Can Fitness Trackers Detect Sleep Apnea – Can They Help You Fix It?
A sound sleeping experience is essential for your health and overall well-being. However, some breathing problems may arise during the night, interrupting your sleep for a long time. Do you experience breathing difficulties when asleep? If yes, then you need a fitness tracker to help detect your sleep apnea issue.
Can a Fitbit detect Sleep Apnea?
Over the years, Fitbit, a global company, has developed various technologies that can positively impact their customer’s health and monitor their sleeping patterns. Among the recent technology to help monitor sleep apnea is the Fitbit Charge 2 and Charge 3 devices. The recent Charge 3 comes with Sleep Score beta (SpO2) feature that detects any form of sleep disturbance which might bring health complications such as asthma, sleep apnea, or allergies.
Fitbit fitness trackers such as Fitbit Versa spot sleeping patterns using advanced technology. Most people suffering from sleep apnea have no idea until they try out these devices. These Fitbit trackers not only count the number of hours an individual sleeps but also identify some underlying issues that contribute to sleep apnea.
How Does the Fitbit Fitness Tracker Detect Sleep Apnea?
Fitbit fitness trackers can give accurate data on the number of times an individual turned in bed while sleeping. Although it’s normal for a person to have some restlessness at night, prolonged incidences going beyond 30 periods may be symptoms of severe sleep apnea.
The ability to check your heart rate makes it for the Fitbit devices to calculate your sleep cycle. To establish whether your body gets enough rest even when dreaming, keep checking your REM cycle. For a healthy sleep, more time should be spent in the REM cycle.
The newly added SpO2 feature in the Fitbit fitness tracker has a sensor that calculates oxygen saturation when asleep. As such, it can tell the number of hours that your body lacks the required amount of oxygen. To arrive at the conclusion that you’re suffering from sleep apnea, subtract the time spent while restless from the hours you had a sound sleep. You can view this helpful information from the displayed charts in your Fitbit fitness tracker.
Can Garmin Detect Sleep Apnea?
Garmin is a household name in the fitness tracking industry. Besides offering fitness trackers that can check on how long you sleep, Garmin has gone a step further by introducing a device that can detect sleep apnea.
The latest Garmin Vivosmart 4 fitness tracker has a Pulse Oximeter that studies your movements, blood oxygen levels, and how you breathe during your sleep time. It records prolonged restlessness issues caused by oxygen shortage while sleeping.
How do you obtain the information collected by the device during the night? Before drifting to sleep, connect the device to your smartphone app. As such, you’ll review how your sleep was on the phone once you wake up.
Why Is My Sleep Not Tracking on Fitbit?
Have you noticed your Fitbit device is not functioning properly hence giving inaccurate data? Don’t worry! Several reasons, including minute technological issues could lead to this. The following steps can help you resolve issues with your Fitbit fitness tracker.
- Adjust how you put on the tracker before retiring to bed. A loose tracker may fail to record consistent heart rate reading or sense your motions that take place in various stages of your sleep. Therefore, tighten the wearable around the wrist bone and give an allowance of two to three finger’s width.
- Change its sleep sensitivity: A Fitbit fitness tracker has sleep sensitivity settings in its app. In the accounts tab, select advanced setting and click the Sleep Sensitivity. Finally, choose any of the provided options.
- The battery might be low: Some functionalities such as sleep tracker might shut down when the battery gets low. If this is the case, consider recharging the wearable.
Bottom Line
Sleep apnea can develop into severity if not treated early. Why wait for the condition to worsen while you can get one of these sleep tracking devices in a single click of the mouse? Was this information resourceful to you? Bookmark our blog to receive more updates on how Fitbit fitness trackers can help detect sleep apnea.