Could Tracking Your Sleep Actually Make You Sleep Worse?

Sleep is one of the most natural functions of the human body. Yet in recent years, getting a good night's sleep has become far more complicated than simply going to bed and closing your eyes. Sleep scores, smartwatches, smart rings, white-noise machines, supplements and carefully planned bedtime routines have turned sleep into something that some people approach almost like a performance test.

The growing obsession with optimizing every aspect of sleep is often referred to online as sleepmaxxing. But experts warn that trying too hard to achieve perfect sleep can sometimes have the opposite effect. Constantly checking sleep data may increase anxiety about not sleeping well enough and, in some cases, make the underlying problem worse.

One term used to describe this excessive pursuit of perfect sleep is orthosomnia. It refers to becoming overly focused on achieving ideal sleep and placing too much importance on data generated by sleep-tracking devices.

When Sleep Becomes a Score

Sleep tracking itself is not new. Fitbit Classic, launched in 2009, was among the first commercial fitness trackers to include sleep analysis. Since then, sleep monitoring has become a standard feature across devices from companies such as Garmin, Apple and Whoop.

Smart rings from brands including Oura, Ultrahuman and RingConn have also made sleep tracking increasingly accessible.

Although the technology varies from one device to another, most trackers provide users with a report describing their night. These reports typically estimate how long someone was awake and how much time they spent in light, deep and REM sleep.

Many devices then reduce all of that information to a single number: a sleep score.

Dr. Alanna Hare, a sleep medicine consultant at London's Royal Brompton Hospital, questions how much importance people should attach to such scores. She has pointed out that there is no universally recognized "sleep score" within sleep science, meaning that a single number should not necessarily be treated as a definitive measurement of sleep quality.

Hare has also observed that tracking devices can sometimes become a source of anxiety for her patients. Some people arrive at medical appointments carrying extensive sleep data and worrying that they have a sleep disorder, even when medical assessments provide reassuring results.

The result is an unusual paradox: people may begin tracking their sleep in an effort to improve it, only to become more anxious about sleep because of what their devices tell them.

The Data May Be Imperfect, But the Effect Can Still Be Real

The accuracy of consumer sleep trackers is another area of debate. A lawsuit filed against Oura in San Francisco last month alleged that the company's smart rings do not accurately measure sleep quality and sleep stages, and that some of their results rely heavily on AI-based estimates.

Oura rejected those claims, saying that it stands behind its scientific studies, research and accuracy claims. The company has also said it is committed to clearly explaining what its devices actually measure, what they estimate and how members should interpret the information.

But accuracy is not the only issue.

Research suggests that even when the information provided by a sleep tracker is inaccurate, it can still influence how people feel and perform the following day.

In a study conducted by Oxford University, participants were given sleep-tracking devices that produced a sleep score. The important detail was that the scores were completely random and had no connection to how well the participants had actually slept.

Nevertheless, people who were told they had slept poorly reported feeling more tired and mentally less alert the next day. They also took part in tests measuring concentration and reaction time.

In other words, the effect of sleep data may depend not only on whether the information is accurate, but also on whether people believe it.

The Pressure to Sleep Well Can Become a Problem

Jess Hill, a 32-year-old human resources worker living in London, experienced this effect herself.

After buying a Garmin watch several years ago, she gradually began relying on its sleep data to determine how well she had slept. Eventually, she says, the watch's report became more important to her than how she actually felt.

A poor sleep score made her expect a difficult day. A high score, meanwhile, created the opposite pressure: she felt that she should perform at her best, even when she was tired.

She says her obsession with achieving a high sleep score lasted for around three years before she began to notice that the device's readings did not always reflect her actual experience.

On one occasion, she says she had been awake for approximately four hours during the night, yet her watch reported that she had enjoyed an excellent night's sleep.

The experience helped her realize that a sleep tracker is not simply a neutral measurement tool. It can also influence the way users perceive their own sleep.

Don't Turn Sleep Into a Performance Competition

Dr. Neil Stanley, a sleep expert and author of How to Sleep Well, believes one of the fundamental problems with sleep tracking is that it gives people a number.

Once there is a number, there is naturally a target.

Someone who receives a score of 82 may start trying to reach 90 the following night. That can quickly lead to questions such as: Why wasn't my score higher? Why did I get less deep sleep? Why was my REM sleep shorter?

Sleep can then become something that has to be monitored, measured and continuously improved rather than a natural biological process.

Stanley has researched actigraphy, a technique that uses wrist movement to make inferences about sleep, for around four decades. Although modern commercial trackers are more sophisticated than earlier systems, he argues that they still have important limitations because much of the technology relies on movement rather than directly measuring brain activity.

From this perspective, determining exactly what stage of sleep someone is experiencing is considerably more complicated than simply looking at movement data.

So, What Can Actually Help You Sleep Better?

The advice from sleep specialists is surprisingly simple.

Dr. Alanna Hare recommends keeping the bedroom reasonably cool, dark and quiet. That does not mean turning the room into a laboratory. There is no need for absolute darkness, a precisely controlled temperature or complete silence. A room that feels comfortably cool, relatively dark and reasonably quiet may be enough.

Getting exposure to bright light in the morning is also useful. Morning light helps regulate the body's circadian rhythm, the internal biological clock that influences sleep and wakefulness.

Regular light exercise and a balanced Mediterranean-style diet rich in a wide variety of plant-based foods can also support overall health and healthy sleep patterns.

Perhaps the most important recommendation, however, is to keep things simple.

Sleep is not an exam that needs to be measured, scored and optimized every night. Some nights will naturally be better than others. A low score or a worrying graph on a smartphone should not become more important than how you actually feel.

The elusive secret to better sleep may therefore have less to do with achieving a perfect score and more to do with letting sleep become a natural process again.