Have you ever almost pop off ? I used to think my wellness was infallible , but one second in November 2020 upend my animation and made me clear just how important technology is in our casual lives .
Everyone has probably heard stories about how theApple Watchcan save lives , but I never believe I would one day call on Apple ’s wearable to hold open mine . As it turns out , it did so repeatedly , and it meet a key part in assist me reconstruct my life .
Many Apple Watch feature are rightfully lauded for their lifesaving capabilities , and many of them have proven to be a boon for me . Here ’s how the Apple Watch has saved my life repeatedly .
A brush with death at the age of 33
To read the encroachment of the Apple Watch on my life sentence , you involve first to understand my wellness account . November 27 , 2020 , is a day that I will never blank out . It was 3 a.m. , I had just actuate back to San Francisco , and I woke up with my nerve pound . Instantly , I thought I was having a heart attack , and as it turn out , I was right . Just days before my birthday , my life had been completely upended by the first major aesculapian experimental condition i had ever have .
I had insure this coming for much of the twelvemonth before . I had turn a loss my father four months earlier , and shortly afterward , the stress started causing heart palpitations . I ’d also been expecting it for years , as both sides of my family have a story of most major health condition . The predecessor to all of these conditions existed far long before my own alternative exacerbated the issues .
The heart approach kicked off a new journey for me , one where health became a key part of my being . It took four days to undergo an angioplasty — a aesculapian routine where a balloon - like stent is put inside a blocked arteria — and be discharged , and then began a farsighted journeying to rebuilding my health that the Apple Watch play a important part in .
The Apple Watch could have helped me much sooner
I ’ve used an Apple Watch for years , and a few features kept me in much better condition . In particular , I ’ve always found the Activity Rings fantastically utilitarian in maintaining my wellness . Until the pandemic strike in 2020 , it motivated me to swim multiple meter per week and always outdo my set goals .
When I lost my father month before the middle attack , I switched from the Apple Watch to an analog spotter . My founding father loved his watch , and this was some variety of court to his passion for Rado - branded watch .
In hindsight , this was a determination I will regret for years to come , as I truly trust that the Apple Watch would have alerted me to my at hand nerve flack . As soon as I left the hospital , I bought the latest ( at the time)Apple Watch Series 6 , and it became an integral part of my multiyear health journey reconstruct .
How the Apple Watch saved my life repeatedly
If you ’ve ever had a brush with death , you ’ll know that the most challenging part of recovery is the wellness anxiousness do by the invisible sense of impending doom . Over the past decade of the life of its wearable , Apple has built a suite of wellness features design to aid in health parking brake . It ’s well-fixed to brush off these features , but I ’m living proof that they are improbably powerful .
I think that health will possibly be Apple ’s biggest share to humanity — asentiment that CEO Tim Cook agrees with — and while many features helped me find , a few prove crucial for my health .
The biggest of these is Medical ID . Apple remains the only major technology company to synchronise your medical records automatically , and on at least two juncture , this assist the paramedics attend to me in an emergency . A quick looking at my articulatio radiocarpea allowed them to see my wellness conditions , my parking brake contacts , and , crucially , all the medicine I was taking . The latter stopped them from giving me emergency medication that would have interacted with my nerve medication and possibly stopped my heart .
Part of recuperate from a heart attack is undergoing cardiac rehab , and during this period , you are also rebuilding your muscles . For me , this meant reconstruct my intact musculoskeletal system , as soon after the heart attack , I was unable to stick out straightforward . gloaming espial is a much - laud feature on the Apple Watch , and it prove to be a life belt . Twice , I fell , and the Apple Watch immediately adjoin emergency service while also notifying my emergency contacts .
Apple Watch is a great companion for chronic health conditions
Beyond its utile features in an emergency , there are many grounds why the Apple Watch is a great companion for those with chronic health conditions like mine . When you live thousands of miles from kinsperson , as I did then , the pinch contacts feature makes it easy to notify your friends and family — however far away they live — when the bad does happen .
There is also a suite of health features that I ’ve hail to rely upon . warmness rate monitoring prove to be particularly useful . It ’s been almost four years since my heart attack , but until thePixel Watch 3came along in the beginning this twelvemonth , I still relied on heart rate monitoring as a guide to how my heart was execute .
This is also particularly utilitarian while asleep , and my heart surgeon used the information from the heart rate monitoring while asleep to adjust my medications . One of these is a beta blocker — used to help insure and conquer your heart rate — but it can often leave in your heart pace drop too low . For the first three months after my heart attack , this was happening frequently overnight , and the information from the Apple Watch help my aesculapian squad determine the right dosage for me .
Other Apple Watch features can be particularly useful , although these could have been more in force for me . Blood oxygen monitoring is n’t the most precise , but it does help name when you may have respiratory job . The ECG app is a big means of running a single - jumper lead ECG , although this presents 1/12th of the data point that a aesculapian - grade ECG does , so I apace replace it with an at - home six - tether EKG gadget .
Apple’s big impact on our health
In the age since my pith attack , Apple has boom the Apple Watch and Apple Health to become a primal part of many the great unwashed ’s wellness . newfangled feature of speech have been added that allow for a more holistic outlook on your wellness from a single gimmick on your wrist .
WatchOS 8 add together heedfulness , which I ’ve found utile in helping combat anxiety . It also added fall espial during workouts and more exercise like Pilates . WatchOS 9 tote up Custom Workouts , good sleep insights , and AFib trailing , which helps zillion of people with undetected atrial fibrillation globally . WatchOS 10 improved mindfulness , exercise tracking , and medicinal drug reminder , which are especially utile when you take as many medications day by day as I do .
WatchOS 11was released a few hebdomad ago and vastly improved the Health cortege . Sleep reports are improved and more helpful in blot implicit in health conditions . This ties into sleep apnea spying on theApple Watch Series 10 , which can now avail you understand if you may have sleep apnea . It ’s in particular prevalent in those with heart disease , and the ability to detect it is one of the reason I receive theGalaxy Watch Ultraso appeal . The Vitals appalso cater a quick overview of overnight wellness metric and can identify whether these solution are typical or something underlie that postulate further probe .
Over the past four years , the Apple Watch has been a boon to my life sentence and health , and it has save my sprightliness several times . Many of the newfangled Apple Health feature article were n’t present during my recuperation from a sum attack , but are designed to spread out the lifesaving capability of the Apple Watch . I will in all probability always wear an Apple Watch — at least alongside the Pixel Watch 3 for itsloss of pulse detection — primarily because it has deliver my life legion meter and will likely continue to do so in the year to come .
