It seems like everyone has a wearable bio-tracker, from screenless wristbands and smart watches to rings and continuous glucose markers. The average person now has an unprecedented level of access to personalized health data. Every night’s sleep, spike in blood sugar, and fluctuation in heart rate is tracked, recorded and available 24/7. But is that too much information? And how does it affect your ability to coach?
As wellness coaches, our job isn’t to interpret clinical biomarkers, but we do play a vital role in helping clients cut through all the noise and reflect on why they’re tracking and what data is actually meaningful to them. And from there, we can help them build sustainable habits that encourage meaningful change, which they will hopefully see reflected in their data. But first, let’s look at some of the underlying questions behind the personal data boom.
The Mindset Behind the Metrics: Why Do We Gather So Much Data?
One reason behind the current obsession with bio data could lie in having a sense of control. If knowledge is power, being able to track heart rate, sleep performance, and even menstrual cycles so acutely gives people a feeling (whether it’s true or not) that they can have some effect on their overall health simply by knowing what’s going on under their skin.
Athletes naturally want to optimize their performance, so it’s sensible that they would want to monitor the effects of daily habits on training and recovery. And for many people, seeing numbers improve without having to go to the doctor can feel like proof of progress. But it can also be crippling and overwhelming.
All of this assumes that the data is accurate, which is hotly debated between physiologists and individual fitness tracker brands. And then there’s the realization that there is just so much data. Do we really need all of it? Do your clients feel overly anxious about not getting good sleep scores or do they obsess over small fluctuations in their metrics that are natural and shouldn’t be worrisome?
When every variable is tracked and logged, it can cause clients to become uncertain about what habits will actually move the needle and thus ultimately cause more confusion. This is where wellness coaches can help clients find a healthier balance between tracking metrics and making lifestyle changes that have physically and mentally measurable results beyond numbers.
Scope of Practice: Clarifying the Coach’s Role in Biomarker Data
First of all, coaches need to set and understand some boundaries. We are not here to interpret medical diagnostics or prescribe clinical treatments, as any true interpretation of this data is for qualified medical professionals and healthcare providers.
However, what we can do (and do exceptionally well) is act as a reflective sounding board, an accountability partner, and a behavior change strategist. A wellness coach is more like a compass that guides clients through the divide between raw data points and real-world behavior change. Coaches can also support clients by helping them have more informed and productive conversations with their physicians.
Ask your clients: “What’s important to you about tracking this data?” or “What have you learned since starting to track your health metrics?” You could also ask about what your client has learned since they started tracking their health metrics or what impacts have they noticed on their health since they’ve been tracking. Just because we can know everything about our bodies doesn’t mean that information is always actionable or even fully understandable. As a coach, you can guide clients into reflecting on what they’re trying to accomplish and what data is truly important and useful in that regard.
If a client is tracking 15 different variables and that tracking is causing them to negatively obsess over every calorie, every step, or feel low self-esteem if they’re not meeting what they deem to be perfect scores, you can step in and help them reflect on why they’re really tracking so many variables. Helping your clients shift down to a smaller number of core metrics that directly align with their personal health goals like daily step counts, consistent bedtimes, or perceived recovery rates sets them up for success by creating a more realistic expectation of tracking.
As a coach, you can also help clients understand that establishing consistency is much more important than striving for perfection. We are human, and being human is sometimes messy, unbalanced, and unpredictable. Our bodies are also highly complex systems and we may not always know why a variable was thrown off. Helping clients look at their data tracking as a trend over time rather than a minute-by-minute assessment of how they’re performing will alleviate stress and overreaction to daily biomarker wobbles.
Finally, helping clients pair objective wearable metrics with subjective self-awareness, like matching a sleep score with an honest assessment of daily mood, focus, and energy level can help them rely more on how they feel than how their wearable is insinuating they should feel. For example, the data could show a poor night’s sleep and a low recovery score, but your client might feel fully refreshed and ready to attack the day. The wearable tells you what it reads, but that data doesn’t always translate to how you feel.
Empower Your Client to Use Their Data as One of Many Tools
The goal of health tracking shouldn’t be to solely collect as many data points as possible and to use them as the single source of truth of how well you’re living, exercising, sleeping, etc. Instead, the data should be one of many ways to gauge progress and as a method of cultivating deeper self-awareness. If your client struggles with sleep and begins adopting better sleep hygiene, they’ll be able to track their progress over time with their data points, which should also be backed up by improvements in their physical and mental wellbeing. Likewise, adopting more regular exercise, should over time progressively show better resting heart rate and heart rate variability while also making them feel better.
Wearable technology and trackers do offer amazing insight into what our bodies are doing and can help identify areas that may need improvement, but real transformation happens when clients choose which insights truly align with their personal goals and daily lives.
As a wellness coach, you have an incredible opportunity to support your clients’ long-term health journeys by helping them positively navigate their metrics and find a healthy expectation of how those metrics feed into their health goals.
Catalyst Coaching Institute has the resources to support and develop your wellness coaching journey. We regularly offer Certified Wellness Coach and Master Certified Wellness Coach programs and our thriving, supportive community is here to keep you motivated as you grow in your coaching role. We even offer post-graduate support as you enter into, or continue in the professional space or business venture with your coaching certification.
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