Orthosomnia describes sleep problems that come from an unhealthy preoccupation with getting “perfect” sleep data.
Researchers at Rush University and Northwestern coined the term in 2017 (orthos means “correct”, and the -somnia ending is the one in insomnia). They saw patients whose insomnia was being fuelled by anxiety about their sleep scores.
But the evidence for harm is thin. In the only controlled test published, insomnia patients using a tracker improved, and so did the patients given nothing but a paper diary.
So while orthosomnia exists, there is no clinical threshold for having it. Sleep data can make some people anxious, though most people surveyed report more benefit than harm.
Key takeaways
- Orthosomnia is a descriptive label from a 2017 case series.
- It’s a label, not a condition, and there’s no clinical threshold.
- Five studies exist: one controlled trial, three surveys and the original case report.
- Insomnia patients given a tracker improved over four weeks. The ones given a paper diary improved more.
- Single nights of data are noisy, and studying trends for sleep are much more important. Across 849,971 pairs of consecutive nights, our members’ scores moved an average of 10.2 points from one night to the next.
The origins of orthosomnia
In 2017, a team of sleep researchers led by Kelly Baron noticed something new at their clinic. Patients were turning up convinced they had insomnia, and the evidence was their sleep tracker. Their case report described these patients and gave the problem a name: orthosomnia.
Those patients trusted the device over the clinic. Sometimes the clinic ran a full overnight sleep study and found their sleep was fine. Even then, many still believed the tracker, because its numbers matched how they felt.
How common is it?
Nobody tried to answer that until 2024, when researchers surveyed 523 people . Just over a third of them (35.8%) regularly wore a sleep tracker.
The researchers had a problem, though. Orthosomnia had no official definition, so they wrote their own. To count, a person had to:
- use a sleep tracker
- have noticeable insomnia symptoms
- not be anxious in general, so that people who simply worry about everything weren’t counted
- worry a lot about their sleep specifically
The answer depended on how much sleep worry was enough to count. With a strict bar, 3% of everyone surveyed had orthosomnia. A moderate bar gave 8.6%, and a looser one gave 14%.
Does tracking make sleep worse?
Twenty-six primary care patients with insomnia were split in two for four weeks. Fourteen were given a self-help booklet and a consumer wrist tracker. Twelve got the booklet and kept a handwritten sleep diary. Sleep quality, stress reactivity and quality of life improved in both groups, with no significant difference between them.
The one difference showed up in the sleep diaries. The control group increased their average time asleep and their sleep efficiency over the four weeks. The tracker group did not.
A 2026 survey of 1,002 Norwegian adults , 46% of whom had used a sleep app, found people reporting more good than harm on balance, with a mean positive-effects score of 14.6 against 10.8 for negative effects.
Respondents with insomnia reported more negative effects than those without, and the authors suggested cautioning patients with sleep problems specifically. So the people most likely to reach for a sleep tracker are the ones with the most reason for caution. Sleepmaxxing is the wider trend this sits inside.
Frequently asked questions
Is orthosomnia a real diagnosis? No. It is a descriptive term coined in a 2017 case report and it appears in no diagnostic manual. There is no validated cut-off for having it, though a measurement scale was published in 2025.
Does using a sleep tracker cause insomnia? Nothing in the evidence shows that. The one controlled trial found insomnia patients improved with a tracker, just less than the group keeping a paper diary, in a sample of 26.
My score and how I feel never match. Which is right? How you feel. A consumer tracker estimates sleep from movement, heart rate and temperature, and it is not a diagnostic device. The science behind sleep tracking covers the methods and their limits.
Why does my sleep score jump around so much? Because sleep does. Across 849,971 pairs of consecutive nights from 174,730 Ultrahuman members, the score moved an average of 10.2 points from one night to the next, and more than a third of consecutive nights differed by 10 points or more. Among members who logged a full week, their best and worst nights were 24.3 points apart on average, against a mean score of 80.
Should I stop tracking? Only if it is making things worse. Most people in the survey evidence report more benefit than harm. People with existing insomnia report more harm than people without.
References
- Baron KG, Abbott S, Jao N, Manalo N, Mullen R. Orthosomnia: are some patients taking the quantified self too far? J Clin Sleep Med. 2017;13(2):351-354. PMID 27855740
- Prevalence of orthosomnia in a general population sample: a cross-sectional study. Brain Sci. 2024;14(12):1213. PMID 39595886
- Development of a scale for measuring orthosomnia: the Bergen Orthosomnia Scale (BOS). Front Sleep. 2025. PMID 41425191
- A useful tool or a new challenge? Hand-wrist-worn sleep trackers in patients with insomnia. J Sleep Res. 2023;32(5):e13875. PMID 36966819
- Sleep in the age of technology: the use of sleep apps and perceived impact on sleep and sleep habits. Front Psychol. 2026. PMID 41937857
Ultrahuman data. Sleep score variability computed from Ultrahuman Ring members, 6–12 October 2026. Aggregate and anonymised. 849,971 consecutive-night pairs from 174,730 members. Week-range figure from 87,240 members with seven valid nights.
THE AUTHOR
