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Strapping on a smartwatch before bed sounds like a smart way to take charge of sleep health. Track the data, identify the patterns, sleep better. That’s the pitch. But a new study suggests that for a growing number of people, obsessing over those nightly readouts is becoming its own sleep problem, so the people who need rest the most may also be the most vulnerable to its downsides.
Researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway surveyed more than 1,000 adults about their sleep app habits and found that a meaningful share of users said the apps left them more anxious about sleep, not less. For people already dealing with insomnia, those negative effects were even more pronounced. And despite nearly half of all adults in the study having used asleep trackerat some point, only about 15% said it actually helped them sleep better.
Sleep-tracking apps and wearables, including devices like Fitbit, Apple Watch, and the Oura Ring, have exploded in popularity over the past decade. They use built-in sensors to measure movement, heart rate, and other signals, then translate that data into reports on sleep duration, stages, and overall sleep scores. That sounds useful in theory. But the new research, published inFrontiers in Psychology, raises a pointed question: for some users, is all that data doing more harm than good?
There’s a term for what happens when sleep tracking goes sideways:orthosomnia, defined as “excessive preoccupation with sleep.” Rather than drifting off, some users find themselves fixating on last night’s score, dreading a low reading, or treating normal variations in sleep data as signs that something is wrong. A wellness tool becomes a source of dread.
About 18% of sleep app users in the study said the apps made them more worried about their sleep. Another 14% said using one made them feel as though something was wrong with their sleep, a concern that may or may not have been warranted. Only 2.3% said their sleep actually got worse, but theanxietytoll was clearly broader.
Younger adults felt it most. About 23% of users between 18 and 35 said apps made them stressed aboutsleep, compared to just 2.4% of those 66 and older. Researchers found younger adults were more likely to report both positive and negative reactions to sleep data. One possible explanation is that younger users engage more closely with app feedback, though the study did not directly test this.
For people withinsomnia, the picture gets more troubling. People with chronic sleep difficulties already tend to be hypervigilant about rest, cataloging restless nights and bracing for another bad one. A nightly report flagging poor sleep efficiency or irregular sleep stages may reinforce exactly those patterns, potentially feeding anxiety rather than easing it.
In the study, people with insomnia reported significantly higher levels of negative effects from sleep app use than people without it. They were more likely to say apps made them feel something was wrong with their sleep and more likely to report heightened worry. The paper states that “it may be wise to caution patients with sleep problems about such use.” While some deeper statistical analyses found the link between insomnia and specific negative effects wasn’t definitive at every level, the overall pattern was consistent enough to warrant attention from doctors and patients alike.
That finding carries some irony. People with insomnia are among the most motivated to find a solution to theirsleep struggles, and consumer sleep tech markets heavily to exactly that audience. Yet those users appear most vulnerable to the anxiety the data can trigger.
Source: Drudge Report
