With the ever-increasing evolution of the smartwatch technology, everyone can now keep track of their fitness and activity trackers. With the integration of technologies like heartbeat monitoring, blood pressure tracking, blood sugar monitoring, and stress tracking, people can now get continuous insights into their health, fitness, and sleep to understand what improvements can be made.
While most people wonder how smartwatches track sleep, one of the few main concerns of fitness enthusiasts is whether these watches are safe to wear during sleep or whether the radiation from these fitness and activity trackers could be a potential danger to your health. And should these smartwatches be worn all the time?
Let’s dive right into understanding how smartwatches track sleep and whether they could be the right choice for tracking sleeping patterns.
Understanding How a Smartwatch Tracks Your Sleep
Smartwatches consist of sensors that measure various metrics to track your sleep. This could include heartbeat monitoring and movement detection to assess whether you’re in a sleeping state at any point in time. Additionally, your smartwatch learns with time, which helps in monitoring the time you sleep, the duration, and when you wake. Various techniques that help with sleep tracking include accelerometer monitoring, which not only detects your wrist movements — but also assesses your sleep phase, so if there is a movement, even by the slightest sound, it signifies that you’re in a light sleep phase. Thus, the combination of these aspects ensures efficient sleep monitoring.
Now that you know how smartwatches track sleep, let’s understand what aspects your gadget takes into account to monitor your overall sleep.
What Aspects Does a Smartwatch Take into Account?
Getting adequate sleep is very important to ensure a healthy lifestyle and proper functioning of the human body. It’s not just maintaining a healthy sleep; it is also crucial to monitor your sleep and understand what can be improved to ensure better sleeping patterns. Sometimes, sleep-related issues can also take a toll on your mental health while creating a negative impact on various areas of your life.
This is where sleep tracking comes into the picture. There are several aspects that smartwatches can take into account. Here’s what you should know:
The first aspect is sleep duration which is very important to assess your overall sleep patterns. Smartwatches can efficiently track sleep durations and provide insights into your sleep patterns, which helps with a better understanding of how your sleep functions. You might also want to know about sleep quality, which is tracked through the disturbance within your sleep. Monitoring the quality of your sleep is quite crucial when it comes to ensuring the healthy functioning of your body. A sleep tracker is capable of providing insights related to the number of times your sleep was interrupted during any specific cycle.
Moreover, your overall sleep cycles also need monitoring since any irregularity can cause several issues, such as fatigue and inability to perform efficiently during daily tasks. Smartwatches offer features related to regular sleep cycle monitoring so that you can assess the overall quality of your sleep over a certain time interval.
Lastly, assessing the sleeping environment can provide valuable insights regarding your sleep patterns. A good sleeping environment is integral to the overall quality of your sleep. While a good environment ensures that you have an uninterrupted and peaceful sleep, it also assesses the factors that can become a potential roadblock to a comfortable sleep. Smartwatches in today’s times are smart enough to keep track of your sleeping environment through various metrics.
While you’ve understood the metrics smartwatches keep track of to assess your overall sleep patterns, you might want to know whether it is safe to wear a smartwatch all the time and whether you should actually do so.
Should You Wear Your Smartwatch All The Time
While most people are in the dilemma of whether they should use smartwatches all the time, these trackers should definitely be separated from your skin for some time for breathability and also to ensure that you’re not exposed to any infection due to accumulation of sweat within the wrist area that is in constant contact with the watch you’re wearing.
While some people are of the view that smartwatches should not be worn during sleep since they can be uncomfortable and might leave marks on your wrist, this can be a personal choice depending on how eager you are to track your sleep quality and cycle monitoring. If you’re someone who wants constant insights regarding their sleep patterns, you could try wearing a smartwatch for some nights to assess if you’re comfortable.
Another concern for people is the radiation that smartwatches emit and how harmful this can be to one’s health. While I was researching related to the intensity of the radiation emitted by smartwatches and how dangerous this can be, there are countless research studies, which reveal that the radiation from smartwatches is low-frequency and does not pose a significant danger to your health.
However, even if the radiation aspect is not an issue, there are other factors as well that one should consider when figuring out whether it would be appropriate to wear a smartwatch all the time. Constant skin contact while wearing a smartwatch can cause irritation, especially when you’ve got an allergic condition. Additionally, notifications on your smartwatch can be disturbing for your sleep, and cause issues such as headaches and inability to sleep properly.
So, now that you have a holistic view regarding the appropriateness of wearing a smartwatch all the time, let’s understand the future trends in smartwatch sleep-tracking technology and how they can be beneficial for you.
Future Trends in Smartwatch Sleep Tracking Technology
Apart from understanding how smartwatches track sleep, it is also crucial to stay updated with the latest trends in the fitness and health-tracking industry. With the updated tracking devices integrated into smartwatches, these trackers now offer advanced sleep monitoring options with more inclusion of metrics that help with better sleep management.
You could get sleep coaching with better sensor technology that helps in generating detailed insights and predictive sleep analysis. You could also take support through Artificial Intelligence for predictive sleep analysis which not only helps with creating optimal sleeping environments — but also extensive tracking of sleeping patterns.
While the future trends in smartwatch sleep-tracking technology are in a continuous development phase, using these trackers offers amazing benefits and can improve your overall sleep extensively. Now, you can efficiently use smartwatches to track sleep and enjoy the healthy lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of.
