Sleep trackers, supplements and other gadgets aimed at improving sleep may be doing the opposite for some people, as growing efforts to “optimise” sleep fuel anxiety and excessive focus on sleep data, experts say.

The trend, known as “sleepmaxxing”, involves using technology and lifestyle products to improve sleep quality. But taking it too far can lead to “orthosomnia” — a fixation with achieving perfect sleep.

Although the term is not formally recognised as a medical condition in the UK, doctors say they are seeing patients who arrive with sleep-tracker data and wrongly believe they have a sleep disorder.

Dr Alanna Hare, a sleep medicine consultant at London’s Royal Brompton Hospital, said she had noticed more patients becoming anxious about data from wearable devices.

“Sleep just does not respond well to attempts to perfect it,” she said.

‘Sleep scores are completely made up’

The Fitbit Classic, launched in 2009, was the first commercial fitness tracker to include sleep analysis. Since then, companies including Garmin, Whoop and Apple have introduced sleep tracking, while smart rings such as Oura, Ultrahuman and RingConn also monitor sleep.

The devices typically estimate periods of wakefulness, light sleep, deep sleep and REM sleep, and many assign users a numerical sleep score.

Hare said there is no recognised concept of a “sleep score” in sleep science.

“That’s just been created by manufacturers,” she said.

A proposed lawsuit against Oura, filed in San Francisco last month, alleges that its rings cannot accurately measure sleep quality and sleep stages. Oura has rejected the allegations and said it stands behind its research and accuracy claims.

Research has also suggested that sleep scores can influence how people feel the following day.

A University of Oxford study gave participants sleep trackers that produced random scores unrelated to their actual sleep. Those told they had slept badly reported greater fatigue and lower mental alertness, despite the scores being fabricated.

‘Cycle of worrying’

Jess Hill, a 32-year-old HR professional from London, said she became heavily dependent on her Garmin watch’s sleep scores.

“I started to rely on the watch as my Bible for whether I slept well or not,” she said.

Hill said the fixation lasted about three years and sometimes affected how she approached the following day.

On one occasion, she said she had been awake for four hours during the night, but her watch recorded the sleep as good.

Sleep expert Neil Stanley said sleep tracking could create a cycle in which people become increasingly concerned about the numbers.

“The thing with tracking your sleep is that it gives you a number, and this means you have a target,” he said.

Commercial sleep trackers generally use movement to estimate sleep patterns. Stanley said the technology has limitations because actual sleep can only be accurately assessed by measuring brain activity.

Keep it simple

Experts say improving sleep does not require constantly monitoring it.

Hare recommends keeping bedrooms reasonably cool, dark and quiet, getting bright light in the morning to help regulate the body’s circadian rhythm, exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy, varied diet.

Her broader advice is to avoid turning sleep into another performance target.

“Anything else, you don’t need it,” she said.