The limits of quantifying the self
We’re increasingly in the business of measuring everything related to our body from our blood, to our DNA, to our sleep and physical performance.
The results are often one-dimensional (blood), self-evident (sleep), of limited use (DNA) or all of the above.
Not only is a device not going to tell me more about the quality of my sleep than I already know, but increasingly relying on it is also going to desensitize me to what is actually going on my body.
A blood test can be insightful, but it is far from clear that doctors can draw reliable long-term conclusions from it. In fact, often they are prone to overreacting and prescribing questionable and unregulated supplements to countersteer against the findings.
And DNA tests so far seem to serve the primary purpose of sparking anxiety in their recipients around the probability of some distant future diseases.
Most importantly, it is not obvious that it’s healthy for humans to be constantly notionally aware of all shortcomings (including miniscule ones) in their health. In fact, I just learnt that there is an existing concept for this inverse placebo effect: nocebo effect — the effect by which negative expectations about one’s health amplify the actual negative outcomes.
The answer here is that we need to take a step back from over-quantifying and take a step towards re-engaging with our internal perception of our body.
