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Beware of health anxiety

Over-fixation on sleep scores can hurt more than it helps.

Galpin opens every sleep conversation with a warning: be wary of health anxiety — over-concern with little things in your bloodwork, your sleep, everything. Most of the 8 billion people on Earth need to pay more attention to their health, but if you're the kind of person who listens to a three-hour health podcast, you're probably not them.

Sleep medicine has a name for the tracker version of this: orthosomnia — people whose preoccupation with wearable data made their sleep worse.

Always place a problem on the spectrum from disease to optimisation. You should not be playing with optimisation if you're in the presence of a medical disease — and sleep is probably the biggest place of undiagnosed clinical disease that exists.

Feeling a little sleepy in the early afternoon and tired, unmotivated and unfocused at the end of the day is natural and needed. The post-lunch dip is a documented circadian feature.

Sources · 3

OrthosomniaBaron KG, Abbott S, Jao N, Manalo N, Mullen R · 2017Case series of people whose fixation on tracker data worsened their sleep — Galpin's health-anxiety warning has a name.The post-lunch dip in performanceMonk TH · 2005The early-afternoon dip is a normal circadian feature, largely independent of lunch — 'that's the point'.Recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adultWatson NF, Badr MS, Belenky G, et al. · 2015Adults should sleep ≥7 h per night on a regular basis; <7 h is associated with weight gain, diabetes, hypertension, depression and mortality.

Related topics

Sleep duration & healthExercise, RHR & energyWearables & tracking

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Beware of health anxiety?

Over-fixation on sleep scores can hurt more than it helps.

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Educational summary of published research, not medical advice. Screening scores are not diagnoses. If a score is elevated or you feel unwell, talk to a clinician.