The way to Use a Fitness Tracker Without Letting It Rule Your Life

In case you notice any of the signs above, the below suggestions may enable you establish a healthier dynamic along with your watch. At any time though, should you feel like you would like additional support, seek help from a mental health skilled, says Brauer.

The way to improve your relationship along with your fitness tracker

Mending your relationship along with your watch isn’t one-size-fits-all, says Brauer. Strategies that work for some folks will not be all that helpful for others. That said, there are some general suggestions value trying.

1. Dig into your real relationship along with your watch.

If you ought to establish a healthier dynamic, you first must gain awareness of your existing relationship along with your watch. This involves being honest with yourself about how the watch is serving you, the way it’s hindering you, and whether you’ve developed any obsessive or dependent patterns around it, says Brauer.

To assist on this process, she recommends trying a mindfulness exercise where you decide two days—one where you wear the watch, and the opposite where you don’t—and pay attention to your experience, mood, and thoughts. Then, compare the reflections.

After trying the mindfulness exercise myself, I noticed the watch was helping me incorporate more movement throughout my work day (a positive) while also causing me to turn out to be obsessive over closing my rings and eliciting feelings of failure related to certain metrics, comparable to after I noticed my VO2 max decline (two big negatives).

2. Recall why you wanted a watch in the primary place.

In case you end up obsessing over metrics, it may help to reconnect with why you first wanted the device. For most people, that why is a few variation of “I need to live an energetic lifestyle,” says Ross. From there, ask yourself should you are already achieving that “why.” If the reply is yes—as an example, you’re figuring out quite a lot of times each week and getting in regular movement through the work day—then do your best to just accept that that’s merely enough. The nitty-gritty watch metrics don’t matter.

In my case, I actually didn’t have a robust why behind having the watch—it was a surprise birthday gift and never something I sought out. Nevertheless, realizing that I already led an energetic, movement-filled lifestyle before I got the watch opened my eyes to the likelihood that perhaps I don’t should be counting on it to dictate when and the way much I move everyday.

3. Customize your watch in a way that works for you.

As a substitute of blindly accepting whatever generic fitness goals your watch comes programmed with—say, the classic 10,000 steps per day—customize the targets to suit you. “It’s really essential to be your individual advocate and take into consideration your individual needs,” says Brauer. Which may mean setting a step goal at a number that’s more doable on your routine—or it’d mean ignoring that metric completely.

While goals can vary for all and sundry, you might find it helpful to avoid those which are concrete, non-customized, or remain the identical day by day (say, like each day steps, stand hours, or closing your whole rings). Even should you programmed these metrics yourself, striving to hit the identical targets every day interrupts your ability to be intuitive along with your needs and in addition disregards “the incontrovertible fact that our needs change,” Brauer explains.