The pursuit of better sleep may be turning into a new source of anxiety. Doctors say excessive tracking of sleep hours, stages and quality indicators can push some people into an unhealthy preoccupation with data and numbers, a condition known as "orthosomnia," a term used to describe an obsession with achieving perfect sleep. A number of physicians say they have noticed signs of this excessive preoccupation among some of their patients, who arrive at clinics carrying data collected by sleep-tracking devices, convinced they have a sleep problem even when medical tests may not confirm it, according to a report published by the BBC.
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Specialists warn that excessive focus on this data can heighten anxiety about sleep, which can in turn negatively affect the sleep experience itself, according to a report published on Al Arabiya's website.
Many devices generate a detailed report on a user's night of sleep, broken down by stage, including wake time, light sleep, deep sleep and REM sleep. Many also provide users with a "sleep quality score." But the concept of a sleep quality score is "entirely made up," according to Dr. Alanna Hare, a sleep medicine consultant at Royal Brompton Hospital in London. "There is nothing in sleep science that is recognized as a sleep quality score," she said, describing it as simply an invention by device manufacturers.
Hare added that she has seen an increase in the number of patients coming to her clinic carrying data from various tracking devices, with questions and concerns about whether their results indicate a sleep problem. She explained that some of these patients underwent medical tests that came back reassuring, but that this was not always enough to ease their worries.
Hare said greater attention to sleep as part of overall health is a positive development, but noted that sleep does not necessarily respond well to excessive attempts to control or optimize it.
The impact of sleep tracking is not confined to nighttime hours. Studies indicate that the information users receive about their sleep can also affect how they feel and perform the following day, even when that information is inaccurate. In one study conducted by Oxford University, participants wore sleep-tracking devices that gave them an assessment of their sleep quality, but the assessments were randomly generated and had no actual connection to their real sleep quality.
The following morning, participants rated their mood, fatigue level and alertness before undergoing tests measuring concentration and reaction speed. Results showed that people who were told they had slept poorly reported feeling more tired and less mentally alert, even though the sleep assessments they received did not reflect their actual sleep.
Sleep expert Neil Stanley, author of "How to Sleep Well," said turning sleep into a measurable, competitive process can backfire for some people. He added that the core problem with sleep tracking lies in giving a person a specific number, which turns sleep into a goal to be achieved and draws them into a cycle of anxiety about their sleep quality or duration based on those numbers.
Stanley noted that he conducted research on movement-tracking devices used for sleep monitoring around 40 years ago, explaining that today's commercial devices have become more sophisticated but still rely, in large part, on measuring body movement. Accurately measuring sleep, he said, requires measuring brain activity, and devices that don't measure brain activity cannot directly measure sleep. Instead, they provide estimates based on other indicators.
Rather than fixating on the numbers provided by tracking devices, Hare recommends focusing on core habits that support healthy sleep, including:
1. Setting up the bedroom to be comfortable, cool, dark and relatively quiet, without needing to hit ideal conditions or specific numbers for temperature, darkness or noise level.
2. Getting exposure to bright light in the morning, which helps regulate the body's circadian rhythm.
4. Exercising regularly and moderately.
5. Following a healthy, balanced diet with an emphasis on varied plant-based foods, similar to the Mediterranean diet.
Source: Al-Ghad.
