Apple Watch health features everyone should know about: Sleep, heart health tracking and more

Your Apple Watch does so much more than count your steps or show you the time. It comes with several health features that people either don't know about or haven't tried yet. From tracking your sleep patterns, heart health, medication management, and even further into understanding your emotional side, Apple Watch has tools that can really make a difference in your wellbeing. These features run silently behind the scenes, gathering important data and providing insights into your health and well being that earlier used to be available only through medical tests or careful manual tracking. Whether you want to improve the quality of your sleep, take care of your heart's health, or gain a greater understanding of your body, here are six Apple Watch health functions that can help users with their journey toward wellness.The Sleep app on Apple Watch helps you establish healthy sleep habits by allowing you to create a customised sleep schedule and set sleep duration goals. To get started, simply open the Sleep app on your Apple Watch and follow the onscreen instructions. Once configured, wear your watch to bed, and it automatically tracks your sleep, providing detailed insights into time spent awake and in different sleep stages, including REM, Core, and Deep sleep. You can review your recent sleep history to identify patterns and make adjustments to improve your rest.Apple Watch can alert you to significant changes in your heart health through the Heart Rate app. Enable notifications to receive alerts for abnormally high or low heart rates, as well as irregular heart rhythms that may indicate atrial fibrillation (AFib). If you've already been diagnosed with AFib, the AFib History feature estimates how frequently your heart experiences this arrhythmia. You can also activate alerts for low cardio fitness levels, helping you stay informed about your cardiovascular health.The Medications app makes it easy to manage your medications, vitamins, and supplements. Add your medications to the Health app on your iPhone, and you can conveniently log them directly on your Apple Watch. This feature helps ensure you never miss a dose and maintains an accurate record of your medication schedule.Beyond offering guided breathing exercises and moments of reflection, the Mindfulness app helps you build emotional awareness and resilience. Open the app, tap State of Mind, and log your momentary emotions and daily moods. This practice helps you identify feelings and track emotional patterns over time.The Cycle Tracking app allows you to log daily information about your menstrual cycle, which Apple Watch uses to provide period and fertile window predictions. The app incorporates heart rate data to improve prediction accuracy. If you wear your Apple Watch to sleep on supported models, it can also use wrist temperature data to enhance period predictions and provide retrospective ovulation estimates.The Vitals app provides a comprehensive view of your overnight health metrics directly on your watch, including heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, blood oxygen (on supported models), and sleep duration. When you consistently wear your Apple Watch to sleep, the app establishes typical ranges for each metric. If multiple metrics fall outside your normal range, you'll receive a notification with context about potential factors like medications or illness that may be involved.