A late meal? Too much coffee? Too much to drink? Skipped the gym? If you sleep poorly, the app will send a prompt asking what might have gone wrong. Eugene Spiritus, chief executive of SleepWatch, an app that pairs with the Apple Watch, said that his company’s focus was on getting users to pay attention to their behavior and change it. ![]() “Each experience is unique to that app,” the company said.ĭr. The app makers are responsible for the algorithms that interpret them. Apple says that its watch tracks heart rate and motion data. Users of devices like Apple’s smart watch have noticed something similar, with different apps giving different scores on the same night. Heneghan said that when two human analysts are asked to score the same sleep study, they typically match about 90 percent of the time. It found that the data matched 70 percent of the time, he said. It also can underscore the effects that factors like alcohol and exercise can have on sleep patterns.Ī company-supported study in 2017 compared the sleep data of 60 people, using both Fitbits and medical-grade monitoring equipment in a sleep laboratory. He said tracking sleep can drive home the importance of a consistent bedtime and wake time. Conor Heneghan, a research director for Fitbit, said that few people experience extreme sleep anxiety. The makers of tracking devices and apps defend their use and accuracy. Fitbit and other companies say the threat of anxiety is overblown “Then why does my Fitbit say I am sleeping poorly?” she asked. But after being told that she had slept deeply in the lab, she was not reassured. ![]() She was given medication for restless leg syndrome, tested negative for disordered breathing and underwent a formal sleep study. One cautionary tale from the case study: A woman came in reporting that she had an average sleep efficiency of only 60 percent, according to her tracker. While devices that track heart rate or breathing give a more complete picture, they are still only generating estimates. If you are lying awake in bed, the tracker might think that you’re asleep. ![]() Researchers say that trackers can overestimate the amount of sleep that you get, particularly if they focus on tracking movement. And they found it difficult to persuade patients to stop relying on their sleep trackers, even if the numbers had been flawed. In the case study on orthosomnia, researchers found that patients had been spending excessive time in bed to try to increase their sleep numbers, which may have made their insomnia worse. “This means that we need to understand sleep technology - including its limitations - without dismissing this potentially valuable resource.” “We want to partner with our patients to improve their sleep,” she said. She appreciates the greater awareness the new sleep tech promotes, but is wary of the pitfalls of inaccurate data and increased worrying. Seema Khosla, medical director of the North Dakota Center for Sleep and chairwoman of the technology committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, said she and other clinicians had scrambled to stay abreast of all the devices and apps on the market. The flood of data and buzzwords can easily become confusing: sleep debt percentages, heart rate dips, sleep rhythms, graphs of sleep disruption and comparisons to other users.ĭr. There’s something wrong with me.’” As gadgets proliferate, so do concerns “Like, ‘I’m afraid I’m not getting enough deep sleep. “People were putting a lot of stock in what it was telling them,” she said. But she said she had noticed a trend of patients complaining based on unverified scores, even for things like the amount of deep sleep, which varies by individual. She herself tracks her bedtime with a Fitbit. Kelly Baron, one of the paper’s authors and the director of the University of Utah’s behavioral sleep medicine program, said that sleep trackers can be helpful in identifying patterns. It was coined by researchers from Rush University Medical School and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in a 2017 case study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.ĭr. There’s a name for an unhealthy obsession with achieving perfect sleep: orthosomnia. And for some, worrying about sleep goals can make bedtime anxiety even worse. Fiddling with your phone in bed, after all, is bad sleep hygiene. ![]() They can remind you to start winding down, or generate a report on your night’s slumber.īut some sleep specialists caution that these apps and devices may provide inaccurate data and can even exacerbate symptoms of insomnia. Many new tools are becoming available to monitor your sleep or help you achieve better sleep: wearable watches and bands “nearable” devices that you can place on your bed or nightstand and apps that work by monitoring biometric data, noise and movement. Are you sabotaging your sleep in your quest to improve it?
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