April 14, 2025
UPDATE
Get Moving with Apple Watch
On April 24, Apple Watch users are invited to complete their Activity rings and earn a unique limited-edition award for Global Close Your Rings Day.
Apple Watch stands as the most popular watch globally and serves as the ultimate companion for fitness and health. Daily, it inspires millions around the world to stay active and provides valuable insights into their workouts and training across a variety of activities. Thanks to its advanced sensor technology, Apple Watch also delivers crucial information about users’ health metrics, including sleep quality, heart health, and menstrual health.
For the past decade, the Activity rings on Apple Watch have provided an easy, engaging, and customizable method for users to maintain their activity levels throughout the day. To emphasize the importance of regular activity in achieving a healthier lifestyle, Apple Watch users are encouraged to close their Activity rings on April 24, receiving a special limited-edition award and animated stickers for Messages.1
“Apple Watch has transformed how individuals consider, track, and engage with their fitness and health. Ten years ago, we introduced Activity rings — and since then, Apple Watch has expanded to include a comprehensive set of features designed to empower every user,” stated Jeff Williams, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer. “We frequently receive messages from users sharing how Apple Watch has positively impacted their lives, motivating them to be more active and reshaping their health journeys.”
April 24: Global Close Your Rings Day
On April 24, users are encouraged to engage in a beloved activity, challenge themselves, or explore something new, and share their experiences using #CloseYourRings. Those who close all three Activity rings will earn a special award and 10 animated stickers, along with an animated badge for Messages.
To commemorate Global Close Your Rings Day, customers can also pick up a limited-edition pin inspired by the award at Apple Store locations worldwide beginning April 24, while supplies last.
New Insights into Apple Watch Activity and Health Research
Recognizing the intrinsic connection between fitness and health, a recent analysis from over 140,000 participants in the Apple Heart and Movement Study revealed positive correlations between closing Activity rings and improvements in sleep quality, heart health, and mental well-being.2 These benefits were consistent across genders and age groups.
Compared to individuals who rarely closed their Activity rings, those who frequently did were found to be 48 percent less likely to report poor sleep quality, 73 percent less likely to have elevated resting heart rates, which is a key marker of fitness and heart health, and 57 percent less likely to report high stress levels, according to the Perceived Stress Scale-4 (PSS-4), a brief assessment of personal stress perceptions.
The Apple Heart and Movement Study is conducted in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the American Heart Association, and Apple, involving over 200,000 participants across the United States who have opted in.3
Activity and Health Features on Apple Watch
The Activity app is a favorite feature among Apple Watch users, motivating them to close their three Activity rings — Move, Exercise, and Stand — by meeting daily goals for active calories burned, minutes of brisk activity, and standing hours. Users can personalize their goals to fit their lifestyle, and rings can be paused on rest days.
Activity rings are just part of the extensive features Apple Watch offers to inspire and provide actionable health insights. Users can also:
- Track diverse workouts with validated heart rate and calorie algorithms through the Workout app, which provides advanced metrics for activities like running, cycling, swimming, and hiking.
- Stay motivated through Activity challenges and sharing, monitor their progress with weekly updates, and track essential fitness metrics, including training loads, cardio fitness, and recovery.
- Monitor their sleep, gain insights into heart health, track menstrual cycles, manage medications, and keep tabs on environmental noise levels, among other features.
As with all Apple Watch fitness and health features, the Activity and Workout apps prioritize scientific accuracy. A recently published summary details the methodologies and technologies that ensure precise heart rate measurement, caloric estimations, and health data collection, based on extensive studies involving diverse participants.
Apple’s commitment to user privacy is integral to its fitness and health features, offering transparency and control over personal data. Health and fitness information in the Health app is encrypted when the iPhone or iPad is locked with a passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID, and any synced health data to iCloud is also encrypted during transmission and on Apple servers. With appropriate recent software versions and enabled security features, the activity and health data stored cannot be accessed by Apple.4
- The limited-edition award is available to users running watchOS 5.0 or later.
- Analysis compares users who closed all Activity rings at least 50% of the time with those who did so 10% or less. Poor sleep quality is identified by a sleep efficiency under 87.5%. Elevated stress is defined by a PSS-4 score of 8 or more.
- For more on the Apple Research app, visit apple.com/ios/research-app.
- Requires iOS 12.0 or later, watchOS 5.0 or later, and iPadOS 17.0 or later.
Press Contacts
Clare Varellas
Apple
cvarellas@apple.com
Nikki Rothberg
Apple
nrothberg@apple.com
Apple Media Helpline
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