IT SEEMS losing sleep over poor sleep data is a real medical condition.
As wearable trackers drive the pursuit of perfect sleep metrics, people are becoming more aware about the length and quality of their rest, which can cause stress and anxiety when it is perceived to be less than optimal.
In turn, this can lead to people developing a case of orthosomnia, a phenomenon which describes an unhealthy preoccupation with attaining "perfect sleep".
Experts suggest that wearable trackers like Oura, Garmin and Fitbit - used by nearly half of Americans - are partly to blame for the fixation, driving some users to treat sleep as something to perform.
"They often become concerned when their data shows a problem, especially when they compare their results to someone else in the household," Dr Alon Avidan, director of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center, told the New York Post.
The trouble is, sleep tracking on these wearable devices is notoriously unreliable, because they can't directly measure brain activity.
If obsessing over sleep data is causing you to lose sleep, experts recommend ditching the devices altogether, and going analogue with a sleep journal, where you record your perceptions of sleep time and quality - after all, it's how you feel when you wake up that matters.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 27 Feb 26
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