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Digital wellness trends: Is AI becoming your new fitness monitor?

Gadgets and watches are not just your tech assistants and timekeepers anymore

What is your definition of personal wellness? What does it mean to you? Perhaps it’s your intermittent fasting, or completing 20,000 steps a day, or your daily Pilates class. Recent years have seen us getting more proactive with our personal well-being and self-care practices. With the rapid advancement of technology in our lives, its role in the realm of personal wellness too has expanded. Now, it can not only count the steps, but how far you’ve walked; what your heart rate was while walking; how sound your sleep was; and even how this compares to the same time last week, month or year.

Watches are now more than just a fashion statement or time-telling device, with one of its key functions being tracking a wide range of fitness metrics. Apple declared ‘self-care’ as the best App trend of the year of 2018, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. AI is slowly inching into the wellness industry to make mainly positive and permanent disruptions.

The benefits of AI in wellness and self-care applications

As compared to a one-size-fits-all approach that was used earlier, with the use of AI, companies have the ability to personalise self-care plans, enhance the accuracy of health and wellness recommendations, provide users with real-time feedback and accountability-buddies to help them achieve their fitness goals. With a systematic creation and analysis of data, it is easy for the end user to take charge of their own goals, keeping their preferences and lifestyle in mind. There are several AI-powered apps and devices already successful in the market, including Headspace which provide personalised meditation experiences using AI, or the recently launched Ultrahuman Smart Ring – a sleek finger ring that will monitor your sleep, movement and recovery, nudging you to healthier micro habits.

Tracking fitness

Relying on the immense potential of AI, Technogym, a leading commercial and home gym equipment company, has created a virtual environment comprising connected fitness equipment, apps and on-demand training video content that can be accessed any place and at any time. “Today, over 20 million people are connected to the Technogym Ecosystem in 20,000 wellness centres and more than 400,000 private homes,” says CEO and Founder of Technogym, Nerio Alessandri.

The Technogym app gives users access to a variety of fitness, sport and health programmes, developed by a team of expert trainers and specialised athletes. The Technogym Coach is a virtual AI generated coach, guiding users with workouts tailored to suit goals, progress, time and equipment, if available. Using its 30 years’ experience as a flagship brand of the Olympics and sports champions globally, it also offers training to a professional cyclist, runner, tennis player, golfer or skier with the Signature Programmes dedicated to sports.

“By combining AI with personal trainers’ experience, a virtual environment is created. It works almost as if you were to train with a human instructor or personal trainer in real life. Every workout is personalised down to the finest detail based on your personal preferences and abilities so that you feel as though a person were really there to guide you,” adds Alessandri.

Biohacking your way to optimum health

Biohacking is a method of human enhancement or augmentation, in which people attempt to change aspects of their biology to improve their well-being. Some types of biohacking like intermittent fasting have been around for many years. In recent times, however, technology-based biohacking is helping people reach optimum levels of health and fitness.

“Some of the hugely popular tech products are Red Light And Near Infrared Therapy, Cryo Therapy, DMT Light Therapy, and EMS therapies,” said Govind Das, Founder and CEO, Beyond Limitz, the UAE’s first Frequency Healing Lab and Biohacking Centre. “Using frequencies of light, sound, and electromagnetism machines, we are able to heal or trigger healing in patients. Many of these machines have incorporated AI, where data has been gathered from thousands of patients, thus giving the device the perfect healing frequency. For example, one of the machines in our centre is an EMS machine used specially for back pain management. It has analysed data from thousands of customers and arrived at a specific, highly therapeutic frequency called The Perfect Wave. Our DMT Light Machine uses frequency light to do Nervous System Regulation to bring down stress levels immediately, and it works

effectively even with patients facing mental health challenges like depression or insomnia.”

“In the future, there will be a seamless integration of data collected from various devices and trackers such as Fitbit, Whoop, Oura, CGMs into one unified platform helping both the clients and their health care providers to assess the current status of their overall health and plan for remediation if any,” Das adds.

AI in skincare

If the AI driven approach can flourish in many industries, why not in skin care? “We wanted to use the latest technology to give our clients detailed and tailored skincare advice that evolves with their skin's changing needs. The Janus Pro proved to be an innovative tool in the intersection of technology and dermatology,” said Tamara Bigaeva, founder of Evolution Aesthetics Clinic. "The device leverages advanced AI to conduct comprehensive skin analyses, providing personalised skincare recommendations based on its findings. Utilising machine learning algorithms, it examines various skin characteristics such as texture, hydration levels, and the presence of wrinkles or blemishes ensuring a highly accurate assessment. The AI-driven approach enables Janus Pro to adapt its analysis over time, learning from each scan to refine and enhance its diagnostic precision.”

AI systems can also analyse skin images to identify early signs of skin conditions, including melanoma and other dermatological issues.

The future of AI in wellness

“There’s no doubt that the integration of AI in the wellness industry is here to stay,” says Neeta Jhaveri, Functional Medicine Practitioner at Wellth. “Along with personalised wellness plans, AI-Powered virtual health coaches, integration with wearable devices, sleep optimisation solutions and VR meditations, we can also look forward to predictive health analytics, biometric feedback, integration with telemedicine, gamification elements, and virtual community building which is crucial for long term sustenance in self-care and fitness. However, it's important to address challenges such as privacy, ethical considerations, and the need for a human-centric approach.”

AI will be used for predictive analytics to identify potential health issues before they manifest. By leveraging data-driven insights, advanced algorithms, and continuous monitoring, AI is empowering individuals to take control of their wellbeing, while also supporting healthcare professionals in delivering more effective and efficient care.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com