Are you so obsessed with the quality of your sleep that it’s giving you sleepless nights? Then you may be suffering from orthosomnia. This sleep disorder can be exacerbated by wearables and other Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.
After all, in the age of “sleeptech”, analysis tools are legion. From countless applications to smart alarm clocks, watches, and connected headphones, everything is measured, timed, quantified, and calculated.
Ironically, by wanting to control your sleep, you could end up creating the opposite effect. Researchers have given this phenomenon the name orthosomnia.
A contraction of the Greek word “ortho”, meaning “straight” or “correct”, and “somnus”, which means “sleep”, orthosomnia is the obsessive search for the “perfect” night’s sleep, with no nightmares or insomnia.
Specialists were inspired by the term orthorexia, which describes people who are obsessed with a healthy diet.
This obsessive quest for the perfect night’s sleep can directly affect the orthosomniac’s behaviour throughout the day. First mentioned in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine in 2017, orthosomnia can make a person irritable, and cause memory and concentration problems.
These symptoms appear only when the user is unhappy with the sleep data provided by their connected device.
“It’s more of a trend than an actual diagnosis,” says Dr Daniel Jin Blum from Stanford University School of Medicine. “Specialists were starting to notice people would come in and have a lot of dissatisfaction with their sleep, particularly related to the feedback they were getting from their commercial trackers.
“The profile of the orthosomniac is that they have this hyper-vigilant focus on their sleep and health. They tend to be focused on an arbitrary number they think they need to hit – ‘Oh, I’m only getting seven hours and 15 minutes a night, but I need the full eight’.”
The thought process around “perfect” sleep, Blum explains, is this idea of “I’m going to get the exact amount all the time and feel great”.
“In a normal healthy sleeper you typically won’t get the exact same amount of sleep every night. Waking up instantaneously without an alarm doesn’t happen all the time, either.”
While the origin of this disorder still needs to be studied, specialists advise people to distance themselves from the results of sleep apps. Indeed, the latter rarely have scientific or medical approval.
If you suffer from this condition, they advise going “back to basics” and focusing on your own feelings and impressions. Ask yourself: have you slept enough? Do you sleep in a good position? Is your room dark, quiet, and comfortable?
If these problems persist, it may be helpful to consult a specialist such as a hypnotherapist.