We should all know less about our bodies
Getty Images; raditya/iStock; Prykhodov/iStock; Tyler Le/BI Katie Anne Hayes felt like her Garmin watch was giving her a lot of valuable information, at least at first. She took particular interest in the "Body Battery" feature, which purports to tell users how much energy they've got left in the tank. Hayes says she started checking it "pretty religiously" to gauge whether she could handle a workout or weekend concert. If her battery was low, "that was usually a good predictor of how I'd feel at the end of the day," she says. Hayes, 29, wasn't doing all this for fun: Her doctor shrugged off long Covid symptoms she developed in 2023, and she got the Garmin to try to manage the condition herself. But what began as a simple way to track her daily stamina quickly turned into an unhelpful obsession. She'd get frustrated if her battery level was unexpectedly low ahead of an important work meeting and wake up anxious to see what happened while ...
