I’m Marcus, your host here at Garmin’s training video series.
Here at Garmin, we believe you should have choices when it comes to the devices you use for your health & wellness, and overall fitness.
With those choices, comes a lot of different features to help you stay in tune with your body.
Well today, I want to talk a little more about a feature in many of our wearables that you may not be as familiar with.
While it’s not intended to diagnose any medical conditions, it can help you gain insights to your body and its response to current conditions, such as altitude acclimation and sleep.
Let me introduce you to Pulse Ox.
You may be more familiar with the Pulse Ox sensor that gets clipped to your finger at a doctor’s visit, but now we have similar sensors in many of our wearable devices.
Pulse Ox is determined through a non-invasive method that measures the saturation of oxygen in the bloodstream.
Compatible devices use a combination of red and infrared lights with sensors on the back of the device which determine the percentage of oxygenated blood,
also known as the SpO2 percent in your blood.
This value, in general, will be 95% or higher in most environments but can be influenced by altitude, activity, and your overall health.
At this point, you may be asking yourself, why should I be interested in Pulse Ox tracking? Great question!
Oxygenated blood is distributed to every part of the body through our respiratory system.
Being aware of your SpO2 can help you understand how your body reacts to various situations and can serve as an indication of important changes in your health.
When used on expeditions such as hiking, you can see how your Pulse Ox readings change relative to your elevation,
to potentially help you recognize when your levels are getting too low - which could cause hypoxia.
Another common use for Pulse Ox is for sleep tracking.
When we sleep, we aren’t aware of what our body is doing, so we have to depend on our sleep data to help us recognise any changes or inconsistencies.
Many of our wearable devices will not only give you sleep data so you can see the stages of your sleep, but you can also see your Pulse Ox levels during sleep.
And low Pulse Ox during sleep could be a sign of things such as sleep apnea, COPD, or even severe snoring.
While our devices won’t alert you to anything specific, you would have the SPO2 data to analyse and determine for yourself if you think you need to consult a physician.
When tracking Pulse Ox during sleep, as a best practice, you want to maintain a position that is conducive to good circulation as well as at or around heart level.
Your arm position can influence the blood flow to your wrist and can adversely affect the accuracy of your Pulse Ox readings, potentially making them lower than they really are.
And tracking your Pulse Ox is super simple, and you can use this feature in one of two ways.
You can either spot check it through the Pulse Ox widget on your compatible device,
or enable Pulse Ox during sleep or all-day tracking, through the Garmin Connect Mobile app on your smartphone.
If Pulse Ox tracking during sleep or all-day is turned on, the battery life on a full charge may be reduced significantly.
Various factors contribute to battery life, including usage patterns, customization settings, and activity level.
The continuous measurement during sleep or all-day will not initiate if the battery level is too low.
So there you have it.
When we work so hard to improve our performance, we should have as much data available to us as possible.
And when you reach new heights, your watch goes with you. Gain additional insights on your body – with Pulse Ox.
Hey, thanks for taking the time to learn more about Pulse Ox.
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For now, that’s all I‘ve got.
This is Marcus from Garmin, wishing you all the best.
And in all that you do, we want to help you beat yesterday.