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HIGHLIGHTS

  • Smartwatches can be helpful but depending too much on it can harm your mental health.
  • People with heart ailments are getting diagnosed with illness anxiety disorder
  • The study revealed that people tend to overthink or get upset over inconsistent or inconclusive readings.

Do you take your smartwatch too seriously? If yes, you should stop doing that as you could harm your mental health. A 70-year-old woman was diagnosed with a heart condition that causes irregular heartbeats. Soon after discovering her heart ailment, the woman got diagnosed with another illness and this time it had nothing to do with the heart. The woman got bouts of anxiety which was reportedly triggered by her smartwatch. She got flustered by the repeated notifications about her increasing, decreasing heart rate.

A study conducted by Lindsey Rosman, a professor at Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, revealed that the woman had performed 916 electrocardiograms (ECGs) over a 1-year period. The data was derived from her smartwatch. She believed that the smartwatch notifications about her heart beats were a sign of worsening cardiac function.

“Her constant worry and frequent health care visits had a profoundly negative impact on her mental health, relationships, and quality of life. The patient was referred to our cardiac psychologist (LR) for further psychological evaluation, and she ultimately was diagnosed with illness anxiety disorder,” the paper reads.

Lindsey said that she wasn’t the only woman who took her smartwatch readings too seriously. She revealed that there are many patients like her with heart conditions such as underlying arrhythmias, heart palpitations, or irregular heartbeats go to the clinics with stacks of papers with data from their smartwatches.

The ECG tracker on Apple Watch is considered the best in the industry. The Apple Watch in fact has been credit so many times for being a life-saving device. There have been countless instances where an Apple Watch’s timely indication has saved people from losing their lives to heart ailments. However, relying too much or being too dependent on the smartwatch can lead to mental health issues. They can trigger anxiety and more often than not, people get diagnosed with illness anxiety disorder.

The study revealed that people tend to overthink or get upset over inconsistent or inconclusive readings. Such results are often looked upon as potential danger. This sometimes creates a rift between a doctor and a patient. “There’d be a discrepancy between what patients and families are experiencing and think is dangerous, and what the healthcare providers are doing,” Rosman says.

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India today

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