Orthosomnia is a phenomenon in which individuals become preoccupied with the quality of their sleep tracker data. The term is not currently recognised as a formal medical diagnosis, but it has been discussed in relation to sleep anxiety and wearable technology use. The term was coined by researchers from

Rush University Rush University is a private university in Chicago, Illinois. The university, founded in 1972, is the academic arm of Rush University Medical Center. Rush University comprises: * Rush Medical College * Rush University College of Nursing * Rush ...

Medical College A medical association or medical college is a trade association that brings together practitioners of a particular geographical area (a country, region, province). In common-law countries, they are often grouped by medical specialties ( cardiolog ...

and

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

’s

Feinberg School of Medicine The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, formerly Northwestern Medical School from 1906 to 2002, is the medical school of Northwestern University and is located in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in ...

in a 2017 case study in the

Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine The ''Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering sleep medicine. It was established in 2005 and is published by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, of which it is the official journal. The editor-in ...

titled "Orthosomnia: Are Some Patients Taking the Quantified Self Too Far?", in which the researchers noticed that the three patients having their sleep tracked spent excessive time in bed in order to increase their "sleep numbers", which might have actually made their

insomnia Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder where people have difficulty sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep for as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low ene ...

worse. Dr. Sabra Abbott, an assistant professor of

neurology Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine) , medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous syst ...

and one of the researchers involved in the study, first noticed orthosomnia when she and her colleagues started having "a number of patients coming in with a phenomenon that didn't necessarily meet the classical description of insomnia, but that was still keeping them up at night". Abbott also noticed that because the people suffering from orthosomnia became so dependent on their sleep tracking devices, "they were actually destroying their sleep" because they weren't measuring up to what their tracker considered a "good" amount of sleep.

References

Sleep disorders {{Abnormal-psych-stub}

See also

References