Sleep monitoring apps could prevent people from sleeping at night



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In addition to wearable devices and other home smart devices, sleep monitoring products and applications have become a popular way for consumers to observe how they sleep. However, an article published today in The Guardian highlights a neurologist who claims to have seen people develop insomnia because of sleep detectors and explain why he does not think they are necessary.

The report quotes Dr. Guy Leschziner, who works at the Guy Hospital in London as a specialist in sleep disorders and consultant and spoke at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

"We have seen many people who have developed significant insomnia as a result of sleep trackers or some readings on the fact that sleep deprivation is devastating for you," Leschziner said before his presentation.

One of its drawbacks with sleep monitoring is that they are not clinically certified and do not provide data on sleep quality, but rather on a user's number of trips. His advice is to listen to your body.

"My point of view on sleep monitoring is pretty cynical. If you feel tired on awakening and have a restful night's sleep, you'll know you have a problem, "he said. "If you wake up every day and feel refreshed, if you stay awake all day and if you're ready to sleep at the same time each night, you probably sleep enough and you do not need to sleep." 39, an application to inform you. "

Other researchers have published studies with similar results and one of the problems seems to be the unique approach of many sleep monitoring applications.

Research shows that for most people, the optimal sleep time is about eight hours, but that varies greatly from one population to the next. For people who naturally need less sleep, being alerted to the fact that they do not sleep enough could result in a nocebo effect, expecting negative symptoms leading to worsening of sleep. State of health.

Dr. Leschziner also said it was good to worry about caffeine before bed with a grain of salt.

"Caffeine is only applicable if caffeine disrupts your sleep," Leschziner said. "There are genes that influence how your brain processes caffeine, so there are many people who drink two or three cups of espresso before going to bed without having any impact on their sleep."

He echoed the same thing about blue light.

"If your sleep is really good and you can sit and watch Netflix until 11 o'clock in the evening, shut down your computer, let yourself go to sleep, and get a good night's sleep, then you can not sleep. Do not have to worry about it. , "he said." We know that sensitivity to blue light varies enormously. "

Regarding why sleep monitoring may be unproductive for some users in relation to something like tracking movements and milestones, Dr. Leschziner suggested that the way to improve sleep was less clear .

"If you measure your steps and realize that you are not walking as far as you should, you simply need to do a little more exercise. When you enter this obsessive state of sleep, it makes sleep even more difficult. "

So far, Apple did not officially offer detailed sleep tracking with iOS, but included a more generic "Sunset" feature in the iOS clock app, as well as sleep badysis tools in iOS. the Health app to help users adopt a consistent sleep pattern.

However, Apple bought Beddit in 2017 and sells a sleep tracking pad with an iOS app still under the Beddit brand. A report released earlier this year designated 2020 as the period during which Apple will release native sleep monitoring for Apple Watch.

If you like to use a sleep tracking app and find it valuable, check out our guide to learn how to use Apple Watch and a third-party app.

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