Watches that will help you calm down and cheer up

Luke Benedictus

We don’t want be party-poopers here, but let’s face it, the End Times do increasingly seem to be nigh. Reasons not to be cheerful include global warming, the pandemic, the ongoing war in the Ukraine and escalating tensions in Taiwan. Throw in a spot of monkeypox and the fact that a pint of beer now costs $20 in my local pub and life can often feel rather bleak.  So imagine if you could attach something to your wrist that’d give you a dose of much-needed perspective with a feel-good chaser of serotonin on the side. Well, as luck would have it, here are several watches that do exactly that.

The Adam Benedict Genesis

One of the proven benefits of meditation is that it’s meant to help reduce anxiety and increase happiness. Both of which might help you to feel less inwardly apocalyptic.  Sure, the Mindfulness app on an Apple Watch might encourage you to set aside a few minutes a day to focus and connect as you breathe. But as Matthew Canning pointed out far more articulately than I can right here, thanks to the continuous alerts and bleeps, a smartwatch can also feel inimicable to mindfulness.

That’s not the case with the Adam Benedict Genesis collection. The quartz watch features a seconds/minute track that includes the optimal breathing ration. Every ten seconds, you have four seconds labelled one colour, encouraging you to inhale and six seconds rendered in another colour, letting you know how long to exhale. Essentially this gives you a visual cue to help stay centered throughout the unmitigated disasters of your daily life. $295 USD

The Happiness Watch

The Tikker Happiness watch provides an hourly countdown to when you’re going to die. It does this by a simple calculation that takes in a range of factors including your country of residence, stress levels, weight, exercise habits and history of smoking. Its diagnosis is not very reassuring.When I reviewed it here, I discovered that I had 37 years and 10 months left to live.

It might all sound a bit morbid, but instead of freaking me out, considering my existence from this broader perspective had a strangely calming effect. Admittedly, it’s a pretty facile realisation, but being confronted with the finite nature of your life makes you appreciate it a whole lot more. A bit like a less annoying version of a gratitude journal that also tells the time. US$59.99. 

The Last Laugh

The Happiness Watch is, of course, basically just a modern take on “Memento Mori”, the stoic idea of remembering that you’re going to die and therefore appreciating what you’ve got before it’s yanked away. There are loads of skull watches about that tap into this theme, usually often with a slight heavy-metal inflection. But the best one I’ve encountered recently was thanks to D.C’s story from the other day about Mr. Jones watches.

To be fair, Mr. Jones has released a host of watches that are all instilled with a wry sense of subversive fun. But The Last Laugh features a grinning skull on the dial that tells the time in an ingenious way by showing the hours on the top row of teeth, and the minutes on the bottom.  $295 USD.

The Charlie Brown Swatch

If you’re having a bad time, sometimes you just need to feel a bit of solidarity. There’s comfort in knowing that you’re not the only person that fate has kicked in the proverbial knackers. And if there’s one guy who’s familiar with that feeling it’s Charlie Brown.

With his permanently furrowed brow, Charlie Brown is always a source of solace. He knows from bitter experience that life is inevitably cruel and disappointing. Kites will get entangled in trees. Footballs will be pulled away just before the moment of contact. The mailbox will not contain a Valentine’s Day card from the Little Red-Haired Girl (or indeed anyone else). Nevertheless, Charlie Brown stumbles on and there’s something weirdly noble in his persistence.  Defiant optimism is an increasingly vital quality in these peculiar times – this watch will remind you of its value. $150