If fitness tracking exhausts you, you’re not alone. Here’s what to consider instead.

From the outside looking in, my Oura ring has brought me many perfect days.

As someone who comes alive at 2 a.m. and can easily sink into an hour-long vortex of consuming short YouTube videos, I started using an Oura ring to act as a kind of pseudo-parent. It’s motivated me to get up from my desk more often, trade my mid-day social media breaks for 20-minute meditations, and develop a more calming bedtime routine than one episode of Vanderpump Rules change to three.

In theory these are good things. They are exercise-boosting, mood-boosting habits that contribute to my overall well-being. But it was only a matter of time before my fitness tracking felt less like a helpful friend and more like a moral arbiter to whom I became increasingly indebted.

If you’re like me, you know the dangers of being a perfectionist and relying on a ring or a watch or whatever for judgment. Some days, when I woke up feeling refreshed, I’d open the Oura app and see a “readiness” score that wasn’t ready yet. “Did I do something wrong, Oura gods?” I would wonder. I racked my brain remembering everything I had done the day before that could have resulted in a score equivalent to a B- on a quiz. And sometimes, after walking what I was sure was at least 6,000 steps, I’d open the Health app on my iPhone and see a paltry 3,400 steps recorded. Cue the crushing wound of inadequacy.

The data is also not something that is easily depersonalized, as I held my entire being against the (arbitrary?) yardstick. On days when I was no more than 1,000 steps away from my goal using my Oura or Health apps, I lifted my standing desk into position and walked in place during a Zoom meeting — impressively keeping my upper body so still that no one noticed my secret workout session. And when I saw my stress numbers rising in the Oura app, I set aside a moment to lie down as quickly as possible and start a guided meditation.

“It sounds like you’ve really added positive activities to your routine!” you might think. But you would be wrong! It wasn’t the activities that were so problematic as it was the way I performed them. I couldn’t feel present during a walk because I was mentally calculating how far I would reach a certain number of steps. A few times I even checked my stress levels in the Oura app during meditation, but I was disappointed that they hadn’t decreased. I know I can’t be the only one who feels like these efforts are quite counterproductive, especially considering the goal is, well, my health.

The benefits of fitness tracking? Admittedly, there are a lot of them. We live in a self-reliant society in which we are responsible for being everything ourselves: nutritionist, trainer, motivator. So if a fitness tracker gives someone more motivation than frustration, that’s incredible. Plus, my Oura ring accurately predicted signs of a bad cold before I even felt it in my body. I’ll never say no to technology that reminds me to slow down and pay attention to how I’m feeling.

In that way, a better way to integrate fitness tracking into real life reminds me of yoga. As much as we practice forms with our bodies and adhere to the structure of the class, the true purpose is feeling before form – to check in on what’s happening inside. How those feelings express themselves on the mat is less important.

Maybe that’s why fitness tracking annoyed me so much, because I let it override my instincts. Instead of letting it help me, I somehow projected my own insecurities onto it and turned it into something I had to “do right.” Given my tendency to overanalyze, I think I need gentler parenting in the form of listening to myself – and actually following through on what I need – more than the coldness of hard numbers.

If you’ve ever felt defeated by your tracker, that might be what you need too.