You read that right.
Researchers even came up with a term for it: orthosomnia.
I admit, Im guilty of trying to optimize my sleep habits.
Getty Images / T3 Magazine / andresr / Graphic by Zackary Angeline
How many times did I wake up during the night?
Was I tossing and turning?
It helps me plan better sleep hygiene habits and see where I can improve.
But Ive also had patients who check their trackers when they wake up in the middle of the night.
And then they stress about whats going to happen to their health if their sleep isnt perfect.
All this stress can actuallydecreasethe quality of their sleep.
If youre moving a little, youre in a light sleep.
And if youre still, youre in a deep sleep.
This is a major limitation of most sleep devices (for now).
For example, are certain days of the week consistently showing poor sleep?
And speaking from experience, there are definitely nights where ImpositiveIve slept better than my tracker suggests.
As long as the trends are OK, Ill ignore an occasional night of odd data.
A good sleep routine involves dimming (or better yet, turning off!
it’s possible for you to read SELF’s 10 commandments for better sleephere.
How does it compare to yesterday?
Is this healthy sleep?
Will I EVER get to sleep?
Ive had patients worry that even a few nights of bad sleep data signals some kind of health doomsday.
The stress makes them fixate on their sleep data and it consumes them during the day.
This is what’s called “catastrophic thinking,” or when you ruminate about the worst-case outcome.
Catastrophic thinking increases stress, and stress canreduce quality sleep.
It’s a vicious cycle.
Try going without it for two weeks as an experiment (while maintaining your healthy wind-down routine).
It might not be your sleep tracker that’s the problem: You could actually haveinsomnia.
They want to get at the root of yoursleep issuesso you might get back tosnoozing soundlyas quickly as possible.
Nitun Verma, M.D., is a sleep medicine physician trained at Stanford University.
