Experts warn that sleep monitoring can fuel anxiety and reduce sleep quality



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Many activity followers and smartwatches now offer sleep tracking features designed to monitor sleep quality, among others. These devices may be useful for getting an overall picture of your sleep patterns, but researchers warn that sleep monitoring can make things worse for some users who are subject to unhealthy obsessions and anxiety.

Sleep tracking devices, which include devices designed to be placed on or near a bed, as well as nearby devices for monitoring sounds, generally work together to generate a software report available in a computer. badociated application. These reports usually include graphs and numbers indicating how often the user wakes up during the night, the duration of deep sleep and the overall score of sleep quality.

A former researcher found that many of these devices were not quite accurate; they are useful for getting an idea of ​​sleep, but may not give a complete overview of the night or may contain incorrect information. This is not a big problem for users who use the information to get an overall idea of ​​their sleep, but that could be a big problem for users who are obsessed with numbers, goals and changing their behavior for the product.

Researchers speaking New York Times warn that some users of sleep monitoring may develop an "orthosomnia", desire to achieve optimal sleep to a degree that becomes unhealthy. Unhealthy habits fueled by this obsession may include staying in bed longer than necessary to reach new numbers, which can worsen insomnia.

Experts have also warned that sleep monitoring data can lead to unnecessary testing and treatment, and costly time loss can include taking unnecessary medication to find the perfect score. It is important for users to remember that the data they receive from these tracking devices are only estimates and that suboptimal scores may occur even if the user sleeps sufficiently.

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