World Sleep Day: Orthosomnia is making you lose sleep: What is this unhealthy obsession?

Imagine you wake up and feel well-rested after a night’s sleep. But before even getting up from bed, you take a look at your sleep tracker that says you did not complete your nighttime goal, which upsets your mood for the rest of the day.

Now, you might be cranky about not getting the ‘right’ amount of shuteye. This unhealthy obsession to attain the ‘perfect’ sleep is known as orthosomnia.

On World Sleep Day, let’s understand what it is and how it harms us.

What’s orthosomnia?

Orthosomnia is a concept used to describe obsession with sleep data to get a ‘perfect’ score, usually triggered by a wearable device.

The term was coined by US researchers in a study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

With the advancement of technology, there are now devices that let us track sleep. They help interpret data with charts and summaries, telling how long we slept, woke up and spent in each sleep cycle. They also give a sleep score.

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But monitoring your daily sleep and worrying about achieving a ‘perfect’ score could be counterproductive.

Why is orthosomnia harmful?

Orthosomnia is not a medical diagnosis, but gamifying our sleep every night to attain the highest score could lead to sleep disorders like insomnia and mental health issues such as anxiety.

“For some people, it really can create an anxiety spiral that makes things worse,” New York University (NYU) Langone Health clinical psychologist Thea Gallagher, told GQ magazine last year. “We’re a data-informed culture now, and it can be helpful, but then sometimes it can become obsessive and exacerbate anxious thoughts that are already there.”

Chasing perfect slumber could not only ruin your day but also make you too stressed to sleep at night.

Speaking to CNET, Meredith Broderick, sleep neurologist and Ozlo Sleep medical advisory board member, said, “A fixation on sleep data obsession can exacerbate mental health issues such as depression, and the stress of achieving perfect sleep can result in insufficient sleep, which can pose health risks like glucose intolerance and obesity.”

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Obsessing over sleep performance is likely to trigger anxiety, disrupting your sleep.

“People may feel frustrated or even exhausted by their sleep-tracking routines, trying to adjust bedtime habits in ways that ultimately make sleep feel more stressful,” Dr Michael Genovese, physician and chief medical advisor at Ascendant, said to Tom’s Guide.

“Since the pandemic, we have seen a rise in orthosomnia cases as more people began tracking their health and sleep. While this awareness is often positive, for some, it has led to an unintended cycle of anxiety and restless nights,” he added.

Another downside is that to strive for perfect sleep, people develop unhealthy habits like staying in bed longer. A study on orthosomnia also found that preoccupation with sleep data can result in self-diagnosed sleep disorders.

However, experts say that for those who have lost track of how much sleep they are getting, sleep trackers help them monitor the amount and quality of sleep.

What’s the point?

There is nothing you can do with your sleep data. While most devices are accurate at predicting the amount of sleep you got, experts say the claims of each stage of sleep are questionable.

“These things can just about measure how much sleep you’ve had, and how long it took you to get there. But the only accurate way of distinguishing between light sleep, deep sleep and REM sleep is by observing the brain," Dr Neil Stanley, the author of How to Sleep Well, told The Guardian.

A 2023 survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that only 77 per cent of those who have sleep trackers said they were useful. Other 33 per cent users said they were unable to sleep well because of stress from getting the ‘perfect’ sleep score.

The data recorded by these trackers about sleep stages like REM sleep or deep sleep is not reliable.

“We sleep in cycles of roughly 90 minutes and we transition between light, deep and REM phases. For most people, deep sleep will only account for 13-23 per cent of the night. Time awake is also a normal part of sleep. We can have between three and six rousings a night; often we’re not even aware of them. Most people have no idea what normal sleep looks like, so they panic when they see stats with lots of awakenings and not much deep sleep,” Katie Fischer, a behavioural sleep therapist, told The Guardian.

What if you have orthosomnia?

If you are obsessively chasing perfect sleep, it is time to put your sleep tracker to rest. It is also time to ask yourself why you are doing it in the first place.

“Perfect sleep doesn’t really exist. There’s no foolproof recipe, and micromanaging data only creates stress. What matters is: how do you feel? Do you have enough energy to get through the day and feel as if you’re functioning well with a good quality of life? The best way to keep tabs on it is to look at patterns over a week or two rather than obsessing over one or two individual nights,” Fischer said to the British newspaper.

A ‘good enough’ sleep is a better option than getting anxious over attaining perfect performance. Going to bed nightly at a fixed time, keeping your phone at a distance while sleeping and focusing on relaxing yourself before bed could help avoid orthosomnia.

With inputs from agencies