Wearing An Apple Watch Improved My Physical And Mental Health
Originally Posted: February 18th, 2021
Wearing An Apple Watch Improved My Physical And Mental Health
I never thought I would own an Apple Watch.
In a lot of ways, the Watch is Apple's least essential device. An iPhone is a gateway to the world, always in your pocket and always connected. A Mac is a tool to get work done, an iPad is somewhere in between the two. The Watch isn't as necessary as those, but somehow manages to be the most personal and emotionally affecting.
I remember watching the original keynote back in 2014, thinking it was neat, but unnecessary. I was a college student then, and spending $350 for the "cheap" model seemed comical. I am a big gadget head, but having a computer on my wrist didn't appeal to me. I felt (and still feel) addicted to my phone, and adding another screen seemed like a step in the wrong direction. I liked the idea of being able to leave my phone behind, even if that didn't happen as often as I would have liked.
Since then, the Watch has grown up. Apple figured out what the Watch is good at — notifications and fitness — and downplayed the more awkward features like Digital Touch. The hardware has improved, getting faster while adding features like waterproofing, cellular connectivity, additional sensors (GPS, altimeter, compass, fall detection, ECG) and most recently, an always-on display. The software and services surrounding the Watch matured, too. It has morphed into a great health and fitness device. It literally saves lives. If used correctly, it can be a powerful tool for improving your health.
Back in 2017, I bought my wife an Apple Watch for Christmas. I saw how she used it for viewing notifications, tracking workouts and other fitness related things. The improvements to the Watch, combined with seeing how it fit into her life, softened my opinion. I thought that maybe the Apple Watch could be for me, too. Fast forward to May 2019, when I got a new job. I had spent a year off-and-on searching, applying and interviewing. After I finally landed the job I wanted, I decided to reward myself with an Apple Watch Series 4.
At first, I wasn't sure what to do with it.
Seeing notifications pop up on my wrist was neat, but I felt self-conscious wearing a Watch, with an iPhone in my hand and AirPods in my ear. I felt like a walking, talking, constellation of privilege. I also felt guilty looking at my Watch at the wrong time. If I was talking to someone and glanced at my wrist, they could interpret it as a signal that I'd rather be somewhere else. In reality, I could just be checking the time, or quickly seeing what the latest buzz was for, but they would have no way of knowing. There are a lot of minor social cues that can make the Apple Watch a tricky device to use.
I still feel awkward using the Watch sometimes, but that feeling has faded. As I got used to wearing the Watch everyday and avoiding the social faux pas, the thing I grew to love the most was the built-in activity tracking.
Turning Fitness Into A Video Game
The Apple Watch rings are one of its most iconic features. If you don't know, it tracks three categories of activity — Move, Exercise and Stand — and charts them on a ring. The more you do, the more the ring fills in. It sets daily goals, and reminds you when you're not hitting them. A lot of the tracking is done automatically, just by having it on your wrist. You can also start and stop actively tracked workouts, like running, swimming, biking or weight lifting. The encouragement it gives you can be a little cringe-worthy ("Way to kill your Exercise goal yesterday, Evan!") but overall it's my favorite feature.
The Move ring tracks active calories burned. Active calories are the ones you burn through any kind of movement, be it walking or working out. It uses the built-in accelerometer to count your steps, and the heart-rate monitor to track how intense your workouts are. As you burn calories throughout the day, they get added to the move ring.
The Exercise ring is similar, encouraging you to get 30 minutes worth of exercise per day. In my experience, walking around and going up and down stairs can count as exercise minutes, but that doesn't always work. The way the Watch decides what qualifies as exercise is a bit opaque. You don't have to start a tracked workout for activity to count towards your Exercise ring. On the other hand, sometimes it doesn't count minutes you spend in a tracked workout. I think it's a combination of your heart rate being high enough, and the accelerometer sensing enough motion. Having the Watch snug on your wrist helps too.
The Stand ring is simple — you have to stand up for at least one minute per hour, 12 times per day. As someone who works at a desk, it can also be the trickiest one. Miss a few hours throughout the day, and suddenly there aren't enough hours left to close the ring. You can always cram in some late night exercise and movement to close the other two, but the Stand ring demands consistency throughout the day.
Speaking from experience, closing your rings is addicting. The gentle negging you get when you're being lazy, and the encouragement you get from moving around can be silly, but it's effective. Before I started wearing a Watch, I would know when I hadn't been active enough, but it was never staring me in the face. It turns activity into a video game. Move around, see the rings fill in, repeat. It's positive reinforcement for getting off your butt.
Competitions, Streaks and Awards
Another aspect of the Watch I have grown to like is the activity competitions. You can compete against your friends over a week, gaining points by closing your rings. Each 1% of a ring equals 1 point, and you can earn up to 600 points in a day. It's a fun way to encourage yourself and your friends to stay active, and another thing to keep you motivated.
There are certain challenges you can complete to get little digital awards. Close your rings for an entire week, and you get a "perfect" week trophy. Hit a new record for most calories burned in a day? Get a trophy. There are also monthly challenges from Apple, and events on major holidays. It's all just a fun way to keep you invested in your activity. It is coaching you to stay active without you even noticing.
The Emotional Side Of The Apple Watch
It's hard for me to say that the Apple Watch is a required device. It started out as an accessory to the iPhone, and it still feels that way. Where the Apple Watch shines for me though, is how it makes me feel. Closing my rings feels good in a way that my Mac can't replicate. Having it on my wrist is comforting, whether it be for telling me the time, who just texted me, or how my activity for the day is looking. It is the least necessary device I own, but it's also the one I would miss the most.
Mental health isn’t as easy to monitor as physical health. The Apple Watch can’t yet detect that your moods have sunk, even if you stop closing your rings. If your mind is a muscle, the Apple Watch can’t measure its exercise in the same way. For me, I’ve found key areas where the Apple Watch can make a difference though — keeping me focused on moving and keeping me connected to those I care about.
In both areas, it’s simply a tool in a larger toolbox, but I’ve found the Apple Watch to be valuable for keeping me honest and monitoring my overall fitness progress, both physical and mental. Closed activity rings are good days. Streaks of closed activity rings are something I've come to take pride in. I'm currently on a 141 day streak, and the thought of breaking it is enough to get me off the couch, which has a lot of benefits.
For me, the winter months have always been a bit tough. Months of dark and cold weather have a way of dragging down my mood. I think it's normal to feel a bit of depression when the sun goes down by 5 PM. It can be a really powerful feeling, whether it's strong enough to be diagnosed as Seasonal Affective Disorder or not. Winter used to be a time for me to stay inside, struggling through until the warmer and brighter weather comes back around. I know a lot of people feel the same way.
Even if you’ve never experienced depression or never needed to talk to a doctor about managing how you feel — I think it’s just as important as getting in better shape. We should talk about mental health as openly as we talk about physical health. The Apple Watch was fundamental in helping me reshape my life. Staying active over the past few months has helped keep the worst of the winter blues away. It coached me through a lifestyle change, motivating me in small ways every day. I have no doubt that without the Watch on my wrist, I would have been less active and been in a worse mood. These are the things I think about when I say it's the device I would miss the most. It affects my actions and moods in ways that my phone or laptop can't.
I also realize it's an incredible privilege to be able to afford such a luxury, and it's possibly a character defect that I have come to depend on it. The benefits of exercise are not a secret, I could have done all of this on my own without a computer on my wrist telling me to get up and get moving. For me though, it was good to have a reminder, a tracker, and to be able to see my progress reflected in data. Bad habits are hard to break, and new ones are hard to form. The small nudges the Watch have helped me, and have made my life better. That may sound overly dramatic, but it's true.
Bringing my iPhone everywhere is still my default, and I'll always grab my Mac to get things done. The Watch doesn't replace any of those functions, and I don't think it ever will. Wherever I am though, the Watch is on my wrist, keeping me honest and keeping me moving.
If you're an iPhone user and don't see the appeal of the Watch, I'd recommend you give it a second look. The hardware is so good now, and the software is getting better too. More important than that though, is the effect it can have on your life.
The best thing about the Apple Watch isn't what it does, it's how it makes you feel.
