# Actigraphy

Actigraphy uses a wrist-worn motion sensor (accelerometer) to estimate your sleep and wake. It reads your movement patterns over days to weeks. It is a low-burden, take-home alternative to a full lab sleep study. That makes it good for tracking sleep over time. Validated algorithms turn the raw motion counts into useful numbers. Those include total sleep time, sleep efficiency, how long you take to fall asleep, and time awake after falling asleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends it for assessing insomnia, body-clock (circadian) disorders, and treatment response in real-world settings. One caveat. Actigraphy tends to overestimate total sleep time and efficiency versus a lab study, especially in people with insomnia. And it cannot reliably tell apart the sleep stages.

## Sources

- Ancoli-Israel S, Cole R, Alessi C, Chambers M, Moorcroft W, Pollak CP. (2003). The Role of Actigraphy in the Study of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms. Sleep. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/26.3.342

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_Canonical: https://longevity-switzerland.com/en/glossary/actigraphy · Part of Longevity Cities · Updated 2026-06-22_