After listening to me gripe about my poor sleep habits, my partner surprised me with one of the newer Apple Watches that can detect your oxygen level, AFib, breathing disturbances at night, and how much you sleep. This is in addition to keeping track of how much you stand, minutes of exercise, etc.
It’s the techy gadget version of Big Brother, and I’m dependent on it. If I go to work without it, I feel lost. I exercise less at work during my breaks because no watch is keeping track of my movements. I deny my heart a workout if it’s going to go undocumented. When I come home after such a day, I strap the watch on and try to cram all the exercise into the few hours of daylight left. (I envision you rolling your eyes now.)
I rejoice after months of exercise to see my resting heartbeat decrease. And now, with the newer watch that can record my pulse range during sleep, I’m psyched to see it dip below 60. But this watch is an avowed enemy of that fraction of humanity that doesn’t give up the fight against sleep until around midnight.
The watch spits out a score every morning to grade you on the quality and length of your sleep, generally akin to grades in school. If you don’t go to bed on time, it spanks you with point deductions. Now that the bossy thing illustrates my shit sleep in graphs, ChatGPT suggested I take low dose extended release melatonin. The funny thing is that I’m allowing this device to change my life and it may not even be super accurate.
At any rate, the quandary this tiny computer puts me in is often absurd. Some nights when I haven’t had enough exercise to close my rings, I’m in a dilemma. Should I stay up later to close my exercise ring or should I go to bed on time and try for a high sleep score? Like this is really going to make a difference on my deathbed! I wonder if there is a support group for people like me who have a love-hate relationship with a watch?
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