I looked at my watch. It was only 1pm, and Bulbasaur was already asleep.
For the last few days, I have been getting to grips with Garmin's new Pokémon Sleep integration, released to coincide with last week's World Sleep Day (and the long-running franchise's 30th anniversary).
As well as integration with the Pokémon Sleep app, the collab also debuted new watch faces that react to your current sleep and Body Battery. As Garmin users likely know, Body Battery is a metric that helps determine daily readiness for activity, a score from 0-100 based on sleep quality, activity, stress and heart rate variability. Body Battery depletes during the day, and gets restored at night.
A Body Battery of 100 means you're fully rested and ready to take on the day, resulting in a happy, energetic-looking Pokémon pal on your wrist. This particular Pokémon Sleep integration feature is very clever: it's like a Tamagotchi for adults, and you 'feed' the digital animal by taking care of yourself and getting good sleep.
I hadn't seen Bulbasaur look happy and energetic at all, even after I first downloaded the Pokémon Sleep watch face on my Garmin Fenix 8 Pro (the best Garmin watch overall, if you don't mind paying the premium) the previous day. As soon as I enabled the integration and picked my Pokémon, Bulbasaur's face dropped into a neutral expression, then a droopy, tired one, falling asleep around 8pm. It was another four hours before I finally followed suit and went to bed.
I woke up with a Body Battery of 49. Not only had I exhausted my reserves the previous day, but I only regained around 40% of my capacity, despite a decent-ish sleep score of 78. Consequently, Bulbasaur awoke looking tired, and fell asleep by the early afternoon as my Body Battery score depleted once again.
I knew what was to blame, of course: I'm in the middle of a very busy house move, which also includes a fair bit of renovation. I've been spending evenings and weekends packing, painting and DIY-ing, cursing to myself as I attack skirting boards with the wrong type of saw for the job, shirking water for coffee, and throwing salty frozen meals in the oven at 9pm because I'm too tired to cook. None of this is conducive to waking up well-rested.
I've been tempted to take my watch off for this, or least disable the Pokémon Sleep integration so I don't feel responsible for a sleep-deprived starter 'mon. A report from Newcastle University found that fitness trackers can actually be a source of stress, citing research indicating that "the negative psychological reactions that arise from the features and designs of fitness technologies — such as feedback systems, goal-setting functions, and gamified or social elements.
"For instance, unmet goals or negative feedback can make consumers feel anxious and guilty, while comparative aspects of these technologies are associated with stress."
In what was already a stressful time as I juggled work and the house move process, the pressure to take care of myself could have piled yet more stress on. Gamifying wellness means you feel good when you 'win', but you also feel bad when you 'lose'. A bad sleep score on my wrist makes me feel like I've failed in a way, but waking up to an exhausted little plant-creature adds another emotional layer to the disappointment.
Nevertheless, I was determined to see Bulbasaur happy. Despite being as busy as ever and eating late yet again, I made a concerted effort to optimize my sleep as best I could over the next two nights. I rehydrated as soon as I got in, made a point of switching a mid-stress comfort snack (chocolate) to a healthy one (apple), and eventually went to bed armed with a chamomile tea and a book, leaving my phone in the other room. No more doomscrolling to distract myself from my lengthy jobs list.
Success! After night two, Bulbasaur awoke with a big smile on its face, feeling happy and energized. It lasted around 30 minutes before his expression shifted back to neutral, indicating that I still had a ways to go to improve my Body Battery score, but I did manage to snap a picture as soon as I saw it.
This is the brilliance of Garmin's new Pokémon Sleep integration: Bulbasaur managed to convince me (via emotional blackmail) that even a little self-care is worth it, as I'm now equipped with more energy to attack another busy week. Pokémon's shameless gamification of my health helped me reclaim a nightly routine, even if it guilt-tripped me into it.
The watch faces are free to download if you're a Garmin user. If Bulbasaur doesn't do it for you, there's 47 other Pokémon to choose from, as well as a 'Snorlax & Friends' watch face – here's how to download your watch face of choice.
