The Apple Watch of My Discontent

how technology has brought on compulsive exercise and ocd

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I received my first Apple watch from an ex-boyfriend. He had one and I told him I liked it. He bought me it the first Christmas we were together. The box it came in looked like it held an expensive piece of jewelry—and I guess it did.

I immediately started wearing it. The watch comes with the following daily presets: 30 minutes of exercise, 12 hours of standing (standing for at least one minute for 12 hours), and 600 calories to burn. All considered “average” goals by Apple. You can adjust these, but I left them alone.

Before the watch, I had a piss-poor exercise routine. For the majority of my 20s and early 30s, exercise felt scary in my body. The heart-racing, the body heating made me feel like I was having a panic attack. As a child and teen who was very physically active (in dance class four times a week), my new fear of exercise in adulthood was upsetting. It’s hard to say whether a specific traumatic incident triggered this fear. I hold a lot of grief that I was unable to exercise for nearly all of my 20s—aside from heated vinyasa yoga. I only really started regularly exercising in my mid 30s.

I move now because it feels so good. I feel like I’m making up for lost time—all those years I was in such a freeze state that I could barely take a walk outside.

The first day wearing my watch I wanted to close all three rings (standing, exercise, and calories). I walked around the house. I jogged in place. I went for walks outside. The watch was definitely good at motivating me to move my body. I received the watch right before the pandemic hit, and by the time many of us were fully remote, I didn’t know what to do with myself except to exercise. Some of my newfound exercise routines were healthy and needed. I took two short walks outside every day. I did strength training and cardio. The issue came when my entire motivation to exercise was to close those damn rings. During the first winter with my watch, I went snowshoeing with my mom. I realized I forgot to wear my watch and there was a part of me that thought, “It’s not worth it now.”

I wanted to be “in shape”—whatever that means. Not skinny, but strong. However, I kept injuring myself. First, it was my piriformis, then it was the tops of my feet, then it was my IT band, then I had my first ever bout of sciatica after overdoing a push-press. My newest diagnosis (as of this week) is achilles tendonitis on my left ankle. My body has been telling me to slow down and I haven’t been listening.

I have concerns that I may have hEDS (Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome). If anything, I know I’m hypermobile, because how the fuck am I still able to touch my toes as an almost 39-year-old? Is it normal that finding positions where I actually feel a stretch seems impossible most times?

I like closing all of my rings each day. I feel accomplished. But sometimes I know I’m doing too much. I know I should rest instead. I like feeling sore. I know this much. I like feeling like I worked my muscles. I like pain that I consent to. That being said, I’m not sure how long I can keep this up, especially as I age. I know I need to think about exercise differently. I know I need to stop caring about closing the damn rings on my Apple watch. But I’m such an all-or-nothing person that I worry if I stop caring, I’ll stop exercising completely. When I stop exercising completely, getting started again feels scary and difficult.

Because of my health anxiety, I’m always thinking I’m “unhealthy” or that something is quietly exploding inside of me only for me to find out when it’s too late. Thus, being able to check my heart rate on my watch is not good for my psyche. Whatever the number is, I will think it’s too low or too high (even if I know neither is true). I will then obsessively check my heart rate for a while.

I have never been the age I am now, so naturally, I’m unsure and uncertain of my body and what it can and can’t do anymore. I’m afraid of doing too much or too little.

In my somatic experiencing therapy sessions where we also do IFS (Internal Family Systems), I I’ve talked about this “protective” part I have that so badly wants me to live. This part is on hyper-alert for all things health/illness related. I used to be really bothered by this. I used to hate it, because it felt like it made my life harder. I now have immense compassion for it—it’s all-consumed with keeping me alive, and how fucking amazing is that?

Many of us who have traumatized nervous systems tend towards over-exercise. It’s a way to shift energy in the body—it doesn’t remove it though, and I think that’s what I keep forgetting. I keep looking for something to disappear the things I feel internally. That doesn’t exist, though. I have to learn how to sit with my body’s sensations. It’s not helpful for me to be in a constant state of movement—it’s not helpful for any of us.

The Apple watch stays on my wrist for now, but when this one (my second one) croaks, I’m not sure I’ll get another one. It seems more harmful than helpful for a person like me.

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