How an Apple Watch Can Enhance Your Life and Inspire You to Improve in Many Areas

No, I am not on Apple's payroll — yet I now rely on this gadget daily.

Photo by Daniel Cañibano on Unsplash

I love my new Apple Watch! Can you tell I'm excited? Do you have one, too?

I know I still have a lot to discover on this fantastic device. It seems I learn something new daily, and it's all good.

I was a Fitbit wearer for years. The primary reason was to keep track of my exercise, daily steps, and sleep. It was simple. I didn't need to do a thing except wear it.

When it would die — each one lasted a couple of years, I would purchase the latest iteration of it, and I was satisfied.

Exercise

Satisfied until I noticed that some of my pickleball buddies were asking their watches to start tracking our pickleball game. Really? This watch tracks specific exercises?

Indeed it does. Okay, that did it. I had to have it.

One day a friend and I went for a walk, and she tapped her Apple watch to track her outside walk.

Not only did it measure the miles, but it told her the pace — an 18-minute mile. If we stopped to chat with a neighbor, the watch would ask her if we had finished walking. She would pause it and resume it when we did.

Now I'm using mine every day.

When lifting weights at home, tap on Functional Exercise, which follows your movements — recording the time you're lifting and the calories you burn.

It does the same for abdominal exercises — called Core Training — you get the idea.

I love that. The watch tracks the time and calories burned for every exercise you perform. I haven't even read the entire list as there are so many sports and activities on the watch.

Not only do we receive this information, but I have discovered that I want to improve the time and distance of my last hike. 

I'm challenging myself thanks to this device. 

The watch reminds me every hour to get up off my butt and stand for one minute. I take this time to walk around the house and stretch. Writing is absorbing, and this prompt to move is essential.

Emergency help

My friend slipped and fell on a hike up the mountain — she wasn't hurt and got up immediately. The watch picked this up and asked if she was alright or did she need them to contact 911!

She answered that she was fine and did not need emergency help.

I often walk or hike the mountains alone with my dog early in the morning, and falling can be a concern. I always bring my cell phone, but what if I were unable to retrieve it from my bag? My watch is on my wrist, and all I need to do is talk into it.

This feature enhances my life by helping me feel secure and safe and may save my life.

Sleep

I'm not sure what my favorite feature of the Apple Watch is, but this category is near the top, if not the pinnacle.

For $4.99, a one-time charge, I added Auto Sleep from the app store so that I would receive more detailed information about the quality of my slumber.

There's more information than we need to assess our sleep health. However, once involved in evaluating it, I found it illuminating.

This app provides:

• Time Asleep
• Sleep Rating
• Sleep spO2
• Respiration Rate
• Sleep Fuel Rating
• Readiness
• Tonight's Bedtime
• Sleep Consistency

I went into detail regarding these sleep categories in my article on Medium, published September 5, 2022, How to Improve the Quality of Your Sleep With These 4 Simple Daytime Tactics.

Briefly, Time Asleep, Sleep Fuel Rating, and amount of Deep Sleep are the most crucial areas to be concerned about. You can find the amount of your deep sleep within the Sleep Rating area.

I learned that the Sleep Fuel Rating is critical. For several days my fuel rating was Poor. I did some investigating and found that Poor often means one suffers from anxiety or depression. 

As it turns out, I was anxious for various reasons, and I could remedy my anxiety by using meditation and the Mindfulness app on the watch. 

Of course, you can’t cure all anxieties easily. However, since mine was situational, it eased when I was more mindful of the issue and cleared it up.

Within a few days, my fuel rating slowly climbed from Poor to Regular to Plus and finally to Premium. Apple bases these ratings on gasoline gradings. The top is Jet Fuel. I haven't reached that level yet.

How wonderful this watch can help settle and calm us, thus attaining a higher quality sleep.

I am inspired to improve the quality of my sleep by assessing where I need to make adjustments.

Mindfulness

I love this feature. It has helped me improve the quality of my sleep, energy level, and mood.

You can Reflect and Breathe — two aspects I use several times daily.

I have set a reminder every few hours to take a minute to reflect. The app offers a topic to ponder — such as what are you inspired by today? 

Breathe is sitting quietly and paying attention to your inhalation and exhalation for that minute. 

Both of these practices calm you and will impact your sleep quality.

If my day has been busy and I passed on these soothing moments, my sleep numbers go down.

Besides using the Mindfulness feature to help improve my sleep, it has significantly enhanced and calmed my emotional state, and my productivity has increased.

Photo by Bagus Hernawan on Unsplash

There are dozens more features and tips that I haven't yet explored. I will do a bit more investigating and perhaps will update this article in the future.

By the way — this watch also tells the time, imagine that. There are many clock configurations from which to choose as your home screen.

You need an iPhone — it's the mother ship. It stores and analyzes all the data that is collected. The Apple Watch and iPhone work in unison.

We all have cell phones anyway — this one is worth it. The phone is where you will view your stats. 

For now, the Apple Watch will be a fixture in my life as it's already proven to improve and enhance it.