‘Sleep is my number-one priority in life,’ Dakota Johnson told an interviewer in 2023. She needs at least 10 hours to function, she claimed, and can happily keep going for as long as 14.Among the rich and famous, good sleep is a status symbol. Kim Kardashian and Gwyneth Paltrow once publicly compared the ‘sleep scores’ they’d been given by their Oura rings. (Kardashian had an ‘optimal’ rating for her eight hours and 15 minutes, in case you were wondering.) Even the tech bros are at it: once, it was a flex to get up at 5am, but now Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are disciples of Big Sleep. Both purportedly use Eight Sleep’s temperature-controlled mattress covers – which start at £1,799.The perfect night’s rest is a luxury we all aspire to. No matter how hard we try to attain it, success isn’t guaranteed; in fact, sometimes the obsessive pursuit chases it further away. Experts have coined a term for this phenomenon. ‘Orthosomnia is a condition in which individuals focus excessively on trying to optimise or control their sleep, paradoxically creating worsening difficulties,’ explains Dr Alanna Hare, a consultant in sleep medicine at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London.Our health-tracking devices can feed into the condition. ‘Fixating on metrics such as sleep scores can lead to an unhealthy focus on trying to control something that is not controllable,’ says Hare. The scores may not even be correct. ‘Consumer devices are often not accurate, particularly in terms of discerning the difference between non-REM and REM sleep. It is frequently unclear how a score has been derived.’
‘We’re trying to control something that isn’t controllable’
We’re also dangerously open to suggestion. A study from the University of Oxford gave participants trackers, then manipulated their sleep scores to show an increased or decreased quality of sleep. Those who were told they had had a poor night’s sleep reported a worse mood, struggles with thought processes and increased tiredness.‘Imagine waking up feeling fine, but then you check your watch and your sleep score says you slept badly,’ says Heather Darwall-Smith, a sleep psychologist and the founder of the ADHD Sleep Club. ‘You start noticing every yawn and see it as proof your day will be hard.’Accuracy aside, experts say these trackers never show the full picture. ‘How you feel in your body, your ability to think, to concentrate… all of that is equal data,’ says Dr Katharina Lederle, a sleep specialist with a PhD in sleep and circadian rhythms.In reality, how we sleep is affected by a constellation of factors unique to each of us, although women tend to fare worse than men. ‘Women struggle with sleep issues more due to biology, their menstrual cycle and perimenopause,’ says Lederle.Your best bet is to tap into your body’s natural rhythms. Are you up with the lark or a night owl? This is your chronotype: your tendency to feel most alert at a particular time of day. ‘Find out what your best sleep times are and work out if you can allow your body to sleep within that window,’ advises Lederle.Of course, this isn’t practical for everyone – but there are tactics you can employ to cope with a poor night’s rest. ‘Focus on getting bright light outside in the earlier part of the day, as this is one of our strongest circadian influences and can really help with mood, energy and alertness,’ says Hare. And yes, caffeine is an ‘extremely effective alerting agent, but you should try not to consume it after lunchtime’.While we fetishise getting ‘optimal’ rest, it has no agreed definition. ‘Seven to nine hours is a good guideline for most, but it varies from person to person and at different times in life,’ says Darwall-Smith.And it’s normal not to get it right every night. Good sleep comes when you remove pressure. ‘Focus on ensuring a healthy sleep environment the majority of the time, rather than perfection on a nightly basis,’ says Hare. Often, our bodies have it covered. ‘Our brains are very effective at catching up on lost sleep and they will prioritise the most important sleep stages when recovering after a period of deprivation.’You don’t have to ditch your beloved tracker, either – it can still be helpful in the right circumstances. ‘Many of my clients are neurodivergent and their sense of what’s happening internally can work very differently,’ explains Darwall-Smith. ‘Telling someone to “listen to their body” isn’t helpful if that body feels silent and, in those cases, a tracker might be the only source of information.’If your sleep score is negatively affecting you, however, interrupt the obsessive cycle. ‘Turn off your tracker, switch off sleep notifications, turn your clock to face the wall, or take a break from content that makes you worry about one bad night,’ says Darwall-Smith. ‘I hope people can stop feeling judged by their own sleep habits.’Freedom from tracker tyranny: that sounds like a luxury money can’t buy.Lucy Keitley is a writer at Grazia UK, covering news and features. She’s interested in female-focused stories and smart cultural analysis on a wide range of topics, whether that’s a hard-hitting societal trend or reality TV.
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