Fit bits and sleep disorder1/9/2023 ![]() Although it first designed as a fitness tracker, Fitbit soon developed into a device used for tracking a variety of health-related measurements, including sleep-related data. 2 Wearable tracking devices like Fitbit can help people learn more about their sleep habits and improve their quality of sleep. ![]() Millions of adults worldwide suffer from sleep disorders, 1 which are associated with hypertension, depression, obesity, diabetes, and stroke. Ads & links are not product endorsements. When you shop using these links we earn a commission that helps support the website – at no extra cost to you. ![]() Sean P.A.This post contains affiliate links. If modified to be more reliable, sleep-tracking devices can be useful in helping consumers reach this goal. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society jointly recommend adults get seven or more hours of sleep per night. Consumer devices can play an important role in raising awareness of healthy sleep and helping people sleep better when they provide accurate, useful information. Even then, consumers should demand independently conducted studies proving these devices do what they claim before fully relying on them as true measures of sleep. Given the public’s enthusiasm for monitoring sleep, it is likely the sleep-monitoring industry will continue to expand and evolve in the coming years. Although some measures generated by these devices are not yet valid, it is possible that software and hardware improvements will bring about more accurate and detailed information for the consumer. Therefore, users may be fooled into thinking they are sleeping healthily even when they are not.ĭespite limitations associated with sleep-monitoring devices, they are continually improving. Similarly, individuals with insomnia could be lying in bed stationary, but their sleep-tracking device may detect “sleep” because they are motionless. For instance, seven and a half hours of sleep for someone with an undiagnosed sleep disorder such as sleep apnea or insomnia, both of which can cause many awakenings throughout the night, is not the same as seven and a half hours of healthy sleep. Sleep disorders can also complicate the picture. This is a critical step in ensuring consumers are receiving accurate information. The accuracy of sleep stages for most of these devices has not been tested independently by scientists. Yet sleep stages generated by these physiological measures are not the same as sleep stages generated from brain waves. Several devices have attempted to assess sleep stages using other physiological data from the wrist, such as heart rate and oxygen concentration in the blood. Most sleep-monitoring devices are wrist-worn and cannot measure brain activity. Gold standard measures of sleep stages require monitoring brain waves via a technique called polysomnography. ![]() That is because more complex measures of sleep are better indicators of sleep quality. However, these devices tend to overestimate sleep time, meaning sleep length generated by the device is longer than actual sleep time.īut is sleep length a good measure of sleep quality? Most people agree a long night with poor quality sleep is less satisfying than a shorter night with good sleep. Research has shown several commercially-available sleep-tracking devices do indeed generate sleep length measures similar to those generated by devices traditionally used in research settings. Using accelerometer technology, sleep length is generated by the detection of body movements. Currently, sleep-tracking devices are only able to accurately measure sleep length. These include sleep length, number of awakenings and sleep stages. Sleep health is made up of several factors. However, enthusiasm about healthy sleep is not yet paralleled by our ability to accurately measure healthy sleep on the consumer-level. As a consequence, many people track their sleep on a nightly basis. In addition, the rise of sleep disorder diagnoses and high rates of insufficient sleep within society have made people more aware of their own sleep health. Outlets such as the Huffington Post and USAToday have brought sleep to the mainstream media. In the last decade, the public has become increasingly aware that healthy sleep is important. But only some claims made by these devices are supported by science. The use of commercially-available sleep-tracking devices, such as Fitbit, Garmin and others have increased in recent years.
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