Ok before anyone freaks out or races off to check Riwai’s face book page, instagram, twitter or jumps onto a facebook group to double check with others whats happened because they feel too uncomfortable and concerned to actually ask either of us if this is true.
Take a deep breath and let me explain…..
I am not divorcing my beautiful husband.
I have been seriously contemplating divorcing my fitbit! and its only been six weeks!
I found out it has been lying to me for over a month so as honesty is one of my values I thought the best thing to do was leave the lying, cheating, piece of crap…. How dare Mr Fitbit say I had been getting poor sleep for the past six weeks, every morning it acted like my friend and gave me positive affirmations like nailed it! awesome work! And then blast out red lines and light blue blocks and not ever give me a gold star for achieving! I should have known better. I trusted my Mr FB before I really got to know him. I jumped into bed with him before checking out his credentials, relying on Mr FB to tell me how I was doing.
Each morning I would wake up, feeling rested and excited to take on the day. I would have my shower and feel on top of the world like I had for most of the year and then over breakfast and my cuppa tea would sync my phone to validate how I was doing…
Fitbits are an amazing piece of technology. They record and keep me accountable (great for a numbers gal like me) I trusted that the technology had be accurate. I had no flip side to say it wouldn’t be… For the past few weeks I have been telling everyone that I got a fitbit to check on Riwais sleep as I was concerned about how his shift work has been affecting his sleep patterns, within a week I was discovering that my sleep patterns were not so good.
Yet despite doing everything my GP tells me to do for sleep hygiene, many of them ideas that I share with my LeapStars! My fitbit said my sleep was bad………….So I decided my sleep was bad!
- I went back to no caffeine after 5pm.
- I have no technology moments every day
- I changed my working week so that I have more down time
- I took up gardening so I had fresh air
- I get outside and sunshine at least daily
- I am eating regular meals and smaller portions
- I pulled back my bed time to 10:30
- We adjusted the temperature to be constant in our room
- We have no technology (except the fitbit) in the bedroom
- We meditate every night
- I even get to wake up without an alarm……………
All this great work on my sleep and still the result was below average! No stars for me and my graph never change colour
Day after day deflated…
And all of this before I even had a chance to see how my body felt or if I even felt unrested. If the fitbit said then it must be true!
I was reaching for validation that I was achieving! I got sick and even heard myself saying to my GP, I am quite run down and my fitbit says I haven’t had much sleep so I am not surprised that I got sick! Ha! I should have known better,…..
I shared how poor my sleep was with clients, friends and families! I had trusted this new relationship with all my heart!
Seem that no matter how awesome our technology seems to be in the end that the same old garbage in garbage out saying is true!
Because after six weeks of thinking I was a fraud (that was because here I have been for five years talking about the importance of quality sleep and quality rest and all along I wasn’t a good sleeper) it was simply that when I set it up I had it on the wrong setting…………………….
So I searched my fitbit and read all I could about the sleep mode and then changed my setting……….
And then turned off automatic syncing…
Instead I wore it but I got up and listened to my body. I felt great and decided that I didn’t need my Fitbit to tell me about my sleep because I SLEPT WELL!!!!! …..
I had a great weekend and felt rested, had plenty of energy and completed loads of tasks on my list…. and guess what. I synced it tonight but this time it told me I had 8 hours of good quality sleep. Ha rubbish in rubbish out.. Technology is only as good as the input-ed data.
Recently I filtered from all my online media bytes that the average person has somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts. …….so it also comes as now suprise that with this amount of inner traffic whizzing through our heads a day that we can lose touch with ourselves.
That led me to wonder if that might be leading to making it difficult to connect with ourselves and therefore be making real connections with those around us.
My experience with my Fitbit was another fascinating journey for me on the impact technology can have. I had lost touch with myself and began critically analysing my behaviours around sleep all based on something I had introduced to my life. I became almost obsessed with what it was telling me instead of listening to what my body was telling me.
With all of the noise and confusion most people lives with thanks to technology it has seemingly put us on a fast bullet train whizzing past all that is dear to us.
It has it’s place and as I said last week I wouldn’t give it up. My wish is that we remember even when technology seems to enhance our world that we don’t forget that what really matters…
After all isn’t that what makes us uniquely human, our ability to share our thoughts, to connect on a deeper level, to communicate. With all the thinking go on, and seeking approval and validation from technology, what chance does our heart have to breathe, feel, and experience life, no less make contact with ourselves and significant others? The crowded mind makes for an overcrowded heart with little room for ourselves and less room for anyone else. When we live such a busy life, how open, available, and loving can we be?
I am regularly enriching my life and discovering what matters more than technology in my life.
Here are my five top reflections since discovering how the Fitbit impacted on my life and thoughts…
1. Love and kindness giving unconditional love to others cost nothing and can make the world of difference to someone else’s world. Receiving it is also far more wonderful than anything technology can give.
2. My health. Although technology can enhance my treatments it cannot encourage me to listen to my body and take time to do what is best for me and my body. Technology can not make my decisions for me. I can stand on my own two feet despite medical and alternative health professionals assuming this would not be the case at my age.
3. True nature and all the world brings can not be fully replaced by technology . Technology could not prevent our earthquakes, or change the tides, move the moon or the sun. I can use technology for the actual sun to come up earlier or set later! Or push a button and get the sun to come out naturally or have it rain when it’s a drought. Our natural world is full of wonders that are more technology can not alter.
4. Connections and face – face conversations, hugs and smiles are not the same from technology!
5. And the last thing is time. How we use it and how we spend our time is the key for real and everlasting happiness. Make sure that technology aids your use of time not hinders it 😀
Happy days beautiful people as I am off to have a conversation and hug my husband and feed the good wolf.
We have worked out an amicable way to keep my Mr FB and his Ms FB in our lives. The benefits to our health are worth it – just as long as we remember our thoughts are our own and no graphs, gold stars or red and blue lines can take that away from either of us!
