>I am traveling close to the speed to light how is my watching running slower? How do the atoms in my watch know to run slower?
I think in some sense this is the wrong question to ask. Your watch isn't running slower. The point is that if you're moving, you must be moving relative to something else. Their watch will appear slower to you, and your watch will appear slower to them. The counterintuitive part is that you're both correct.
The reason all this comes about is that both observers measure the speed of light as traveling at the same speed, but they can't agree on the path that the light has taken.