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Your sleep score says you slept badly, but you felt fine when you woke up. So who do you believe, the ring on your finger or your own body?
That question sits at the center of this conversation with Gary Wolf, cofounder of the Quantified Self movement and author of The Quantified Self: Learning to Observe. Gary has spent almost 20 years watching people track their sleep, mood, pain, and heart rhythms, and he has learned something that most wearable companies would rather you didn't hear. The data is not the point. The question you bring to the data is the point.
Amy Mewborn sits down with Gary to talk about the overload so many women feel in 2026. You might be wearing a ring and a watch, opening an app every morning, and wondering why all those numbers haven't made you feel any clearer. Gary explains why that happens, and he gives you a simple four step learning cycle you can start using this week. Amy shares her own story, too, including a seven day ICU stay, a blood pressure crisis that caused her brain to swell, eight doctors, and the moment she walked outside afterward and felt the sun change everything.
Gary tells the story of his own heart rhythm problem. He got a diagnosis, a cardiac monitor, and a prescription, and then the medical system ran out of ideas about how he should actually live with the trade offs. So he tracked it himself. What he found cut his days on medication from about 150 a year to about 20. He is clear that this is his story and not advice for anyone else, and that is exactly the point. Your body is an N of one, and the only way to learn what it needs is to pay attention to it yourself.
You will also hear about proxy signals, a tiny trick that makes tracking a hard to measure symptom so much easier. And you will hear why a three point daily rating can teach you more than 500 detailed entries ever will. Amy and Gary also talk about why books, coaches, and real conversations still matter in a world full of apps, because an app can keep your record, but it can't troubleshoot your life.
KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED
The Overload Problem
Gary has worked with people on their self tracking data for almost 20 years, and he says the biggest lesson is that too much focus on devices makes you lose track of what you actually want to learn. Amy's reminder: simple works and complicated sells. Morning sun and eating well move the needle more than most of the complicated products in her feed. Why the wellness industry hands out ideas constantly but rarely teaches you how to test whether an idea works for you.
What a Discovery Really Looks Like
Gary points out that noticing you feel better after morning sun is a real discovery, even though nobody wins a Nobel Prize for it. The steps he sees again and again: you notice a feeling, it becomes an idea, you pay attention to the idea, and you gain or lose confidence in it. Giving up an idea counts as a discovery, too, because learning what doesn't work frees you to try something that might.
Amy's Sun Story
Seven days in the ICU without going outside, and how stepping into the sunlight afterward felt like the Earth was helping her feel better. Her research into old hospital photos where patients were moved to the roof for sunlight. Her doctor's advice to take 10,000 IUs of vitamin D daily, and her thought that the best vitamin D source in the world is the sun.
The Four Step Learning Cycle
Question, observe, reason, explain. Question: you can't get an answer to a question you never asked, and your question will change as you learn. Gary's example: you start tracking morning sun and mood, then notice weekends are better, then realize you eat breakfast with friends on weekends. Now you have a new question. Observe: decide what in your daily life is worth paying attention to. Reason: the number one method that works is simply looking at change over time. Explain: people learn the most when they describe what they did to someone else. Gary says that is often when they realize there is another question buried inside the first one.
Keep Your Tracking Simple
Gary's warning: you can rate your mood from 1 to 10 several times a day once, twice, maybe 10 times. You can't do it 500 times. The general daily assessment: one rating at the end of the day, often on a three point scale. One is very bad, two is everything in between, three is very good. Why it works: after 60 or 90 days you know where you usually are, so the unusual days stand out. The unusual days are where discoveries hide. Amy rates on a 10 point scale and likes to see her weeks and months laid out, and she makes the point that a seven day still tells you something.
Gary's Heart Rhythm Story
He has premature ventricular contractions, which are common and usually not high risk, but they are burdensome and frightening when they hit. The medical protocol: a two week cardiac monitor, then a decision based on the percentage of irregular beats. Under about 1 to 2 percent, leave it alone. Two to 10 percent, medication. Higher, consider surgery. Gary values his beta blockers and also dislikes how they affect his exercise and how he feels. He compared his own simple notes to the clinical monitor and found they flagged the same bad days, even though the actual numbers were very different. He then saw that bad days clump together, often after stressful events like the California fires. His idea: when a bad stretch starts, take as much medication as he can tolerate right away. The result: from about 150 medication days a year to about 20. His disclaimer: he is giving zero advice to anyone else, because he has no idea how another person's heart rhythm works.
Amy's Blood Pressure Story
Amy did something similar with blood pressure medication that sometimes pushed her pressure far too low, leaving her with no energy. She began with a sheet of paper, tracking her blood pressure every morning and night along with sleep and what happened during the day. She went to the ICU with stroke type symptoms because her blood pressure had been so high for so long that her brain swelled. Her point: most of us only see doctors when something has gone wrong, and the more we notice our own patterns, the better support we get. She saw eight doctors, went through radiation imaging 20 different times, and left almost every appointment with three more pills.
Proxy Signals
Friction kills tracking. Any doubt or confusion each time you measure piles up until you quit. A proxy signal is something right next to your symptom that is easier to track. Gary's colleague counted aspirins instead of rating headaches. Gary uses a distinct little cough that shows up when his heart rhythm crosses the bothersome threshold. Amy's take: it works like habit design. Make it so simple and mindless that you can't skip it.
Apps, Coaching, and Conversation
An app can do one thing very well: keep a record of something you care about. An app can't troubleshoot your personal life. It takes a good question, some reasoning skills, and a social context where you explain what you found. Amy describes the Living Simpler App, where you log how you woke up, what you ate, and how you feel, then share your patterns with a coach. Gary on learning: the experience of learning something about yourself can't be done for you, even when the advice you receive turns out to be right.
About the Book
The Quantified Self: Learning to Observe, published by Workman Publishing, part of Hachette. Gary wrote it for people who already believe observation has value, who may already have a tracker, a coach, or a symptom diary and want to get more out of it. Amy compares it to The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, a book she rereads every summer because she gets something new from it each time.
AMY AND GARY QUOTES WORTH SAVING Gary: "You can't get an answer to a question you've never asked." Gary: "You can use your own mind as the sensor." Gary: "It's the unusual that gives you the signal that maybe you've made a discovery." Amy: "Simple works and complicated sells." Amy: "We are all an N of one."
STANDOUT MOMENTS Gary's heart story is the moment to listen for. He doesn't pitch a miracle. He shows you how a person with a plain notebook mindset found a way to take far less medication, and he says clearly that no one should copy it. The other great moment comes when Amy describes writing her blood pressure on a sheet of paper in the middle of a health crisis. It reminds you that you don't need fancy tools to start paying attention.
If you've been feeling buried under scores, rings, and apps, this conversation will give you permission to simplify. Pick one question. Make one tiny observation each day. Look for change over time. Then tell someone what you found.
If you want a simple place to track how you wake up, eat, move, and feel, download the Living Simpler App, or join the Living Simpler Collective for coaching and community that help you make sense of your patterns.
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always talk with a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health or medications.
LINKS
Living Simpler App: https://living-simpler.com/app/ Living Simpler Collective: https://living-simpler.com/collective/ Living Simpler Reset: https://living-simpler.com/reset/ Free Resources: https://living-simpler.com/resources Favorites: https://living-simpler.com/favorites/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amymewborn Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/amymewborn Labs: https://partners.superpower.com/amy-mewborn Peptides: https://elliemd.com/livingsimpler Peptide Partner Program: https://partner.elliemd.com/MemberToolsDotNet/EnrollmentV4/StartPublicEnrollment.aspx?EnrollmentCode=DEALER&referringDealerId=1019111
Gary Wolf: gary@quantifiedself.com
Book: The Quantified Self: Learning to Observe (Workman Publishing)
