Health Tracking Anxiety: When Your Wearable Does More Harm

Across the span of many years, the delivery of healthcare around the globe has evolved and expanded, and nowadays technology plays a central role in how each of us manages our own personal health. A specific advancement, the capacity to monitor a patient’s condition continuously, has genuinely changed the way things are carried out.

As we move through the 21st century, more and more people have become aware of both their physical health and their mental health, and this growing awareness has pushed forward the development of entirely new products, gadgets, and apps intended to assist us in monitoring our own personal health. This system consists of devices that track body functions and then analyse and interpret this information with a high degree of accuracy.

According to a study conducted, approximately 83% of wearable technology users wear their devices daily for about five days a week or more. Additionally, 59% of these individuals only remove the gadget when it needs charging (Wallace, 2026). This constant health monitoring has created what is now referred to as “hyper-monitoring”. In short, this implies that an individual is constantly involved in monitoring their biological, physiological and day-to-day lifestyle data.

The process goes far beyond a simple visit to the physician and rather involves a much stronger emphasis on utilising devices that constantly record one’s data, day and night, 24/7. A large number of individuals have discovered that it is advantageous, since it is able to supply them with immediate information about their vital signs and other measurements inside their body.

Plus, in many instances, these devices have even gone as far as to save lives by notifying individuals of an emergency when they need to get to a hospital as soon as possible. Because companies such as Apple, Samsung, Fitbit, and others have been drawn toward this trend, they now make wearable devices that include watches, smart clothing, smart bandages, smart glasses, contact lenses, smart rings, or mobile apps (Guk et al., 2019).

These tools can be utilised to track one’s steps, blood pressure, sleeping patterns, glucose levels, water intake, physical activities, calorie consumption and expenditure, blood oxygen level, as well as one’s menstrual cycle, in addition to keeping one’s stress, anxiety, and noisy environment in check, plus a lot more. And yet, there has been a great deal of debate over whether these devices are truly useful for every single person, or whether they are simply an extra burden that ends up harming people’s mental health. 

Read More: Digital Phenotyping: How Technology Tracks Mental Health

Psychological Effects of Hyper-monitoring 

In certain instances, the use of wearable devices has been shown to serve as a tool that helps individuals become more aware of their own health. However, several users have reported psychological setbacks as a result. A study was carried out involving approximately 2,009 adults in the United States in order to determine how frequently they check or monitor these devices, and the findings revealed that the most significant issue was that roughly 50-80% of people felt overwhelmed by the pressure to improve their results.

Nearly one-third of the people involved stopped using wearable devices because doing so left them feeling worse on a mental level. A separate study concluded that these gadgets have a detrimental impact, such as causing an obsession with the tracker. People drove themselves to the point of exhausting exercise just to meet the tracker’s requirements, and many became obsessed with the idea of being perfect and having the constant fear of not achieving it.

Individuals started to worry over trivial matters, such as failing to complete their daily steps or not hitting the heart rate that the device assigned while they were walking, which eventually left them pushing themselves even harder and exhausting themselves. Nearly all of the participants reported feeling guilt and anger, especially in cases where no progress was achieved according to what the device showed.

People who became trapped in this cycle, skipping events and cancelling functions or parties, reported losing relationships or damaging their relationships with their close family members and peers (Botanov et al., 2023). One of the biggest complaints that the participants reported about the devices was the inability to produce accurate results at times, which may include inaccurate heart rate readings, blood pressure readings, and the number of hours slept.

Such inaccuracies can lead to psychological and/or mental difficulties for the user that have no equal. Consequently, the participants were seen to experience stress, anxiety, and fear to varying degrees, all of which stemmed from misinterpreting the abnormal heart rate or sleeping patterns that the trackers had recorded. Even if the abnormal heart rates and sleeping patterns are not accurate, they are still capable of provoking stress, anxiety, and fear in users, especially once those users understand the implications of the results (Botanov et al., 2023). 

Self-Regulation Theory & Behavioural Feedback Loop 

Self-regulation theories highlight how individuals guide their own development by choosing goals and striving to achieve them. One of the core principles of self-regulation theory centres on the aspect of behaviour change, which is the ability to adapt one’s emotions, cognition, attention, and behaviour after encountering changes in the environment or social cues (Hennessy et al., 2020).

Self-regulation theory has a number of concepts and a number of processes in it. It can be observed in three different dimensions, which represent the key components of regulation. The first element is emotional regulation; to simplify it, it is the skill to influence one’s emotions by using strategies like acceptance, mindfulness, keeping track of your emotions, problem-solving, and more.

Cognitive regulation is basically the shifting of your attention, discounting delays and how we view time, acting on impulse, and focusing on the future. Finally, the mechanisms connected to the self consist of two primary components: self-affirmation and self-efficacy. Studies indicate that people who naturally have strong self-control tend to make healthy choices a regular habit and show few unhealthy habits Newman & Newman, 2020).

Self-regulation theory explains why hyper-monitoring tends to escalate: behaviour is organised around a reference value, by which an individual recognises an inconsistency between current states and a standard, and takes actions to fill this gap (Carver & Scheier, 1982). In a study by Ryan et al. (2019), current users of wearables check their data about six times per day on average, meaning that there are potentially several cycles of recognising the discrepancy and taking action per day.

The process stops once the standard is reached and further action is impossible; however, as the study found, users low in carefulness reported higher levels of negative affect while wearing the trackers, and suggested that goal orientation, such as completing a certain amount of steps per day, might be an underlying reason for this anxiety, while progress-oriented goals might be more beneficial to them.

Additionally, the process may be associated with certain emotional costs: when inquiring whether they could participate in the study without using tracking devices, most of the participants reported higher levels of negative than positive emotions (e.g., anxiety, frustration), indicating that the wearables might as well become an inseparable part of the self-regulation process. Hyper-monitoring, thus, is a self-regulating loop with no end, being fueled from within. 

Assessing v/s Anxiety 

Making the decision to regularly use health trackers could be beneficial to those who decide to embrace it as a helpful tool. Not only has it proven itself to be a valuable asset, especially to those with a busy lifestyle, it has also been found to be an effective way to raise awareness and encourage people to be motivated. However, in some cases, constant tracking of data is too much when one becomes too invested and obsessed with health tracking.

People should expect minor changes in their personal readiness scores, heart rates, sleep patterns, and stress levels, as these are normal. However, some may misinterpret these changes as signs of underlying health problems. Without a medical background or experience with data collection, health tracking may cause more harm than good by creating awareness of diseases or illnesses unnecessarily. The data may increase individuals’ concerns about their well-being, while unmet daily goals and targets may leave them feeling defeated and stressed.

Moreover, as a person grows increasingly fixated on data, they may become disconnected from the physical sensations of their body, which can intensify anxiety and obsession even further. People who have previously suffered from health anxiety can be more prone to thinking that changes within their body mean something is wrong, as they have a background of the condition.

People who have perfectionist mindsets or obsessive-compulsive disorder may find themselves unable to meet targets set, therefore causing frustration and increasing the risk of spending excessive amounts of time with health tracking. Moreover, people with a history of eating disorders or exercise addictions may become very attached to health tracking due to the data they can interpret, which may support unhealthy habits. If health data is beginning to affect someone negatively or is becoming a source of anxiety within one’s daily life, it may be best to take a break from health tracking to prevent harmful habits from developing.

You may need a break from your devices if health data leaves you feeling frustrated or discouraged when you fail to meet your goals. You might also ignore your body’s signals because of what the data suggests. Feeling anxious when you cannot access your health data is another warning sign. Additionally, health tracking may begin to control your mood, social interactions, or exercise habits (Elhelou, 2025).

Conclusion 

There is no denying the fact that innovative approaches to monitoring oneself bring clear and substantial advantages. Researchers have developed devices that can warn users of an impending heart attack or asthma attack. However, a number of health experts have concerns that devices designed for self-monitoring could, at the same time, introduce serious dangers. Critics argue that the collected data may lack integrity and that some devices may be less reliable than medical-grade equipment.

Others question who can access the collected information and how they will use it. Mental health specialists warn that excessive monitoring can be harmful. It may increase anxiety and make people more self-focused. However, studies have shown that self-monitoring can also help individuals with anxiety become more aware of their triggers.

Tracking exercise habits and diet helps people understand how their daily actions affect their health. In other words, health monitoring encourages individuals to take greater responsibility for their well-being. People should not view hyper-monitoring as an inherent flaw in self-tracking. Instead, they should recognise it as a predictable outcome of the self-regulation process.

Tracking devices speed up the process of sensing and comparing information that guides behaviour. However, they do not guarantee that people will act on the information they receive. The body of evidence examined in this discussion indicates that monitoring proves beneficial in situations where the loop is able to close. Self-monitoring can help people recognise problematic behaviours. It also encourages reflection and increases self-awareness. Many wearable device users report experiencing more positive than negative feelings while using their devices.

In contrast, it generally causes harm in cases where the loop remains open. Some patients experience genuine anxiety or fear when they receive automated alerts. Some individuals try to improve their sleep scores at the cost of their actual sleep. Others report more intense negative emotions when they are unable to wear their devices.

References +

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