My work did a cool thing for a wellness initiative and partnered with Repario, a company that provides at-home biometric health screenings.
Anyone who wanted one could get a kit sent to their house and well, I took mine today. I gotta say, it was pretty cool. They say it takes about 30-45 minutes to take yourself through the screening which involves taking your blood pressure and heart rate and a lipid and glucose screening (via blood test). And they literally send you a scale and tape measure in the box so you can get your BMI and Relative Fat Mass.
You download an app that walks you through everything step by step (this is my work brain nerding out on excellent user experience and education) and if I wasn’t so bad at following instructions it would’ve gone very smoothly. But they give you two of everything and I have more than one finger to prick so it all worked out. Only I would get stuck with blood running down my finger chat messaging with customer support while people from work call me and I coach them on compensation conversations. But all’s well that ends well.
When it’s done you get the results immediately on your app. It lets you know if you’re in optimal range or not and gives you context and suggestions if needed. I am happily ‘optimal’ in most categories (fuck you, BMI, you’re not even a valid health measure), so at least there wasn’t any high cholestrol or high glucose levels sneaking up on me while I avoided blood tests for the past . . . decade?
My heart rate is in the low/athletic category (technically below optimal), but my heart rate has run low for a while. I used to think it was something about running but I haven’t been that intense lately so my baseline may be lower. Or all that meditation really pays off?
Anyway . . . it was interesting! And all I have to do is slap a preprinted label back on the box and leave it back outside my door for pickup.
With Love,
Natalie