Experts warn smartwatch sleep scores often cause unnecessary anxiety
In recent years, sleep clinics across the Netherlands have seen an increase in patients reporting sleep problems. Experts attribute part of this rise to the use of smartwatches, which track sleep and often cause unnecessary worry due to inaccurate measurements, Nu.nl reported.
Many people wear smartwatches overnight to monitor their sleep patterns. These devices sync with apps that display graphs and scores, showing sleep duration, interruptions, and quality. While these tools can raise awareness about sleep habits, they also generate confusion and anxiety.
“Patients, often young men, use devices like Apple Watch, Fitbit, or Garmin to track their sleep,” Raymond Vogels of the Ruysdael Sleep Clinic told Nu.nl. “In some cases, the data can be helpful. But some patients become too fixated on their sleep data, leading to tension, anxiety, or unrealistic expectations about how much and how well they need to sleep.”
Lisette Venekamp from the Dutch Sleep Institute highlighted the psychological impact of these sleep scores. “If your app shows a high score, you feel ready for the day. But if it shows a poor score or red warnings, you might think there’s a problem,” she told Nu.nl. “This can cause psychological issues for something that isn’t actually wrong. That’s a real concern.”
This anxiety is reflected in people seeking help at clinics or from general practitioners. Sebastiaan Overeem, a sleep physician at the Kempenhaeghe Sleep Medicine Center, explained to Nu.nl, “When you see a graph indicating you woke up ten times during the night, people who are otherwise healthy might start to believe something is wrong with their sleep.” Overeem added that even after thorough medical sleep studies, some patients struggle to accept that sleep problems may not be the cause of their daytime fatigue because they trust their smartwatch data more.
Venekamp and other experts argue that sleep apps should avoid providing numerical sleep scores altogether. “It fits a trend where everything needs to be reduced to a score,” she told Nu.nl. “But sleep varies from person to person. Some people sleep only five hours yet wake up fully rested, even though their app might give them a low score for sleeping less than average.”
Adding to the problem is the lack of transparency about how smartwatches calculate these sleep scores. Experts note that the capabilities of wearable devices are limited, which reduces the reliability of their results.
Medical sleep studies differ significantly. They involve electrodes attached to the body to measure oxygen levels, breathing, and brain activity during sleep. Cathelijne Gorter de Vries, a neurologist and sleep specialist at the Zaans Medical Center, said that while new home medical monitoring tools are in development—such as adhesive patches or mattress sensors—smartwatches are not designed for precise sleep measurement. “They can track when you go to bed and your general rhythm, maybe movement, but they are fairly unreliable beyond that,” she told Nu.nl.
