The Health Risk of Inadequate Sleep Monitoring
QHHL 
Jan 02 2020
0 
0 QHHL
Sleep monitoring is one of the most effective ways to safeguard your health. But if you don’t do this properly, it may radically increase your health risk.
Health monitoring is an ongoing concern for many people. More and more, people are using technologies to track health measurements at home. You can monitor all kinds of health concerns including your blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight. But one of the most widespread type of monitoring has to do with how you sleep. This is an important factor in your ongoing health and wellbeing. But now there’s evidence that incorrect or inefficient monitoring could be a serious health risk.
Poor sleeping patterns are a big problem for a lot of people. In fact, experts estimate that around 40 million people in the US have long term sleep disorders. And a further 20 million people have short term problems with their sleep.
These statistics are alarming because poor sleep is a known health risk. It puts you at higher risk of chronic conditions such as:
Poor sleeping habits will do more than affect your health. It will also decrease your quality of life. It may interfere with your driving skills, affect your performance at work, and decrease your concentration when doing everyday tasks. Sleep disorders are a huge problem that seems to be reaching epidemic levels. As a result, they’ve also become big business for companies who focus on sleep monitoring technologies.
There are a lot of technologies out there that claim to monitor your sleeping patterns. Sleep disorders are such a big concern for so many people that monitoring technologies are a big business these days. There are good and bad sides to that. On the plus side it means that companies are dedicated to finding solutions and helpful technologies. But on the other side, this determination increases the likelihood of developing solutions that look like they work when they don’t. And for people who are at serious risk from sleeping problems, this could be dangerous.
Around 1/5th of adults in the US have sleep tracking devices. Unfortunately, most of them are what’s known as consumer grade. This basically means that they’re not nearly as helpful as they should be. Sleep monitoring is very complicated and the technology to do it accurately is very big and very expensive. These small devices usually just can’t back up their claims when it comes to sleep monitoring.
Most sleep devices monitor your pulse rate and oxygen saturation when you sleep. They use these to estimate your sleeping patterns. Unfortunately, these health measurements are almost completely worthless when it comes to assessing sleep. Here are some of the issues of using these devices to assess your sleep quality:
No matter what device you use, sleep technologies can’t solve your sleeping problems. And the real issue is that the more serious your sleeping problem, the more dangerous this implied solution is. Serious sleep disorders are a huge health risk. So, you mustn’t think that a sleep monitoring device is the solution. The only effective solution is to seek out treatment that will actually alleviate the problem and help protect your health.
Inadequate sleep monitoring may do more harm than good, particularly if you have a serious sleep disorder. Most of the monitoring technologies are consumer grade and track health measurements that are mostly irrelevant. Even those that track sleep based on EEG readings aren’t reliable.
The results from these devices can’t be and aren’t used by medical professionals to make diagnoses. So, before you start monitoring your sleep, consider how and why you’re doing it. Talk to your doctor about the best options and whether this is necessary. And if it isn’t, don’t add more tasks to your already busy life.
If you’re concerned about a health risk, try using HomeLab to keep track of your condition and any preventative measures you take. And if you see signs of a significant problem, you should check with your doctor as soon as possible.
Tags: health risk, sleep, monitoring