Hello, I’m quite new here, I’m a Science and Technology Studies student at the Technical University of Munich currently writing my master’s thesis on AI ethics and the human digital twin (not for publication purposes). As self-tracking practices and HDTs have different characteristics in common (healthcare/wellbeing goals, tracking body and cognitive data, ownership of data, concerns about privacy, etc.), I was looking into this forum to see if there were some interesting takes from people involved in this practices.
I came across this discussion and your inputs, and I was wondering if I could use them (by indirect quotation), for my study. Please let me know, also if you have any questions, or you would like to further discuss something
I track my data mainly to understand my habits better and tweak my routines for better health and productivity. It started with fitness goals but now I use it for sleep, mood, and even spending habits.
I appreciate the peace of mind from knowing my health metrics. I can then take that data and, for example, analyze which zones I frequent when running to optimize my performance. I track my activities throughout each day and correlate that with my health metrics to look for insights into things like my energy levels or mental health.
Ultimately, for me, it’s about longevity and living a healthy, balanced life.
I started tracking my hydration goals to beat a long family tradition of not drinking water and realizing that my daughter was mirroring my behavior.
And after a DNA nutraceutical test and further studies in health I realized that we focus on habits in an individualized way and not on a holistic one. I decide to embark on a project about health.
Since health is the ability to function well and not the absence of disease or pain, the project shifted from hydration to Wellbeing in their 5 dimensions.
So I am tracking:
physical wellbeing: hydration, supplements intake, movement and sleep
emotional wellbeing: mood, emotions relief, time in nature and other CBT exercises.
mental wellbeing: strengths, visualization and other positive mindset exercises
social wellbeing: empathy behavior, self awareness and community engagement
spiritual wellbeing: mindfulness and spiritual and peace of mind checklists
My intention is to identify patterns since I realized that our body gets better performance when we are consistent in terms of days and time.
And are fascinated by epigenetics, microbiome and other biomakers. I believe we can live longer, healthier and happier if we understand how food, drinks and lifestyle affects our healthspan.
Glad to go deeper on my project if anyone is interested.
