A few months ago, the battery on my watch went dead and I kept meaning to get the battery replaced but kept on forgetting. What I noticed, when I didn’t have the watch, was that I had more energy. I woke up more refreshed in the morning and seemed to have more energy throughout the day. As I said, I put this down to coincidence and threw it to the back of my mind. Then my wife eventually bought a battery, trust my wife to put me to shame, and I started wearing the watch again.

Within a few days my energy levels seemed to drop, I was tired and weary in the morning, I struggled to get out of bed and felt sleepier during the day. Again, the thought that the watch was causing this lethargy was dismissed as nonsense. Of course, I didn’t tell anybody about this.

Therefore, to get the thought out of my head and dismiss it altogether I decided I would try a little experiment.

For two weeks, I would record my energy levels in the morning (6am) Afternoon (1pm) and Night (9pm). The first week was when I was wearing a watch and the second week was when I wasn’t wearing a watch.

The results surprised me.

Energy levels wearing a watch

Nothing much wrong with that, except looking at it now my energy levels seem pretty low. I may have been too harsh when scoring. I judged my energy levels: lethargy (how tired I was feeling), enthusiasm (how eager I was to keep working), and sharpness of mind (was I foggy or was my mind still thinking clearly).

Energy levels without wearing a watch

I was a bit shocked by this. An overall drop in energy levels over the week by about 8%. I definitely felt a difference in my energy levels.

The difference

I thought about this and thought I might have skewed the results in a number of ways;

1. By already noticing in the past that my energy levels were low, thereby I had sort of formed a hypothesis already in my mind. So I could have inadvertently been more energetic when I was not wearing my watch, it’s a possibility.

2. In the second week not wearing my watch I thought about my energy a lot more. I could have boosted my energy by simply thinking about it.

Nonetheless, it was interesting to carry out this experiment. I wonder if anybody else has seen this as well and if it might just be quartz watches. I wonder if it would be the same with a digital watch or a mechanical watch. Let me know your thoughts.