The UK sleep-tracker industry is estimated to be worth £270m a year – and forecast to double by 2030. Could all this data be making our insomnia wo

Sleep perfectionists: the exhausting rise of orthosomnia

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2024-10-15 07:00:02

The UK sleep-tracker industry is estimated to be worth £270m a year – and forecast to double by 2030. Could all this data be making our insomnia worse?

It was only the mention of REM, AKA rapid eye movement, that made me realise they were comparing notes on their sleep performance.

Welcome to the world of orthosomnia, the medical term for an unhealthy obsession with attaining perfect sleep, usually driven by a wearable device. The term was coined by US researchers in a study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, which showed that, ironically, geeking out over your nightly sleep data may actually make your insomnia worse. The scientists observed how some people spent excessive time in bed trying to perfect their score, while others experienced anxiety about not achieving a good enough sleep performance.

Katie Fischer, a behavioural sleep therapist, says that many of her clients are chasing the “perfect” night’s sleep. “The thing is, if you ask good sleepers what they do, they will usually say ‘nothing’,” she says. “They’re not thinking about sleep. They’re tired, go to bed and drift off. They wake up feeling refreshed and don’t worry about the occasional bad night because they know that happens sometimes. Meanwhile, people who come to me with problems are often putting pressure on themselves to attain a magic number of sleep hours, typically eight, without understanding that they might not need that much.”