The Potential Benefits and Limitations of Sleep Trackers

Sleep trackers monitor sleep duration, quality, and environmental patterns effectively, helping identify factors that affect rest, though they cannot diagnose sleep disorders like medical sleep studies can, making professional therapeutic support valuable for sleep-related mental health challenges.

Curious whether your sleep tracker is actually helping or just adding more numbers to worry about? These devices offer valuable insights into your rest patterns, but they have important limitations — here's what really works for better sleep.

The Potential Benefits Of Using A Sleep Tracker

With numerous sleep trackers available in today’s market, many people wonder about their potential benefits. Depending on features, a sleep tracker may monitor sleep duration, quality, stages, habits, and environmental factors affecting rest.

However, it’s important to understand that sleep trackers have limitations. While they can collect data related to sleep cycles and estimate nightly sleep duration, trackers generally cannot diagnose sleep disorders or measure brain wave activity and other sleep stage markers. For these more comprehensive evaluations, you would likely need an official sleep study conducted by a doctor. Individuals whose sleep challenges relate to mental health difficulties may benefit from working with a licensed clinical social worker through telehealth services.

Possible benefits of sleep trackers

Sleep trackers typically produce graphs and reports that can help you do the following:

• Recognize sleep habits and patterns: A sleep tracker may help you understand your typical sleep habits, such as the usual time you go to sleep and wake up each day.
• Recognize the possible effects of lifestyle factors: By allowing you to input information like exercise, alcohol and caffeine intake, and your stress level, a sleep tracker may be able to deduce the possible effects of these factors on your sleep quality.
• Recognize environmental factors affecting sleep: A sleep tracker may help you determine the temperature and lighting settings that are most conducive to sleep. For instance, some people may find it more comfortable to sleep in a cooler room with a light comforter, while others may find it more relaxing to sleep in a warm room under a heavy blanket.
• Identify sleep disturbances: A sleep tracker may help you identify sleep disturbances and any associated patterns, and you can share this information with a doctor, who may further investigate possible causes.
• Track sleep duration: A sleep tracker can detect when you fall asleep and when you wake up in the morning, tracking the time you spend sleeping.
• Collect information on sleep quality: Some sleep trackers can assess the quality of your sleep each night based on information like your heart rate, breathing rate, how much you toss and turn in your sleep, and the length of sleep.
• Track sleep phases: Some trackers can track the phases of your sleep, detecting when you may be sleeping more lightly or deeply.

Wearable devices may be able to monitor cardiac activity, body temperature, and movement, whereas devices called “nearables” may monitor activity without direct contact. Trackers can also give you a “sleep score” based on the quality of your rest.

The best sleep trackers

A 2022 study of four commercial wearable sleep tracking devices tested under naturalistic conditions at home suggested that these devices were usually more accurate in tracking sleep-wake metrics like total sleep time, time in bed, and wake after sleep onset, but less reliable in tracking sleep stages.

The same researchers noted other findings indicating that commercial sleep trackers may perform “as well as or better than the current standard mobile sleep measurement methodology of research-grade actigraphy.”

Your search for the best sleep tracker may depend on your personal preferences, but the Sleep Foundation scored The Oura Ring, a wearable device, as the best sleep tracker overall. Other sleep trackers that scored well include the Whoop 4.0, Rise Science Sleep Tracker, Sleepon Go2sleep Tracker, and Withings Sleep, among others.

Limitations of sleep trackers

According to John Hopkins Medicine, sleep trackers can collect information about how much you’re sleeping by measuring physical activity and inactivity. However, the institution noted that a scientific sleep study typically monitors brain waves and analyzes the exact data related to sleep patterns and stages. This is why sleep studies can diagnose sleep disturbances and disorders, such as sleep apnea, while sleep trackers cannot.

A 2024 study examined the accuracy of five sleep-tracking devices in comparison to a research-grade actigraphy watch (a sensor worn on the wrist) and polysomnography used by medical researchers.

Polysomnography, which typically employs electrodes and other recording devices to measure sleep-related physiological changes, such as changes in brain waves, eye movement, muscle tone, and heart rate, is normally seen as the gold standard in measuring sleep activity. Once polysomnography is complete, experts normally examine and interpret the data it provides.

Among its findings, the study indicated that:

• All the devices, except for one (Garmin Vivosmart), estimated total sleep time comparably to actigraphy.
• All devices typically overestimated nights with shorter wake times.
• All devices usually underestimated nights with longer wake times.

The researchers concluded that “the results of this study support a growing body of literature that consumer sleep-tracking devices are a potential widely available, cost-effective, and accurate alternative sleep measurement tool.”

Considering telehealth therapy for better sleep

Various factors can affect sleep quality, including stress, medication, caffeine, alcohol, and other substances. Findings also suggest that lack of adequate sleep can affect mental health. For example, sleep deprivation has been linked to depression.

Therapy can be helpful for many people grappling with challenges related to sleep quality and its effects. If attending in-person therapy is inconvenient for you, telehealth therapy through ReachLink may be a valuable option. Through our secure video platform, you can connect with a licensed clinical social worker who can help address sleep-related concerns using evidence-based therapeutic approaches.

According to a 2023 study evaluating the efficacy of online therapy for insomnia, online cognitive behavioral therapy “seems to be effective in alleviating insomnia and depression and might be considered as a viable treatment option for depression.”

Takeaway

Many people wonder about the possible benefits of using a sleep tracker. While these devices may collect data related to sleep cycles and total time asleep, they usually have limitations. For example, they typically cannot monitor brain waves and analyze sleep patterns in the way an official doctor-run sleep study can.

For many people, mental health challenges make it difficult to get adequate sleep and wake up with a sense of being rested. While many factors can contribute to sleep difficulties, including the possible presence of a sleep disorder that should be evaluated by a medical professional, telehealth therapy with a licensed clinical social worker can be an effective approach when physical conditions have been ruled out or addressed by a doctor.

ReachLink’s licensed clinical social workers can help you develop healthy sleep habits, manage stress that interferes with sleep, and implement evidence-based techniques to improve your overall sleep quality and mental wellbeing.