What is orthosomnia? How obsession with wearable tech could impact sleep
Nancy Chen, a marketing manager and part-time boxing instructor, who was drawn to having access to sleep data, told "Good Morning America" that her device became a problem of its own.
"Sleep has always mattered a lot to me, and I would always get a little stressed if I knew I wasn't gonna sleep enough," she said. "It was this cycle of, I knew that my sleep score was gonna be bad, and then I was kind of like stressed about it. It was too much data."
The constant monitoring can lead to a phenomenon known as orthosomnia, defined by the Sleep Foundation as an obsessive pursuit of optimal sleep that is driven by sleep tracker data.
"Orthosomnia refers to individuals for whom tracking may have become or is potentially stressful," sleep scientist Rebecca Robbins, Ph.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, told "GMA."
"The information they receive stresses them out, and then they it causes them to struggle the next night."
The harder people with orthosomnia try to control their sleep, the worse it gets. While health trackers can have many benefits, they may be triggering for perfectionists or those with Type A personalities, Robbins said.
"The thing about sleep is it's not always going to be perfect every night, and sleep is a function of all of the things that we experience in a typical day -- and some of that might be stressful," she said.
While there are many benefits to health trackers, including understanding one's sleep patterns, if you're experiencing stress from those trackers, Robbins recommends putting it in a drawer and returning to some healthy sleep strategies.
"Unwinding before bedtime, calming your mind, using some breathing activities, journaling before bedtime, a warm shower," she suggested, adding that people should try to be "filling the moments before we want to be falling asleep with healthy, relaxing activities."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
a minute ago
- Forbes
Cancer Survivors: If You're A Hero, Why Are You Hiding It?
Love, bonding and woman with her mom with cancer hugging, sitting and spending time together. Happy, ... More sweet and sick mature female person embracing her adult daughter with a smile in outdoor garden. Cancer survivors have a great story to tell. They should tell it. I started this campaign 15 years ago – and here's the latest iteration. Over the last few weeks, I spoke with five interesting people who had five things in common. Here are the first four. They are all cancer survivors, they are all returning to the workplace after a long battle, they are all having a monumentally hard time getting a job, and they are all over 55. However, the fifth thing they have in common is why today's column came to be. They are all doing everything they can to hide these facts, especially the first one: the cancer. Now jump to thing five, the difficulty in finding a job. That's why I got their calls and emails. I gave them all the same advice. Tell people about it. Don't hide it. Get it out front and out of the way. This seemed counterintuitive to them – it may to you as well – and when I first laid it out, it made them uncomfortable. By the time we finished our conversations, though, they all agreed. And I'll bet many people reading this disagree initially, too. In fact, the advice these five people had gotten from everyone to whom they had previously spoken was opposite to mine – don't mention it, don't bring it up, don't discuss it, employers are not allowed to ask about that, if employers know they'll never hire you, it's none of their business, your previous employer is not allowed to mention it. And so on, ad infinitum. Well then, if that's the right advice, why are these people unable to find work? If they've hidden these facts, shouldn't that – based on those others' advice – lead to job opportunities? No, because it's bad advice. If you follow that line of strategic (?) thinking, and it goes month after month – in two cases, over a year – doesn't that indicate it might be faulty? This advice came from people who meant well: doctors, social workers, psychologists, religious leaders, people from the state department of labor, lawyers, family, friends, and so on. They just don't know the realities of the job market. In each case, we got around to how these five answered the 'what-have-you-been-doing-since-your-last-job?' and 'why-did-you-leave-your-last-job?' questions. OK, so how did they answer those questions? With every half-baked cockamamie answer you can think of, none of which holds water. Other than the truth, any answer is weak and suspect. If you think otherwise, go ahead; try any other answer and get back to me if you come up with one that sounds convincing – and that sounds like one that will move you to the second round of interviews. Now, one might think this is asking for trouble, that (as they all said) employers would not hire them due to fear they would get sick again and … you know the rest. Underneath it all, what's wrong with all this is that, in the eyes of many – me included – cancer survivors are heroes, and nothing less. They know all about the important things in life, like vision, determination, patience, goals, positive thinking, decision-making, responsibility, team work, bravery, and fortitude. Are these not the characteristics an employer looks for? So why hide this? Is it because you feel you'll get fewer calls or second interviews? Indeed you will, but that's OK. This deception game is the same faulty thinking that goes into the hide-my-age-by-leaving-stuff-off-my-resume fallacy. C'mon, some employers might be unfair to older workers or cancer survivors or anyone else, but they're not stupid. Whatever you try to hide will come out sooner or later. If you do the deceptive dance, they'll just find out later (not sooner), and then you'll just have wasted an awful lot of your time, not to mention keeping your hopes up artificially. So my suggestion is this. Start your cover letters off with a bold statement: 'After spending the last 10 months battling cancer, I have won that battle and am now re-entering the workplace.' Continue your letter as you would normally. You know what's going to happen? For sure, you will get fewer responses. But the ones you get are going to be real – very real. Don't you think there are people who admire what you've done? Don't you think a large number of hiring managers have either had the same experience you did or had a family member who did? Don't you think there are companies who are such avid supporters of cancer research that they sponsor 5K runs, Relay for Life, and other events in which we now all participate? The answers are yes, yes, and yes. And don't you think that, to these companies and managers, you're a hero? Yes again. Well then, let them know! The ones who will disqualify you because of what you've been through are jerks, and if by any slim chance you get this by them initially, what do you think will happen once this comes out? Jerks are always jerks; don't forget that. I'll take fewer calls any day of the week if they're sincere and real, wouldn't you? And if you can create the conditions under which that happens, why wouldn't you? Do not lose sight of one thing. You're a hero. And if you're a hero, why are you hiding it? P.S. I subsequently received letters of thanks from two different offices of the Aamerican Cancer Society, one of which published it in their newsletter. E.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wells Fargo Raises PT on Health Catalyst, Inc. (HCAT); Maintains ‘Buy' Rating
Health Catalyst, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCAT), having a share price under $10, strong hedge fund interest, and a low price-to-earnings ratio, ranks among the . A data center operator working on a rack of servers, emphasizing the company's cloud services. On July 1, 2025, Wells Fargo set its price target at $10 for Health Catalyst, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCAT), maintaining a 'Buy' rating. HCAT's shares are currently trading at around $4, implying a significant upside as per the analyst. The analyst believes that Health Catalyst, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCAT) is valued much lower than its peers, which sets the company up for future growth through consistent performance. The firm expects positive growth in the company's bookings in the upcoming Q2, which is likely to boost investor sentiment. Meanwhile, the company's strong revenue visibility for 2025 is noted, along with an anticipated acceleration in its DOS client growth. Looking ahead, the analyst expects the company to improve its dollar-based retention rate, enhancing its customer loyalty and revenue base. Legislative uncertainties, on the other hand, are expected to be short-term concerns with minimal long-term impact. Lastly, the company's EBITDA growth was also highlighted as a key reason for the optimistic outlook. With Health Catalyst Ignite, a cloud-based data and analytics platform, Health Catalyst, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCAT) serves healthcare entities, enhancing clinical, financial, and operational results. It is included in our list of the best cloud stocks. While we acknowledge the potential of HCAT as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 14 Cheap Transportation Stocks to Buy According to Analysts and 11 Best Mineral Stocks to Buy According to Hedge Funds. Disclosure: None.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Marine veteran's brain returned by funeral home in an unmarked and leaking box, lawsuit claims
A couple is suing two funeral homes after their veteran son's brain was returned in an unmarked cardboard box that was leaking 'biohazardous liquid,' a lawsuit alleges. Lawrence and Abbey Butler are suing Nix & Nix Funeral Homes in Pennsylvania and Southern Cremations & Funeral in Georgia for the 'mishandling' of the remains of their son Timothy Garlington, a Marine veteran who died in November 2023. He died in Georgia, but was originally from Pennsylvania. In November, the couple hired Southern Cremations & Funerals to transport their son's remains to Nix & Nix Funeral Home in Philadelphia. A week later, Lawrence Butler picked up a 'white, unmarked cardboard box' that the couple thought contained their son's personal belongings, the filing states. The box began to smell and leak fluids in Butler's car. When the couple tried to remove the box, 'biohazardous liquid spilled' onto them, the lawsuit alleges. They reached out to the funeral homes to learn that the box contained their late son's brain. "The family has been destroyed twice," their lawyer, L. Chris Stewart, told Fox 5. The couple says they suffered 'serious mental and emotional distress' as a result of the funeral homes' mishandling of their son's remains, the suit stated. It called the defendants' conduct 'extreme and outrageous.' They've accused the defendants of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other claims, for an unspecified amount in damages. 'It was, and it is still, in my heart that I got in my car and I smelled death,' Lawrence Butler told the Associated Press. 'I had to get rid of that car,' he added. 'I just couldn't stand the idea that the remains were in that car.' Stewart told the AP that after speaking to several other funeral homes, he learned the brain is not typically 'separated from [the] body in that fashion and shipped in that fashion.' In the circumstances that the body parts are separated, they are labeled as a biohazard. 'There's no excuse, there is zero excuse for this type of error to happen. For the Georgia funeral home, Southern Cremations, to ship unmarked, bio-hazardous material. For the funeral home here in Philadelphia to hand the parents an unmarked box, not examined, not on a list of the inventory that was the personal items, to not check it,' Stewart told the AP. 'They have not received a single apology to this day from any funeral home.' The owner of Nix & Nix Funeral Homes said that his team didn't know that the box contained brain matter and noted that the state board did a thorough investigation and cleared them of wrongdoing. "Any body parts should be in the body. I don't understand why they would send his brains in a box, a regular box," Julian Nix, the owner of Nix and Nix Funeral Home, told Fox 5. "We immediately reported it to the state board and the medical examiner for inspection," Nix told the outlet. "When the state board investigated, they said that we did everything correct."
