I have a love/hate relationship with my Garmin watch. I hate that it tracks me and is a constant pesky attachment to my wrist, but I love the data it provides about my health, sleep, and energy levels. It has been invaluable in my recovery journey and the data it provides is vital and instructive.
Let me discuss the most notable observation from wearing this thing for almost three years. Each day it logs what Garmin calls my “body battery.” Think of this much like the battery on your cell phone, full equals 100 per cent. On your phone, once the battery starts running low, you either reduce your screen time or find a place to charge it. The body battery on the watch is the very same thing. However, there is only one way to charge the body battery and that is restorative sleep. The body battery you get in the morning is the apex and is a very accurate reflection of the amount of energy one can expend during that day.
I learned a couple of years ago NOT to look at my body battery in the morning as it would have a psychosomatic impact and consequently sabotage me. If I saw it was low, like 40, it would cause me to say no to things like exercise or other healthy activities, or social events. I turned into a miser of my own energy and it made me a difficult person to be around. It reminded me of that scene from Apollo 13 where they are trying to figure out how they could return to earth with the limited power they had (link embedded). Each day was like that. I may run out of juice at 5:00 pm, and then I would be vacant and certainly unsafe to drive, let alone not any fun to be around.
The body battery number is determined by several primary inputs: sleep, stress, and heart rate variability being the primary determinants. My adrenal fatigue was directly impacting stress levels. Once the adrenals shut down, I didn’t have the cortisol (stress hormone) to respond. Even the slightest stressful things would usurp my limited cortisol levels and leave me vulnerable. It was a vicious cycle. I struggled with many natural methods to reduce my stress level including box-breathing, Wim Hof breathing, binaural sound waves, resonant breathing, prayer, meditation, and many more with little effect.
So, impacting that input was not the answer. I next turned to sleep. The Garmin device also tracks sleep and records the amount of time one spends in deep sleep, light sleep, REM sleep, and wakefulness. It also measures resting heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, and restless moments. It was a goldmine of data, and for a guy like me, I can’t have too much data.
The more deep sleep and REM sleep I achieved each night, the higher my body battery level was the next day. The higher my body battery was, the more energy I had for the activities that I enjoy. I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. If I were incapable of controlling my stress response, at least I could impact this one important variable. Sleep became my focus, and not just sleep, but restorative sleep.
I found that my body needed a minimum of eight to ten hours of sleep. I have never been able to sleep that long. Ever. Now, my body was telling me that is what it required. Throughout my younger years and my career, I would thrive on six hours. I have said on many occasions, “I will sleep when I am dead” as sort of an affront to the need for sleep. The weak people need sleep, but busy productive people don’t. Oh, the folly of youth. Science is actually proving that my flippant statement is true, lack of quality, restorative sleep, brings on an early demise. More on that in a future blog post as I am currently reading the book, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker PhD.
About a year ago, I started my second 75 Hard. This is a 75-day challenge where a person needs to focus on fitness, food, hydration, positive thoughts, and needs to complete a number of things each day. If you miss anything on any one day, you have to start all over at day 1. One of the things that becomes a stumbling block, is the no alcohol rule. 75 days with no drinks.
I will be the first to admit that I enjoy a cold beer or a single malt scotch at the end of a long day, maybe a second if it was challenging. Probably after a month, I noticed something remarkable. My sleep had improved, dramatically. I was able to sleep longer, fewer interruptions, and the all-important deep sleep and REM sleep lengthened noticeably. This increased my body battery, the amount of energy I would have for the next day. Once I completed the challenge, I did not return to any alcohol. It was as if I had unlocked a new life hack for doing more stuff.
Two years ago, I needed to decide which activity I could do in a day. I would need to choose from dinner with friends, nine holes of golf, yard work, paddling on the lake, or work around the house. I could pick one, because that’s all the energy I had. Now, on most days, I can do all of them on the same day. I may be tired, but I could do it. To me this was unbelievable. It was like the Apollo 13 crew discovered a new power source that they didn’t know they had.
So, the tradeoff for me became either having a social drink or having energy the next day to be social. This became a super easy choice for me. Then I would say, “I can’t wait until I’m fully recovered because then I can go back to drinking.” Now, I’m not so sure if I will ever go back to it. For me, alcohol impaired my ability to have restorative sleep in a way that left me incapable of doing the activities which bring me joy.
I would not have made this discovery without having the data that I can get from my watch. I resent the fact that my every move is being tracked, but I love what I have learned and how it has improved my health and energy levels. However, as soon as I feel like I am back to 100% and no longer struggling, I intend to smash my watch with a hammer and be free.