Losing My Apple Watch Helped Me Find Myself Again

How Can I Breathe Without You?

How can I live without you?

This is the song that I’ve been singing in my head because I don’t have my Apple Watch.

And I don’t know how to breathe. I don’t know how to live. I don’t know how to work out anymore without my Apple Watch.

A few weeks ago, my Apple Watch completely went out. This was after dealing with it for about two months, where the face had kind of popped off a little bit.

I had to super glue it, and it lasted for a couple more weeks after that.

I laid it down on there with glue, and it worked—until it didn’t.

 

From Anti-Apple Watch to Dependent

Years ago, I was anti-Apple Watch.

My thing was, I don’t want nobody tracking me. I don’t want all that. Whatever mentality I was in, I was just anti-Apple Watch. I saw so many people with one, and I didn’t have one, so maybe that fueled it.

I felt like, Man, this is too much technology. Too much stuff. Just too much.

Then I ended up upgrading my phone, and I got an Apple Watch. I decided, You know what? I need to know how many calories I’m burning when I’m working out.

Am I working out effectively?

How intense is my workout?

The Apple Watch answered that for me. It tracked my heart rate, my distance when I ran, and it even had different modalities for weightlifting or functional training. That way, I could see where my heart rate was at, and I became more aware of it.

 

June 2022: The Wake-Up Call

June 2022—I left my landlord’s office after dropping off rent, and I began to feel this sense of unevenness. Dizziness. I didn’t know what it was. I felt flushed. My heart was racing as if I just finished working out.

So there I was, turning into traffic, dizzy and heart racing, on one of the busiest streets in my city, and I just kept praying:

Lord, let me make it home. Let me make it home.

It was tough to keep my eyes open. I was praying over my life, speaking healing over my life, while glancing down at my Apple Watch. My heart rate was in the 130s. That’s a fat-burning range—and I wasn’t even working out at the time.

Earlier that day, I had done some cable torso rotations, so that’s the only thing I could think of that may have contributed.

But this dizziness? This spinning? It was scary.

I rushed home. The only thing I could think of was peppermint oil.

I put some in my nose to wake my body up.

I grounded myself outside, barefoot in the grass, then slowly I watched my heart rate go down.

That moment ended with me in the ER.

The conclusion: a sinus infection. But that was also the day I got put on high blood pressure medicine.

So from that day on, I became even more conscious of my heart rate, tracking it every day through my Apple Watch.

 

Why I Grew Attached

Since then, I’ve loved my Apple Watch.

I used it for everything—sending messages, receiving them, cooking timers, workouts, tracking my heart rate, and more.

It became so attached to me that now, being without it for two weeks, feels strange.

At first, I didn’t want to work out at all.

I thought,

What’s the point? I can’t see my heart rate. I can’t see how many calories I burned. I can’t track my day.

That’s when those lyrics came back:

How can I breathe without you? How can I live without you?

How can I live without my Apple Watch?

But then I remembered—I’ve done it before.

I’ve had more success with my fitness goals before the Apple Watch.

Back then, I wasn’t focused on numbers. I wasn’t focused on calories. I was focused on the workout itself.

 

Losing Time, Gaining Perspective

Since I don’t have this Apple Watch anymore, I need to get back to that mode of thinking.

Focus on the workout. Focus on execution. Not the time. Not the numbers.

And honestly, time has been on my mind a lot more since my cousin Shun passed in 2024.

His passing reminded me that time will continue—with or without us.

Before him, the people I lost were older adults. That felt like the natural order of things. But losing a peer, someone my age, showed me that anybody can get it.

So now, time weighs heavy on me. I think:

What am I doing with my time? How long does this take? How efficient am I being?

Because time doesn’t care. It was here before me, it’s here now, and it’ll be here after me.

 

The Lesson in Losing My Watch

Maybe losing my Apple Watch is a good thing.

Maybe it’s pushing me to focus on effectiveness—both in workouts and in life.

Without it, I’m no longer constantly checking my heart rate, my messages, or my music.

That first week without it, my workouts lacked intensity because I couldn’t measure them. I lost connection with myself because I was too connected to something digital.

Now, I want to refocus. Reconnect with myself. Be effective in my workouts and in my life—not just measured by a device.

 

Will I Get Another Apple Watch?

Right now, I don’t want another one. I don’t want the extra payment on my monthly bill.

More importantly, I want to get back in tune with myself.

Because I can breathe. I can live.

I was doing it before. Why can’t I do it again?