Health

The rise of the sleep data nerds: ‘The harder you try, the harder it is to sleep’

he first thing Annie and her partner do when they wake up in the morning is ask each other how well they slept. “And I literally say, ‘I’m not sure yet, let me check,’” – and Annie, a chief people and safety officer, reaches for her smartwatch.

Annie started monitoring because she worried she wasn’t getting enough good-quality sleep. Now she’s a self-confessed sleep data “nerd”, mining her sleep data for insights into her general health and wellbeing, using it to inform lifestyle decisions and even occasionally to guide how much she aims to accomplish in a day.

Sleep monitoring is a boom industry, mirroring what devices and apps such as Fitbits and Strava have done for physical activity. Market reports vary on the value of this industry, but it is clearly lucrative and growing rapidly. A quick search reveals a wide range of devices – rings, headbands, watches and other wrist-worn devices, under-mattress devices and bedside devices – all suggesting their use will unlock such quality sleep as to make Rip Van Winkle jealous.

An estimated 40% of Australians are not getting enough good quality sleep, and one in 10 experience chronic insomnia. “We do know there are a lot of people who do worry about their sleep and whether they’re getting enough sleep, particularly if they’re not meeting some of the recommended sleep duration guidelines,” says Dr Hannah Scott, a senior research fellow in sleep psychology at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute in Adelaide, and co-inventor of a wearable device that tracks and treats chronic insomnia

Scott sees the rise in the use of sleep trackers as generally good news. “They’ve certainly improved awareness around the importance of sleep and around healthy sleep patterns so overall, I’d say they’ve probably had a positive effect.” But there’s a downside. “If you try harder to exercise, you’ll become fitter, but we have the opposite problem with sleep actually; that the harder you try, the harder it is to actually obtain sleep,” Scott says. “We can be creating some problems over people becoming too obsessive about trying to optimise it.” There’s even a term for it: orthosomnia, which describes an unhealthy preoccupation with sleep-tracking data.

The most accurate picture of sleep health is derived from what’s called polysomnography, which requires a person to spend the night in a sleep laboratory with their head and body covered with electrodes that monitor and measure brain wave activity, eye movement, breathing, heart rate, muscle movement and blood oxygen levels. That provides a wealth of information such as time spent in different stages of sleep, how many times someone wakes up and how long it takes them to fall asleep, says Prof Christopher Gordon, professor of sleep health at Macquarie University in Sydney.

“Wearables – and that’s lumping a lot of different devices in one word – but generally they’re not that accurate at being able to tell how long you took to fall asleep and how long you’re awake and asleep overnight, and that’s because it’s not measuring brainwave activity,” he says. That brainwave activity is used to determine time spent in different stages of sleep: stage one, two and three of non-REM sleep and REM sleep

What wearables can detect and measure – in varying combinations and with varying degrees of accuracy – is heart rate, temperature, movement and blood oxygen levels, which are then fed into algorithms that determine whether the picture painted by that data is of someone sleeping soundly or restlessly awake. “It could be a device that’s specifically measuring movement only, and it’s looking at algorithms that say if your arms are moving a lot you’re awake, if it’s not moving a lot it’s sleep,” Gordon says. But “that has very little agreement with what happens in your brain in terms of the qualitative aspect of sleep”.

The other challenge is that there isn’t a clear understanding of exactly what good sleep looks like, says Associate Prof Jen Walsh, director of the Centre for Sleep Science at the University of Western Australia in Perth. “It’s an area that’s debated within our profession,” she says. There’s sleep quantity – simply the amount of time spent asleep – and sleep quality, which is more complex and takes into account time spent in different stages of sleep, whether sleep is broken, how often and for how long. “Sleep quantity is quite easy to define and calculate, whereas sleep quality is somewhat harder,” she says. Current guidelines suggest adults should aim for between seven and nine hours of sleep a night but there isn’t such clear advice on what type of sleep – how much of each stage – is optimum.

Sleep quality is also highly subjective and sometimes doesn’t match what even the most accurate lab-based monitoring says, according to Dr Maya Schenker, a postdoctoral researcher on trauma and sleep at the University of Melbourne. “If we feel like we slept very badly, it doesn’t matter what the watch is telling me,” she says. Even in people with chronic insomnia, sleep often looks a lot better on the polysomnography than what they subjectively report.

Rachel says her sleep-monitoring ring has helped her to understand some of the factors that help her get a better night’s sleep. “If I do pilates in the evening, I seem to mostly sleep better,” the Canberra-based public servant says. And Annie has noticed that if she has a glass of wine at any time in the evening, her heart rate during sleep is about 10% higher.

This is where most experts see the usefulness of sleep trackers in a consumer setting: helping people understand how their lifestyle habits and behaviour affect their sleep, and making changes to improve it.

“A lot of people are interested in changing their sleep habits, but it’s hard to find a place to start,” says Dr Vanessa Hill, a sleep scientist at the Appleton Institute at CQ University in Adelaide, who also consults for Samsung Health. Data alone isn’t generally enough to change behaviour, but “if your watch can send you a notification where it’s like, ‘hey, yesterday, you went on a walk at this time and it improved your sleep’, or ‘yesterday you stopped drinking caffeine around this time’ or whatever, and that helps you fall asleep faster”, that can motivate people to change, she says, “I think that’s the best potential that these kinds of trackers can have.”

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Hill uses a smartwatch and a ring to monitor her sleep, and says she does check her sleep scores – particularly her heart rate during sleep, which she says may predict oncoming illness – as soon as she wakes up. “I look at what they’ve been overnight, because if I am getting sick or getting a cold or something like that, my heart rate variability will actually tell me before I feel any symptoms myself,” she says. “If, for whatever reason, I have really bad heart rate variability one night, I’m just like, I need to take it easy today, something’s up with my body.”

Many experts stress that consumer sleep trackers are not diagnostic tools and have some important limits. “If you train an algorithm on a set population that is healthy, you’re not going to necessarily pick up the same signal out of a population with, say, peripheral vascular disease with reduced blood flow into the fingers,” says Dr Donald Lee, a respiratory at sleep physician at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Sydney. Sleep habits also change over the lifespan, which may not be reflected by the algorithms used.

However sleep trackers do provide an opportunity to encourage healthier sleep habits, Lee says. “If we can engage people to … go to bed with a purpose, to turn out the light and go to sleep and improve their sleep habits by engaging in the conversation, it’s a good thing for the health trackers to be doing.”

Health

Three keys to cutting your risk of heart attack and stroke

Sleep, physical activity and diet are key lifestyle behaviours that influence the risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death.

Most cardiovascular prevention guidelines – such as recommendations to get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate‑intensity exercise or to follow a healthy dietary pattern like the DASH diet – have been built largely on evidence from studies in which these lifestyle behaviours were examined in isolation.

In real life, though, sleep, physical activity and nutrition are tightly interconnected, with changes in one often affecting the others.

Poor sleep, for example, can disrupt the secretion of appetite hormones, influencing food choices and calorie intake. Lack of sleep can also reduce the motivation to exercise as a result of fatigue.

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Diet, too, can influence sleep quality and energy for physical activity.

Now a new study, published March 26, investigated the relationship between all three lifestyle behaviours simultaneously and the risk of a major cardiovascular event, including heart attack, stroke and heart failure.

Turns out, you don’t need to completely overhaul your lifestyle to improve your cardiovascular health.

According to the findings, making small concurrent changes to daily sleep, physical activity and diet can have a surprisingly positive impact – one that’s at least as powerful as much larger changes to a single behaviour alone.

The latest research

The new study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, set out to determine how combined variations in sleep, physical activity and diet influence the risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure.

The researchers also aimed to identify the minimum combined improvements in these lifestyle behaviours associated with a clinically meaningful reduction in cardiovascular risk.

To do so, they analyzed data from 53,242 UK Biobank participants, average age 63, who were followed for eight years. The UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing health-related information from 503,317 participants across the U.K.

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Sleep (hours/day) and moderate- to vigorous- intensity physical activity (minutes/day) were measured using wearable devices.

Diet was assessed through a food frequency questionnaire; the data was then used to calculate participants’ diet quality scores.

The scoring system emphasized a higher intake of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, fish, dairy and healthy oils and a lower intake of refined grains, red and processed meats and sugary beverages.

Scores for each food category ranged from 0 (unhealthiest) to 10 (healthiest) for a total possible diet quality score of 100 points.

The findings

During the eight-year follow-up period, 2,034 major cardiovascular events occurred, which included 932 heart attacks, 584 strokes and 518 heart failure events.

A combined daily increase of as little as 11 minutes of sleep, 4.5 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity and a modest increase of three diet quality score points (an additional one quarter-cup of vegetables) was tied to a 10 per cent lower risk of a major cardiovascular event.

This was in comparison to people with the lowest levels of sleep (5.5 hours/day), physical activity (7.9 minutes/day) and diet quality score (37 points).

The researchers also identified an “optimal” lifestyle behaviour combination that offered substantial cardiovascular risk reduction.

Compared to the least healthy levels, getting eight to nine hours of sleep per night, at least 42 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity per day and having a moderate diet quality score was associated with 57 per cent lower risk of major cardiovascular events.

The findings held even after accounting for a wide range of factors, including age, sex, smoking, alcohol use, education, socioeconomic status, medication use and overall health.

Strengths, caveats

The study is credited for analyzing all three lifestyle behaviours together, reflecting how they interact in real life.

As well, sleep and physical activity were measured using wrist‑worn accelerometers, which provide much greater precision than self‑reported data.

By identifying the minimum combined changes in sleep, physical activity and diet linked to a clinically meaningful reduction in major cardiovascular events shifts the emphasis to feasible lifestyle improvements.

How much do you know about healthy eating? Take our nutrition quiz

The study’s main limitation was its observational design which can’t prove making these lifestyle changes will directly lower the risk of heart attack, stroke or heart failure.

The researchers noted that multibehaviour lifestyle intervention trials are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of small, achievable lifestyle changes for preventing major cardiovascular events.

Key takeaways

Even so, the new findings are relevant because they show that heart health isn’t all‑or‑nothing.

Small, doable changes in sleep, exercise and diet can add up, making cardiovascular prevention feel more achievable and less overwhelming for many people.

The findings don’t contradict established advice such as exercising regularly or following heart‑healthy eating patterns, though. Instead, they help explain why people may benefit even when they fall short of prescribed targets, and why partial adherence still matters.

What’s more, the findings align closely with guidance from the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation and the American Heart Association, which emphasizes that small, sustainable lifestyle changes add up over time and can meaningfully reduce cardiovascular risk.

Heart health improves through cumulative progress, not daily perfection.

The Globe and Mail

Health

What you need to know before taking weight-loss drugs

Weight-loss drugs are not the quick fix solution that many people believe, especially if you hope to keep the pounds off in the long-term.

Sarah Le Brocq has direct experience of the transformative effects of weight-loss drugs. She has lived with obesity for most of her adult life and tried numerous diets. “Anything that came out, I thought, ‘I’ll try that because that might work for me’.” Unfortunately, the weight always came back, she told the BBC’s Inside Health.

After taking weight-loss drugs for more than two years, she has lost almost eight stone (51kg/112lb). “All of a sudden I wasn’t thinking about food anymore,” she says. “I’ve just got more energy, I’m doing things I couldn’t do before… it’s kind of given me a new freedom in life again.”

Millions of people like Sarah are now accessing medications like semaglutide and tirzepatide, better known by their popular brand names Ozempic and Mounjaro. The numbers of people on weight-loss medication is only likely to increase as new drugs appear on the market too, including pills rather than the current jabs.

It’s clear that these drugs are opening up a new era in the treatment of obesity. The condition, is now a “mitigatable” issue, David Cummings, professor of medicine at the University of Washington tells me. “They are the closest thing I’ve seen to miracle drugs”.

Other academics, however, warn that we risk losing sight of the need for behavioural change, especially as weight tends to be regained quickly when people stop taking the drugs.

So what should anyone planning to use weight-loss medication consider before they start?

How they work

Weight-loss drugs work by suppressing an individual’s appetite by mimicking hormones that tell our body when it is full. The most common are known as glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1, and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, or GIP.

The drugs bind to specialised molecules on the surface of our cells known as GLP-1 and GIP receptors, which play a key role in telling our body when it has had enough food.

Typically someone taking these drugs will begin to lose weight within the first few weeks. Although the drugs are only approved for weight loss in people with obesity, there is a rapidly growing private market for those not considered clinically obese.

Their popularity has been rising because they are extremely effective, with weight loss of between 14-20% in 72 weeks. But about 10-15% of people lose very little weight, so called “non-responders“.

GLP-1s are like “a chemical shield” that protects individuals against our “modern obesogenic environment, filled with cheap, calorie-dense foods”, says Naveed Sattar, a professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow and leads the UK Government’s Obesity Healthcare Goals programme. He has also consulted on medical trials with several companies who produce weight-loss drugs but does not own any shares.

“There’s food everywhere,” he says – and within half an hour anyone “can pick up the phone and order 10,000 calories of food”.

If you stop, you’ll gain weight

If someone living with obesity starts to take weight-loss drugs, they need to consider that they may be on the drug long-term, says Cummings, who runs a weight management programme for individuals with obesity who have BMIs of 50 and above.

A common question he is asked by his patients before they start taking a weight-loss drug is how long they will be on it. Typically, they stop taking the drugs after about a year, he says. One analysis of scientific studies involving more than 9,000 patients indicated the average treatment duration was 39 weeks. People believe they can continue to lose weight using their willpower, he says, but the evidence suggests that is not the case.

People stop for various reasons, either due to the expense of treatment, their insurers stopping coverage or individuals not wishing to be on drugs for a prolonged period of time, Cummings has found.

And when people do stop the drugs, their weight tends to rebound. A recent study found that weight regain happens up to four times more quickly after stopping weight-loss drugs compared to someone ending a weight-loss programme that focuses on changing their behaviour.

Another study found that those on weight-loss drugs gained 1.5kg (3.3lbs) eight weeks after they stopped the medication, with their weight continuing to climb with the more time that passed. The same study also found that other health concerns, such as high blood pressure, also returns. New research has also found that people who stop taking weight-loss drugs gain back around 60% of the weight they lost a year later.

It returns quickly because of something researchers call “food noise“, which consists of persistent and intrusive thought around food, says Sattar.

Hormones play a role too. When an individual tries to lose weight, it triggers a powerful hormonal response that tells your body to regain the weight you lost. Cummings explains that because of this, the brain interprets a calorie drop as an energy deficiency, so after stopping weight-loss drugs, hormones that stimulate appetite increase while the rate at which you burn energy – the metabolic rate – decreases. “If these biological defences are strong enough, they can blunt the drug’s effectiveness,” he says.

Lifestyle change

Sattar has observed that for a small proportion of people who make lifestyle changes, it may be possible to reduce the dose or use the drug intermittently instead. Some really do make “fundamental changes in their diet”, he says.

“Others might need it at a lower dose than they would when they started. But the majority will probably still need some dose of the drug because the [food] environment is still the same.”

There’s also increasing concern that individuals are taking weight-loss medication as a substitute for making life-style changes – even though evidence shows that modifying lifestyle in combination with weight-loss drugs is what will lead to greater weight loss.

Experts have recently cautioned in a scientific review of the evidence that when there’s a lack of behavioural and lifestyle support for those on weight-loss drugs, it can leave individuals vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies. “We need to make sure people are getting enough protein and are getting all the vitamins and minerals they need,” says Marie Spreckley a nutrition and behavioural scientist at Cambridge University and lead author of the report. “You don’t want to have longer-term unintended consequences, like frailty and muscle loss. We don’t want to replace one health concern with another.”

Because these medications cause a dramatic appetite reduction, patients tend to eat less overall, she and her colleagues note. This can lead to a “missed opportunity” if patients are not supported long-term and their food choices remain poor.

No quick fix

The World Health Organization has therefore stated that medication alone won’t “reverse the obesity challenge”. Early interventions, screening and creating healthier environments are also needed, the organisation has stated in its guidelines on using GLP-1 drugs.

This is easier when people are still taking the drugs, Sattar says. “You have more mental space to think about your diet.”

But behavioural change is extremely challenging, says Amanda Daley, a professor of behavioural medicine at Loughborough University in the UK. She says there needs to be better communication with patients about how quickly they can regain weight once they stop taking GLP-1 medication.

Obesity is a chronic, relapsing condition, she says, which means it cannot be “cured” with a drug alone. That’s why additional support and “wraparound care” is key to ensure patients make dietary changes as well as increasing their physical activity.

It’s unclear whether private providers are providing this crucial additional support, she says, which she finds concerning since so many people access the drugs privately and it is hard to monitor continuation of care.

Micro-nudges help change behaviour

To overcome some of this – researchers at Stanford have looked at how they can help support and encourage lifestyle changes. In one recent study, researchers tested whether small nudges – or “microsteps” – could help encourage healthy behavioural change for those taking GLP-1 medications.

The tiny changes focused on nutrition, physical activity, sleep and stress management. Crucially, the microsteps were small and manageable, such as swapping sugary drinks for water, no longer drinking coffee after lunch, taking a deep breath when stressed or popping outside for five minutes.

They found these helped improve behavioural expectations. It’s this “expectation” that’s a first necessary step for behavioural change, says Maya Adam, a clinical associate professor of paediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine, who was involved in the study.

“Achieving your best health involves a lot more than pharmacotherapy alone,” she says. “We found that giving people these little nudges may be very effective.” She calls these steps “too small to fail” because even small daily changes and habits make a real difference over time.

Side-effects

These kind of interventions are crucial to help give people the tools they need to enact change, Daley says, especially considering the known side effects. These include gastrointestinal issues. There has also been an observed increase in pancreatitis and gallstones. Muscle loss is another concern, especially among individuals who are not exercising. Recently a study found links to bone and joint conditions too.

While we now have several years of data on the effectiveness of GLP-1 drugs, we don’t yet know what the long-term outlook will be or whether the results will wear off over time. There is also a lack of data on how these drugs affect pregnancy outcomes or future generations, as the advice is not to take weight-loss drugs during pregnancy.

But given the negative health outcomes for those living with obesity, the side effects pale in comparison, both Sattar and Cummings say. This is particularly the case for individuals with multiple weight-related conditions. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the leading causes of death worldwide – and all are linked to obesity.

A changing landscape

What is clear is that the landscape for weight-loss medication is rapidly evolving.

There are other health benefits too beyond weight loss. In one major study involving two million people, the drugs were linked to better heart health, fewer infections, lower risk of drug abuse and lower incidences of dementia. It’s also been shown to improve sleep apnoea, arthritis and substance abuse.

BBC

Health

Pride of the Nation: World Doctors’ Day – A Tribute to Messengers of Humanity and Their Role in Safeguarding Community Health

Dubai, March 30, 2026: The UAE Frontline Heroes Office reaffirmed its participation in the global celebrations of World Doctors’ Day, observed annually on March 30, in recognition of the noble humanitarian role doctors play around the world and their essential contributions to protecting human health and enhancing quality of life.

The Office highlighted that World Doctors’ Day represents a distinguished occasion to honor the efforts of physicians and celebrate their noble mission, which goes beyond the boundaries of the profession to embody deep human values rooted in compassion, dedication, and responsibility. It also serves as an opportunity to shed light on the vital role doctors play in building resilient and healthy societies capable of facing challenges and preserving lives under all circumstances.

The Frontline Heroes Office expressed its deep appreciation and pride in the doctors of the United Arab Emirates—true heroes on the frontlines—who continue to perform their duties with the highest levels of competence and dedication, particularly amid ongoing challenges. Their unwavering commitment reflects the highest standards of professionalism and humanity, embodying the spirit of national responsibility that defines UAE society.

The Office further emphasized that healthcare professionals stand at the forefront of protecting the community, and that their efforts are a cornerstone in ensuring the sustainability and readiness of the healthcare system. Supporting and recognizing them strengthens their ability to continue delivering their noble mission with excellence.

In this context, Dr. Kishan Pakkal, CEO of International Modern Hospital, said:

“On World Doctors’ Day, we are reminded that healthcare is not just a profession—it is a profound responsibility toward humanity. Across the UAE, doctors continue to exemplify resilience, compassion, and excellence, standing at the forefront of safeguarding our communities. At International Modern Hospital, we take immense pride in our doctors who consistently uphold the highest standards of care while embodying the nation’s vision of placing people and wellbeing at the heart of progress. Today, we celebrate not only their clinical achievements, but their unwavering commitment to life, dignity, and hope.”

Dr. Rohit Kumar, Medical Director & Specialist General Surgeon at International Modern Hospital, Dubai, added:

“Being a doctor is a lifelong commitment to healing, service, and trust. On this World Doctors’ Day, we honor the dedication of healthcare professionals who go beyond medicine to touch lives with empathy and integrity. In the UAE, we are privileged to be part of a healthcare ecosystem that empowers doctors to deliver world-class care while staying deeply connected to the communities we serve. Every patient interaction is a reminder of our purpose—to protect, to heal, and to make a meaningful difference every single day.”

In the same context, Dr. Mohammad Marouf, Consultant Plastic Surgeon at Quttainah Specialized Hospital, stated:

“The modern concept of healthcare is no longer limited to ‘treating illness’ alone, but has evolved to encompass the broader goal of ‘restoring quality of life.’ At Quttainah Specialized Hospital, we believe that every medical intervention—whether surgical or therapeutic—aims fundamentally to restore the balance between physical health and psychological wellbeing.

Through our daily medical practice, we strive to empower individuals to regain their confidence and vitality. The relationship between external appearance and internal satisfaction is deeply interconnected. This is where the importance of scientific and technological advancements in the UAE’s healthcare sector becomes evident, as it increasingly focuses on delivering precise medical solutions that ensure ‘safety and sustainability,’ while preserving each patient’s individuality.

At Quttainah, we believe that the true success of any medical team is not measured solely by the technical success of a procedure, but by the positive impact it leaves on a person’s life—its ability to open a ‘new chapter’ of confidence and optimism. Medicine, at its core, is a message of hope, and our mission is to harness knowledge and expertise to be partners in every patient’s journey toward recovery and wellbeing.”

The Frontline Heroes Office concluded by reaffirming that celebrating World Doctors’ Day reflects the UAE’s vision of placing people at the center of its priorities and fostering a culture of appreciation for all those who serve the community. Doctors will always remain a symbol of humanitarian giving and a model of dedication and sincerity in the service of life.