Sleep Tracking Is Just Making You More Anxious. Here’s What Science Says You Should Do Instead

For a while now, I’ve worn two devices when I go to sleep—an Apple Watch Series 7 on my left wrist, and a WHOOP 5 MG on my right wrist. Every morning, I get three different scores purporting to tell me how I slept and how “ready” I should feel for the day.

The wildest part is that, most mornings, those scores are vastly different. This morning, for example, Apple told me my “Sleep Score” was 93. The WHOOP app says my sleep was 85 percent. Sleep++, an app from the maker of Widgetsmith, says that what it calls my “Readiness Score was 62. That’s a pretty wide range, but it’s nothing compared to a week ago, when Sleep++ told me my number was 22, but Apple said it was 89.

The allure of data

For years, tech companies have promised that sleep tracking can lead to better rest and better performance while you’re awake. Your Apple Watch–and basically every other fitness tracker–can track your heart rate, oxygen levels, movement, your REM cycles. All of that data is supposed to give you insight into how you sleep. But for millions of people who strap on a smartwatch or ring every night, the opposite has become true: the more we measure our sleep, the less rested we actually feel.

Sleep scientists have a term for what’s happening: orthosomnia—trouble sleeping caused by the stress of trying too hard to sleep well. It was first described by researchers who noticed patients becoming obsessed with improving their tracker scores. They worried so much about sleeping “right” that they made their sleep worse.

Studies since then have confirmed what many users experience intuitively. Wearables can estimate total sleep time fairly well, but their stage tracking—deep, REM, light—is unreliable compared with clinical monitoring. So when your device tells you that you got “only 6 percent deep sleep,” that number might be meaningless. Yet it’s hard not to feel anxious about it, and anxiety is the enemy of rest.

Tracking isn’t inherently bad

To be clear, I love my Apple Watch, and I’ve found the WHOOP to be especially helpful in giving me information about a variety of things related to my health. I don’t think it’s bad that we have technology that can give us data and insights. I just think that when it comes to getting a better night sleep, it’s possible to have too much tech.

The problem is that gamifying sleep turns something your body does naturally into another thing to optimize. You start stressing about getting to bed at the right time, not because you’re tired, but because you want to beat last night’s score. You wake up, glance at your watch, and decide how you feel before you’ve even gotten out of bed. Over time, that cycle can make you both more anxious and less rested.

Apple says its new Sleep Score is trained on over five million nights of data. WHOOP bases its recovery score on physiological markers like heart-rate variability. But here’s the thing: there’s no universal definition of “good sleep.” Even in sleep labs, experts interpret quality differently depending on the context—age, health, and lifestyle all matter. A single composite number can’t capture that complexity.

That illusion of precision is seductive. Numbers feel objective, which makes them seem as though they must be true. “I think the current devices can be fun for people and provide some interesting information,” said Dr. Kelly Baron in an interview with the New York Times. “But sleep can’t be boiled down into a set of numbers or scores.”

What actually works

Decades of research point to one proven framework for improving sleep. It’s not about gadgets or supplements—it’s about retraining your habits and thoughts so your brain associates bed with rest, not frustration. Here’s what science says actually works:

• Keep a consistent wake-up time. Getting up at the same time every day—even weekends—trains your body clock and establishes your circadian rhythm.
• Use the bed only for sleep. Avoid reading in bed or scrolling on your devices. If you’re awake longer than about 20 minutes, get up and do something relaxing in low light until you feel sleepy again.
• Go to bed when you’re sleepy, not just when the clock says so. Sleep drive is like hunger—it builds naturally and can’t be forced by scheduling.
• Limit caffeine and alcohol. Both disrupt sleep long after you think they’re out of your system. Caffeine’s half-life can stretch into the evening, and alcohol causes fracturing of deep sleep–even in small doses.
• Control your environment. Cool, dark, quiet rooms tell your brain to wind down. In the morning, sunlight and being active help reinforce nighttime rest.

By the way, there’s nothing inherently wrong with sleep tracking. Used with an understanding of what you’re actually collecting, it can help you notice patterns—like how late-night screens or evening wine affect your rest.

The important thing is recognizing that it’s a tool based on measurements, not necessarily reality. The moment you start deciding how you feel in the morning based on a number on your smartwatch, it’s working against you. It turns out that the secret to sleeping better might be giving up on perfection.