And how to improve them to lower heart health risks
I was diagnosed with a certain heart valve abnormality when I was a teenager. Doctors explained that though these abnormalities are quite common, I should pay attention. As I turned 60 I keep exercising quite a lot and still see my cardiologist once per year for a regular check up.
Wearable technology is progressing quickly and there is an easy way now to monitor important heart health vitals on a daily basis. Which I do for a piece of mind and also to fine tune daily life. I use the Apple Watch for this purpose. Here are the 5 metrics I monitor daily. 2 of these metrics I actually check throughout the day.
Stress.
Excessive stress may lead to heart attack, stroke and a number of other health conditions.
Those under high stress are 2.5 times more likely to have a heart attack [1].
But do you know that the Apple Watch can monitor your stress throughout the day and notify you if it gets out of the normal range? To calculate stress Apple Watch uses so-called HRV (Heart Rate Variability) [2]. This post explains in detail how this works and how you can benefit from knowing this metric.
How to reduce the risk associated with this metric? The Apple Watch will send you a signal that your stress is increasing and you can do slow breathing exercises right on your Apple Watch or iPhone to lower it. This is one of the two metrics which I check throughout the day and perform immediate action if needed.
Daily steps.
The American Heart Association recommends at least 30 min of moderate aerobic exercises per day to lower the risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes [3]. Brisk walking for 30min is approximately 4000-5000 steps for most people and this is the minimum number of steps which you should aim to do daily. Obviously the more you move the better.
How do I get motivated to walk more? I set my target at 10500 steps per day and check my Apple Watch several times daily. If I see that I am falling behind I use every break to go for a short walk.
HR dip during sleep.
This is the least understood heart health metric out of the 5 which we explain here.
The research from February 2025 [4] demonstrates that participants whose heart rate dropped by less than 10% during sleep as compared to their resting heart rate during the day had significantly higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Obviously this requires you to wear the Apple Watch during sleep.
What to do about this heart health risk ? First of all, if your dip is below 10% - talk to your doctor as she may recommend doing additional heart health checks. Otherwise follow item #2 above and perform more aerobic activities throughout the day. I also noticed that a relaxed slow pace 30 to 45 minute walk right before going to bed improves my night sleep and increases HR dip.
Blood pressure.
This is a well known metric. For those who would like to understand more about the desired target of 120/80 mmHg I would refer to this article by the American Heart Association [5]. This post provides more details about blood pressure monitoring at home. It is worth adding several important points here.
A. Most doctors advise to take blood pressure readings twice daily: in the morning and in the afternoon/evening. They also advise to keep blood pressure records to understand better what factors have an impact on it. There are plenty of free mobile apps which allow for BP readings to be transferred smoothly from a blood pressure monitor to a tracker app via Bluetooth. You can learn more about the best blood pressure log apps here.
B. At the time of writing this post (March 2025) there are no medically graded apps which allow you to take blood pressure by applying a finger tip to the phone's camera. Such technology simply doesn’t exist yet. Be aware of fake apps! You need to use an external blood pressure monitor to take a blood pressure reading.
C. At the time of writing this post (March 2025) you can NOT measure blood pressure with the Apple Watch either. However you can use the Apple Watch in several ways to lower blood pressure as explained in this post.
How can you lower blood pressure naturally? Short term you can do it with relaxing techniques like breathing, meditation , stretching and ASMR/relaxing music. For a longer term positive effect you should add aerobic and isometric exercises. And if you want to get rid of high blood pressure forever (and improve your VO2Max and longevity at the same time) like I have done, perform short High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).
Atrial Fibrillation (AFib).
The Apple Watch can also identify this heart condition. Atrial fibrillation is an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia. Atrial fibrillation, also known as AFib or AF, can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. Learn more about it in this article by the American Heart association [6].
What can you do about this heart health risk? If you get a signal from your Apple Watch that you may be having AFib you should immediately get advice from your doctor. Over 5 million Americans are living with AFib today, and more than 12 million people are projected to have AFib by 2030. It means that this condition is not rare. It should be addressed with medications prescribed by your doctor.
Summary and next steps.
Your Apple Watch is a great monitoring device for important heart health metrics. Some of these metrics (like stress or heart rate dip at sleep) however are not that easy to find, analyse and improve with standard Apple apps.
Hence our team created the BreathNow app which is highly rated by users and helps them to monitor these metrics easily, get automated notifications if they are out of normal range and take an immediate action. This function of BreathNow is free.
Our BreathNow app is different from other heart health apps in 3 ways:
1. Ease of use. It includes motivational tools to help build heart health friendly habits.
2. Breadth of analysed metrics. We work with the scientists of the University of Cambridge (UK) on some heart health tests.
3. BreathNow includes over 70 instructional videos with science proven exercises to improve heart health which are tailored to all tastes and preferences.
Please try it and let us know how it worked for you.
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