Wearables

What does the term ‘wearables’ mean?

Very simply they are devices that you wear to track your sleep and some you can put next to your bed (including apps on your phone). Examples include Oura Ring, Whoop 4.0, FitBit and many more.

Please note that I am not promoting any specific brand plus new options will be always become available.

What do they measure?

• Sleep duration: the time you are inactive and therefore asleep
• Sleep quality: by measuring how active you are through tossing and turning
• Sleep phases: detect the phase of your sleep to rouse you in the morning with an alarm correlated to when you are sleeping less deeply
• Environmental factors: such as light and temperature
• Lifestyle factors: the user programmes in data such as how much caffeine, when you’ve eaten or how stressed you are

Are they accurate?

All of these kind of ‘wearable’ trackers measure your sleep quantity and quality by how active or inactive you are during the night and guessing your sleep based upon inactivity. It’s worth noting though that at times when we sleep we do move around, so these trackers are guessing and estimating your sleep.

For exact data you would need to contact a sleep clinic to conduct a polysomnography which records your brain waves, the oxygen level in your blood, heart rate and breathing, as well as eye and leg movements during the study.

That said, trackers can show patterns to reflect upon.

Note

People can get obsessive about the data from these wearable trackers, which can adversely impact upon their sleep if it affects their sleep anxiety, hence keeping them from getting a good night’s sleep!