Oct. 15, 2024 -- When Sydney Stern bought an Apple Watch four years ago, she was excited to try out all the new features, especially the sleep tracker.
A health scientist, the 27-year-old Maryland resident was well aware of the correlation between sleep and disease prevention. But what Stern thought would be a boon to her health became a harm, leading to anxiety and, in the end, less sleep.
“I was focused on getting seven hours of sleep every night because I knew there were diseases associated with fewer hours,” Stern said. “I was constantly checking the tracker, even at 4 in the morning, to see how I was doing.”
After about a month of this, Stern decided to ditch the device.
“I consciously take the watch off at night and even put it in a different room,” she said. “Since giving it up, the only measure I have of sleep is when I put my head down on the pillow and how I feel when I wake up.”
Stern’s experience highlights a growing concern over the past several years as wearable sleep trackers have gained popularity. Sleep experts are seeing more “orthosomnia” among their patients — an unofficial diagnosis describing hyper-fixation on perfect sleep.
People become overly focused on logging the right amount of not only total sleep but certain types of sleep, too. This can heighten anxiety and interfere with sleep — paradoxically, making it harder to achieve restful slumber. Much of this fixation stems from the availability of data on their wrists, thanks to sleep trackers.
“I have patients who put 100 percent faith in their sleep trackers and if they don’t get the exact recommended numbers, they worry they’re harming their health,” said Robert Oexman, DC, chief science officer at mattress maker iSense. “There can be any number of events leading to a poor night’s sleep, and if you’re already prone to perfectionism and anxiety, a sleep tracker will only compound that.”
Of course, the flipside of this trend is a crisis in sleep “self-regulation” — trusting yourself (not technology) to know how well you’re sleeping and gauge your body’s needs. If you’re becoming fixated on sleep, it might be time to relearn this skill, just as Stern did.
When Tracking Spells Trouble
Modern sleep trackers gather a variety of data points, like your breathing rate, heart rate, and body movements. Putting it all together, the trackers then report how long you spent asleep, awake, and in different stages of sleep, like deep sleep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep.
But what’s important to understand is that the trackers are built on averages and can report wrong information. “The trackers do a decent job, but they often provide inaccurate measurements,” said Nicole Short, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “We need to give context around the tracking.”
That context includes the fact that brief wakeups throughout the night can be normal — usually occurring when we shift from one sleep stage to the next — and they don’t necessarily impact the quality or quantity of sleep. And the trackers use averages for their measurements when sleep needs are highly individualized.
“The tracker will choose an ideal amount of sleep, like eight hours, and if you don’t get it, it dings you,” said Chris Winter, MD, a neurologist and sleep specialist in Charlottesville, Virginia. “You might only need seven hours of sleep. So take the ratings with a grain of salt.”
All of this becomes problematic when the information makes you overly anxious and focused on what your tracker tells you. Certain personality types are more prone to this phenomenon, especially those with existing anxiety or perfectionist tendencies.
“I’m competitive, so I wanted to hit all the numbers,” Stern said. “I already hyper-schedule my life, so when I was scheduling my sleep and not hitting my targets, it caused anxiety.”
Returning to Self-Regulation
If any of this sounds like you, it may be time to relearn how to self-regulate your sleep — a skill helpful to anyone, not just the sleep-tracker obsessed. Step one is setting aside your tracker, at least for a while, said Oexman. He suggests 4 to 6 weeks as a starting point.
“It doesn’t have to be forever, but you need to rely on how you feel after a night’s sleep, not how your tracker tells you to feel,” he said.
Rather than sweating the details of the data, focus instead on consistency of sleep over time. Keeping a plain, old-fashioned sleep diary is a good, low-tech way to self-report and reflect on your sleep quality over time.
“When I use cognitive behavioral therapy with patients who suffer from insomnia, I have them track sleep by self-reporting in the morning,” said Short. “Sleep is fairly subjective, not objective like the trackers suggest.”
Pay attention to how you feel throughout the day, too, Oexman said. “Trust yourself on this. If you have enough energy and feel good, you’re getting enough quality rest.”
And it’s quality that matters most, he said, not quantity. When you deliberately spend more time in bed chasing extra sleep, you may not be doing yourself any favors. Instead, Oexman said, you might want to decrease your quantity to see if it improves your quality. Whether you go to bed later or wake up earlier is up to you, he said. But experiment with the amount of time you need in bed until quality sleep returns.
Keep in mind, too, that no matter how much or how well you sleep, an afternoon dip in energy is normal. While a nap may be tempting, that can leave you groggy and disrupt your nighttime sleep if it’s too long or too late in the day. Rather, going for a quick walk outside can boost energy through movement, increased oxygen levels, and exposure to natural sunlight — all help combat fatigue without the risk of post-nap drowsiness.
Getting back to the basics of sleep hygiene helps, too. Keeping your bedroom cool and dark, using it for sleep only — not working in bed or watching TV — and going to bed/rising at a consistent time, whatever that might be for your individual needs, can all pay off in helping you achieve sleep quality.
Once you’ve returned to a healthy sleep routine and let go of any tracker-induced anxiety, you can slowly reintroduce the device back into your life, if you so desire, Winter said. Otherwise, follow in Stern’s footsteps and abandon the tracker for good.
“Do the things that are sleep promoting, and if the tracker qualifies, that’s fine,” he said. “But if you’re wigged out about the data and it goes from providing insights to becoming an obstacle to sleep, it’s time to get rid of it.”
