We’re Wrong About Smartwatches: They’re Not as Good at Measuring Stress as We Thought

We use smartwatches for many different purposes, but a new study shows that they aren’t as good at measuring stress as many people believe.

Many people rely on their smartwatches to track their stress levels, but a new study suggests that these devices aren’t very reliable for this purpose. The research, published in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, found that smartwatches can sometimes mistake “excitement” for stress.

The study compared the self-reported feelings of approximately 800 college students wearing a Garmin vivosmart 4 with the data from their watches. The results revealed that there was no consistent correlation between the students’ feelings and the watch’s data. This means that when your watch shows a high “stress level,” you might actually be feeling very happy or excited.

Stress Measurement Can’t Detect Emotions

Garmin states that it uses heart rate and heart rate variability to measure stress. However, speaking in public and climbing stairs both increase your heart rate, but the underlying feelings are different.

One of the study’s authors, Eiko Fried, said, “Watches measure heart rate, but this is not directly linked to our emotions. The heart also speeds up during moments of happiness or sexual excitement. Don’t live your life based too much on smartwatch data, because these are not medical devices.”

So, do you think your smartwatch’s stress level data is accurate? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

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