Can you track your way to better sleep?

Tracking your health is all the rage these days. Whether you choose to track your step count, menstrual cycle or even your heart rate, these smart devices allow you to make modifications to your lifestyle. Recently, people have been drawn to smart technology in hopes that it will improve their sleep.

However, quality of sleep is not a straightforward health measure. A smart device captures a combination of health measurements, such as blood oxygen data, skin temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate and movement, all of which will reveal the quality of your night’s rest.

How accurate are sleep trackers? Dr. Yelena Tumashova, a sleep medicine physician at Advocate Health Care, explains how they can be a good starting point.

“Smart devices aren’t quite medical grade sleep trackers, but they do a good, lab-tested job at gathering an abundance of raw data,” she explains. “Providing this information to your sleep medicine provider can help expedite diagnosis and treatment of your sleep disorder or pinpoint any necessary modifications you can make to improve your overall sleep.”

Specifically, these devices have been known to detect sleep apnea, a sleep disorder where you experience disruptions in your breathing while asleep. This is especially beneficial for those who sleep alone and likely would have the sleep disorder go undetected.

“Since smart devices track your breathing rate, they can detect lapses in breathing, indicating sleep apnea, which should prompt you to seek further evaluation from a sleep specialist who can do more testing and treatment,” explains Dr. Tumashova. “Aside from making lifestyle changes, many people with sleep apnea successfully treat the disorder by using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, an oral appliance or implant for sleep apnea.”

Above all, sleep tracking shouldn’t replace a visit to your health care provider. Instead, the sleep tracking device should be used to improve your health, similar to why you would track other health measures.

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