Are You Obsessively Checking Your Sleep Every Morning?
Do you reach for your phone or glance at your watch each morning to see how well you slept?
Sleep trackers have become incredibly popular. Watches, rings, and apps promise insight into your deep sleep, your sleep quality, and your readiness for the day ahead. For many people, they encourage healthier routines and greater awareness. But for some, they can quietly create anxiety rather than reassurance.
There is even a name for it: orthosomnia—the unhealthy pursuit of perfect sleep driven by sleep data.
Research has shown just how powerful belief about sleep can be. In one study, two groups of people had objectively similar sleep. However, one group was told they had slept very well, while the other group was told their sleep had been poor. The group who believed they had slept well performed better on cognitive tests and reported feeling more alert and positive. The group who were told they had slept badly felt more tired and performed worse—despite their sleep being no different.
Expectation shaped experience.
Sleep trackers are not medical-grade devices. They estimate sleep using movement and heart rate, and they can be inaccurate. Yet when a device tells you your sleep was “poor”, it can plant a seed of doubt. You may start to question how you feel, assume fatigue, or worry about the coming night. That pressure activates the very alertness that interferes with sleep.
Sleep is a natural biological process, not a performance to be scored.
Pay attention to how you feel, rather than what a number tells you. Often, the less you monitor and measure sleep, the more easily it returns to doing what it has always known how to do.
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