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Sleep tracking apps and devices may be fuelling insomnia in some people, experts say. Those who don't understand that normal sleep involve lots of brief awakenings may be especially at risk.
Smartphone apps and wearable devices that allow you to track and analyse your sleep patterns are hugely popular.
But poring over the data they generate may make some of us so anxious that we don't get 'enough' sleep, and this can lead to real (or further) sleep troubles, the Sleep Health Foundation warns.
Apps that use your phone's in-built accelerometer can measure how much you move during sleep and estimate your sleep time and quality. Sleep trackers in the form of wrist watch technologies have also taken off.
But insomniacs who find themselves compulsively checking their sleep stats and worrying about not getting 'enough' sleep may need to avoid sleep tracker technology altogether or only check the data less often says Sleep Health Foundation researcher Dr Siobhan Banks.
"Pouring over data on your sleep can be fun and may even shed some light on how you sleep, but there can be a downside," Banks says.
While the accuracy of these apps and devices may vary, even accurate sleep data has potential to cause anxiety for people who have unrealistic expectations of how they should sleep, she says.
For instance research has shown that about 70 per cent of us think a normal sleep pattern does not involve waking at any time during the night.
When asked to plot the 'shape' of sleep throughout the night these people incorrectly drew a 'U' shape, reflecting the idea that once they went to sleep they should not wake.
"In fact, normal sleep is a roller coaster cycle of deep sleep, light sleep and brief awakenings repeated several times in the night," lead researcher, Victoria University sleep psychologist Professor Bruck, told ABC Science News Online.
Better education and understanding of this cycle could literally help Australians rest easier, she says.
"We know that it is quite normal at all ages to wake up several times during the night… The important thing is to realise that this is normal and not worry about it."
Those suffering anxiety find brief moments of waking can quickly turn into being fully awake once you start worrying.
It is important in those moments not to do small distracting tasks like checking the time or a phone and instead, roll over and try to be relaxed about the thought of getting back to sleep, Bruck says.
Sleep tracking devices and apps are not all bad; however, and may ultimately improve your sleep. For instance they might help you spot a pattern of late nights leading to inadequate sleep, inspiring you to make the effort to get to bed earlier, the Sleep Health Foundation says.
It's important to remember sleep trackers are consumer products that haven't undergone rigorous scientific evaluation, so they shouldn't be relied on to accurately monitor your sleep, says Foundation chair Professor David Hillman.
"If you think there is a problem, regardless of what the sleep tracker is telling you, talk to your GP."
"If I measure your brain waves, a normal person, even a person who feels that they slept through the night, will wake up by brainwave criteria 20, 30, even 100 times and not remember any of it because the awakenings are too brief… Five seconds to 15 seconds, 30 seconds, in that realm," Dr Matt Bianchi, Harvard University neurologist and sleep researcher told ABC RN's Dr Norman Swan.
"But those awakenings trickle through sleep, and that's actually a pattern that is common in every mammal on Earth, these tiny fragments or transitions of sleep.
"It's my feeling at least that the idea that sleep should feel like it's continuous throughout the night is something we adopted culturally.
"If you let any mammal on Earth sleep when it will anybody who has a cat or dog knows this they'll spread sleep out throughout the day."