If you notice any of the above signs, the tips below can help you establish a healthier momentum with your watch. At any time though, if you feel you need extra support, seek help from a mental health professional, Brauer says.
How to improve your relationship with your fitness tracker
Fixing your relationship with your watch isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, says Brauer. Strategies that work for some people may not be very helpful for others. That said, there are some general tips worth trying.
1. Dig into your true relationship with your watch.
If you want to establish a healthier dynamic, you must first become aware of your existing relationship with your watch. This involves being honest with yourself about how the watch serves you, how it bothers you, and whether you’ve developed any obsessive or addictive patterns around it, Brauer says.
To help with this process, she recommends trying a mindfulness exercise where you pick two days — one where you wear the watch and one where you don’t — and write down your experience, mood, and thoughts. . Then compare the reflections.
After trying the mindfulness exercise myself, I found that the watch helped me incorporate more movement throughout my workday (a positive) while making me obsess over shutting down my rings and instilling feelings of failure related to certain metrics, like when I noticed my VO2 max drop (two big negatives).
2. Remember why you wanted a watch in the first place.
If you find yourself obsessing over metrics, it can help you reconnect with the reason you wanted the device in the first place. For most people, that’s why there’s a twist on « I want to live an active life, » says Ross. From there, ask yourself if you already realize this “why”. If the answer is yes, for example, if you train several times a week and move regularly during the workday, do your best to accept that enough is enough. The nitty-gritty watch metrics don’t matter.
In my case, I actually didn’t have a specific reason to have the watch – it was a surprise birthday present and not something I was looking for. Nevertheless, realizing that I was already leading an active and moving life Before I got the watch that opened my eyes to the possibility that maybe I don’t need to rely on it to dictate when and how much I move day-to-day.
3. Personalize your watch in a way that suits you.
Instead of blindly accepting the generic fitness goals your watch is programmed with, such as the classic 10,000 steps per day, customize the goals to suit your needs. You. « It’s very important to be your own advocate and think about your own needs, » says Brauer. This may mean setting a step goal to a more achievable number for your routine, or it may mean ignoring that metric altogether.
While goals may vary for each person, you may find it helpful to avoid ones that are concrete, non-personalized, or stay the same every day (for example, like daily steps, stand times, or closing time). of all your rings). Even if you’ve programmed these metrics yourself, striving to achieve the same goals every day interrupts your ability to be intuitive with your needs and also ignores « the fact that our needs change, » says Brauer.
