPhone offers, not just letting it be a device for distraction.
The Double-Edged Sword in Your Pocket
Your iPhone is a powerful, double-edged sword. In one hand, it can be a weapon of mass distraction—a source of endless scrolling, anxiety, and comparison. But in the other hand, it can be a powerful tool for self-improvement—a health tracker, a mindfulness guide, a fitness coach, and a medical diary. Most people only ever use the first edge of the sword. By consciously choosing to engage with its powerful health and wellness features, you can transform it from a source of distraction into a genuine tool for living a better life.