Is Your Smartwatch Making You Anxious? Wearables May Be Making People More Stressed About Their Health

Wearable trackers and monitors (such as smartwatches) are becoming increasingly popular and sophisticated. For people living with heart disease, they can provide important information, including updates on irregularities in heart rate and rhythm.

However, a recent study published in Journal of the American Heart Association found that using wearable devices to monitor heart conditions such as atrial fibrillation — an irregular heartbeat — could actually make people more anxious about their health.

It’s a no-win situation: A wearable device can help you better manage chronic heart disease, but wearing it can cause anxiety, which is bad for those with this type of condition.

So what are the trade-offs? And how can we get the most out of wearables without the unnecessary worries?

Wearable devices for monitoring heart health

Wearable devices are playing an increasingly important role in the treatment and detection of conditions such as atrial fibrillation, the most common heart rhythm disorder.

Atrial fibrillation affects about 2% of the general population and about 5% of people over the age of 55. Symptoms can include palpitations, fatigue, and shortness of breath, although some patients can live relatively symptom-free. Self-care is important to improve quality of life and prevent complications such as stroke and heart failure.

People with atrial fibrillation also often experience high levels of anxiety related to their condition. Psychological distress—including anxiety, depression, and worries about symptoms—affects between 25% and 50% of people living with the condition.

Wearable devices can help people understand and monitor their condition by providing data on heart rate and rhythm, and alerts to detect episodes of atrial fibrillation. This can be helpful in understanding the impact of their condition, especially for people living with paroxysmal (or episodic) atrial fibrillation.

One study found that smartwatches are highly effective at detecting irregular heart rhythm and can also help control or even prevent it.

However, any benefits of using wearable devices to monitor atrial fibrillation must be balanced against the high rates of anxiety experienced by people with the condition to ensure that their use does not increase psychological distress.

Wearables can give patients a sense of empowerment

For many people, feeling like they are receiving reliable, unbiased, and personalized health data can increase feelings of confidence, security, and trust, especially when combined with symptom trackers or patient diaries.

This will allow patients to treat their illness themselves at home, with their family, instead of spending time in hospital, which will reduce their anxiety and stress.

In clinical settings, data can also encourage patients to participate in shared decision-making. By interpreting health data with their doctors or other healthcare professionals, they can develop goals and action plans, including when to seek help from their family doctor—and when to go to the hospital.

Patients who understand their condition are less likely to report symptoms of atrial fibrillation.

But wearable devices can cause anxiety

A study published by Journal of the American Heart Association The behavior and well-being of 172 people suffering from atrial fibrillation were examined over a nine-month period.

The study found that 83 people who used mobile devices to monitor their health were more worried about symptoms and treatments, with one in five feeling “extremely anxious”.

Chronic anxiety can contribute to stress, burnout, and poor physical health, which in turn can exacerbate heart disease.

Previous studies have also examined the effects of wearable devices on patients with chronic conditions, including heart disease. Patients in this study similarly reported increased anxiety when using the devices, as one of them explained:

“I’m one of those people who worry about something. I worry about myself (…) and I just thought it was stupid. It reminds me every day, (…) I wonder what I’m reading, how good or how bad (…). Every time I started thinking about it, I started thinking about my illness.”

Some people also describe being a “prisoner of numbers.” They feel like they “have to constantly check their device to see how they’re doing, which leads to their life being dominated by their device.”

The volume and frequency of notifications, alarms and vibrations from wearable devices can be overwhelming and cause health concerns.

Information overload can also discourage self-monitoring, with notifications instead leading people to seek health advice more often than they would otherwise. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

For others, poor health or digital literacy—the inability to use devices or interpret data—can cause so much stress or anxiety that they forgo wearable devices altogether.

The Future of Wearables

In the future, digital devices could help provide a holistic picture of health and well-being through a “digital phenotype” that combines data such as sleep patterns, weight changes and physical activity.

However, more research is needed to understand the impact of wearable devices — including notifications and alarms — on patients’ anxiety levels.

If you already use a wearable device to monitor your health, it can be helpful to regularly review your data and notification settings. You can discuss how you use your device with your doctor or nurse to help you self-manage your condition.

With any chronic condition, it is important to have a management plan. This includes discussing with your healthcare professional when to seek care (e.g., go to A&E or see your family doctor).

Meanwhile, there is still work to be done to make nurses and physicians more comfortable integrating mobile devices and the data they provide into patient care.

This article is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.