Are Wearables Making You Healthier—or More Anxious?
Introduction: When Health Tracking Becomes Health Stress Wearables like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Oura Ring were designed to improve health awareness. A 2024 study examined the effects of smartwatch self-monitoring among police officers, a group that works under high stress and irregular schedules. Researchers found that tracking health data helped them become more aware of their stress levels and better at managing health-related habits. Another 2024 study published in PLOS Digital Health examined sleep data from wearable devices among first-year college students and compared it with self-reported stress levels. Researchers found that changes in sleep patterns, resting heart rate, and other physiological shifts appeared during periods of higher reported stress, showing how wearable data can reflect changes in stress levels over time. The Scripps DETECT Study (Nature 2020) found that changes in resting pulse, sleep, and activity levels helped ...