Latest news with #stresslevels
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Health
- Gizmodo
New Study Finds Smartwatches Aren't That Good at Measuring Stress
Some health enthusiasts swear by smartwatches as a way to monitor stress levels, but a recent study calls into question that common usage. The study, published in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, claims that such watches display a very limited ability to actually communicate what a person's psychological state is. Sometimes, a watch may think the user is stressed when they're really just excited about something, researchers say. The report looked at nearly 800 students who wore a Garmin Vivosmart 4 smartwatch and measured their self-reported emotional states against the metrics collected by the wearables. According to the study, the self-reports of the watch-wearers and the analyses provided by the watches bore little resemblance to one another. It notes: We investigated the concurrent overlap between self-report and wearable sensor data measuring stress, tiredness, and sleep. For the majority of individuals in our sample, we found that self-report and physiological measures of stress show very weak to no associations. These results raise several questions about differences between data sources and potential measurement issues. Garmin advertises a stress-tracking capability for its smartwatches on its website. 'Stress levels (0–100) are estimated by the Firstbeat Analytics engine, primarily using a combination of HR and HRV data. This data is recorded by the optical heart rate sensor on the back of your device.' However, Garmin seems to admit that the quality and character of stress can be difficult to measure: 'Public speaking and running up a flight of stairs can both send your heart racing, but the underlying reasons why are fundamentally different,' its website notes. The company suggests that wearing the watch more frequently can result in better measurements. 'You can improve the quality of the insight gained by wearing your device as much as possible, especially while you sleep, because that is when your stress levels will typically be lowest,' the site states. 'This helps create a better understanding of the full range of stress and relaxation states that you experience.' In an interview with The Guardian, one of the study's authors, Eiko Fried, said that the correlation between the self-reported stress scores that were collected as part of the study and the readings provided by the smartwatches was 'basically zero.' 'This is no surprise to us given that the watch measures heart rate and heart rate doesn't have that much to do with the emotion you're experiencing – it also goes up for sexual arousal or joyful experiences,' he told the outlet. 'The findings raise important questions about what wearable data can or can't tell us about mental states,' he continued. 'Be careful and don't live by your smartwatch – these are consumer devices, not medical devices.' The study's topic has a diverse research history. A 2023 meta-analysis of studies about wearables and stress management found that 'the effect of wearable-based approaches on alleviating or reducing stress' had 'not been analyzed' and that most studies up until that point had 'focused on presenting overviews of wearable devices.' Another study published by researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2023 found, much like the recent psychology study, that smartwatches frequently failed to distinguish between excitement and stress. Gizmodo reached out to Garmin for comment on the recent study and will update this story if it responds. While the study claims Garmin's wearable didn't do much to measure stress, researchers found it seemed to provide decent metrics in other arenas. The report says that the watches were very good at measuring sleep, although it notes that 'associations were weaker for tiredness.'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Smartwatches offer little insight into stress levels, researchers find
They are supposed to monitor you throughout the working day and help make sure that life is not getting on top of you. But a new study has concluded that smartwatches can't accurately measure your stress levels – and may think you're overworked when really you're just excited. Researchers found almost no relationship between the stress levels reported by the smartwatch and the levels that participants said they experienced. However, recorded fatigue levels had a very slight association with the smartwatch data, while sleep had a stronger correlation. Eiko Fried, an author of the study, said the correlation between the smartwatch and self-reported stress scores was 'basically zero'. He added: 'This is no surprise to us given that the watch measures heart rate and heart rate doesn't have that much to do with the emotion you're experiencing – it also goes up for sexual arousal or joyful experiences.' He noted that his Garmin had previously told him he was stressed when he was working out in the gym and when excitedly talking to a friend he hadn't seen for a while at a wedding. 'The findings raise important questions about what wearable data can or can't tell us about mental states,' said Fried. 'Be careful and don't live by your smartwatch – these are consumer devices, not medical devices.' Fried said although there is a lot academic work looking for physiological signals that can act as proxies for emotional states, most aren't precise enough. This is because there is an overlap between positive and negative feelings – for example, hair standing on end can signal anxiety as well as excitement. Fried, an associate professor in the department of clinical psychology at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and his team tracked stress, fatigue and sleep for three months on 800 young adults wearing Garmin vivosmart 4 watches. They asked them to report four times a day on how stressed, fatigued or sleepy users were feeling before cross-referencing the data. And the results, published in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, found that none of the participants saw the stress scores on their watches meet the baseline for significant change when they recorded feeling stressed. And for a quarter of participants, their smartwatch told them they were stressed or unstressed when they self-reported feeling the opposite The relationship with physical fatigue, described by Garmin as 'body battery' was 'quite a bit stronger than for stress but overall quite weak' said Fried. Garmin does not disclose the calculations it uses to work out the body battery score, though he suspected it was a combination of a pulse measurement and activity levels. The relationship with sleep was stronger again, though Fried noted it measures sleep duration and tells us little about how well rested someone is, other than the fact there tends to be a relationship between how long you sleep and how well rested you feel. There was a significant association between the Garmin and self-reported data for two-thirds of the sample for sleep. The researchers noted that in nearly all cases, if participants went from one day of self-reporting bad sleep quality, to another day with a good score, they could predict an increase in sleep duration on the Garmin of around two hours. 'This is a really noticeable effect,' they said. The research is intended to feed into an early warning system for depression, in which wearable tech users receive data that will help them receive preventive treatments before an episode begins. So far, there are promising signs that lower activity levels could be a predictor, though Fried has been unable to identify whether this is because of exercise's protective effect against depression or because people feel less energetic as their mental state deteriorates. 'Wearable data can offer valuable insights into people's emotions and experiences, but it's crucial to understand its potential and limitations,' said Margarita Panayiotou, a researcher at the University of Manchester, after reading the study. 'This research helps clarify what such data can reliably reveal and makes an important contribution to ongoing discussions about the role of technology in understanding wellbeing. It's important to remember that wearable data does not necessarily represent objective truth and should be interpreted alongside broader context, including individuals' perceptions and lived experiences.' Garmin has been approached for comment.
