IT·Science Talk

Night shift nurse here: is my sleep tracker lying to me?

I work rotating nights in a hospital in Pune and I bought a fitness band to understand my sleep better. Every morning after a night shift, it says I slept 5 hours with 'poor quality'. On my off days it says 7 hours, 'good'.

The strange part is how I feel. Some 'poor' nights I feel fine, and some 'good' nights I wake up like a truck hit me. So I start to wonder: what exactly is this band measuring? Movement and heart rate, I think, not real brain sleep stages.

Is anybody else using these for shift work? Do you trust the sleep score, or only the total hours? I don't want to become anxious about a number on my wrist, I already have enough numbers at work.