I am fascinated by my new personal health monitor, a Christmas gift from my husband. It is fascinating to know my heart rate, breathing, activity, disposition and stress levels at any time. However, it is the sleep data that makes me hypnotized – and a little worried.
Why do you say I slept only five hours when I stayed in bed for more than six? Wait, what? I was in light sleep for most of the night and had only 30 minutes of deep sleep and dreams? This cannot be good.
I spent days trying to understand what the charts were telling me about my sleep, until finally I fell into myself. As a journalist who writes about sleep (a lot), I know it’s the overall quality that matters, I didn’t have sufficient dreams or deep sleep last night. After all, everyone needs to stay up late sometimes due to a sick child, travel or unfinished work project.
For some people, however, the fascination with their sleep monitor does not decrease-becomes a persistent obsession. In fact, so many people care about their sleep data trying to have a perfect night of sleep that experts have coined a term for this behavior: Ortossonia.
Ortossonia is derived from the Latin word Ortho, which means being right or correct, and Somnia, the Latin word for sleep, said the inventor of the term, the clinical psychologist Kelly Baron, professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of Utah, specializing in sleep behavior medicine.
Baron and his colleagues published the first Case Studies about Ortossonia in 2017 after seeing several patients who insisted that their sleep monitors were correct, although they were informed otherwise. Although behavior is not considered a medical disorder, it is disturbing, Baron said.
“I’ve seen some really scary stories,” she said. “A 27 -year -old woman said her monitor showed she wasn’t sleeping. A night laboratory study showed that she was, but she still didn’t believe her monitor was wrong. ”
This behavior was disconcerting, Baron said, because the first models of sleep monitors were notoriously inaccurate.
“A long time of sleep was considered vigil, and the reported sleep cycles were completely wrong,” she said. “However, we saw people developing insomnia concerned with the lack of sleep on their monitor. Some even took tremendous amounts of sleeping medicines, which is simply scary. ”
A woman who Baron tried to convince her general practitioner to prescribe high doses of an antipsychotic based on her device’s erroneous sleep data.
“His monitor was from an unknown brand – I had never heard of it – and it was so inaccurate that the graphics were not even labeled,” Baron said. “Good monitors today often use multiple sensors such as movement, heart rate variability and the like, so they have evolved a lot in accuracy.”
“But until the monitors really measure brain waves as we do in a sleeping laboratory, it’s just an estimate,” she said. “I believe that the obsession with sleep monitors contributes to much anxiety and insomnia related to sleep.”
How not to develop a fixation for monitoring sleep
You don’t need a sleep monitor to sleep well, the experts emphasize. Just follow good sleep hygiene recommendations, such as sleeping and waking up at the same time every day. Be sure to treat any sleep disorders such as sleep apnea that can harm your health.
Ok, you already have a monitor (or want one). Use it to see how many life choices affect your sleep, experts say. Eating too late means you have more awakening? And that drink before bed? Alcohol is known to disturb sleep in the middle of the night.
In addition, you can maintain your relationship with your healthy monitor by asking the following questions, suggested by Sleep expert Jennifer Mundt, an associate professor of family medicine and preventive at the University of Utah, who assists patients at the school’s sleep and vigil center.
“How do you feel about reviewing your sleep data? Does this lead to any tangible measure that improved your sleep? ”Mundt said in an email. “This is telling you something new or just remembering that you didn’t sleep well – and making you more anxious about it?”
The paradox of good sleep, she added, is that the more we strive to reach it, the harder it is to get it.
“If you feel frustrated or anxious, it’s a good idea to try to break your sleeping tracker,” Mundt said, “because feeling anxiety about sleep doesn’t help you sleep better.”
Knowledge with knowledge
By educating yourself about the various stages of sleep, you can reduce anxiety about your tracker’s results, experts say.
Sleep latency
Also known as stage one of sleep, it is the time that takes you to fall asleep completely. Contrary to popular belief, it is not healthy to fall asleep immediately – this is a sign of extreme deprivation of sleep. Take 20 to 30 minutes to fall asleep after turning off the lights is perfectly normal.
Light sleep
When I first opened my sleeping tracker, I was shocked with how long my night was spent in light sleep, or sleep two. However, this is also perfectly normal, experts say. Our brain uses light sleep to make the transition between slow wave sleep, or deep sleep, and REM (fast eye movement), which is the stage we dream of. Experts say about 50% of your night should be in light sleep.
Deep and rem
During deep sleep, the brain eliminates toxins and dead cells while also repairs and restores the body for the next day. While we dream during REM sleep, the brain is busy processing emotions, consolidating memories and absorbing new information. It is logical that getting deep and REM sleep is critical to our ability to function.
Currently, experts believe that most adults should spend between 20% and 25% of their night in deep sleep, as well as in REM sleep. Older adults need less, while babies need much more – in fact, babies can spend about 50% of their sleep in REM, experts say.
Using this measure, an adult that sleeps the eight hours recommended per night would need about 1.6 to two hours of sleep in REM and the same amount in deep sleep. However, each person is different, and it is not prudent to settle in specific numbers, said Sleep researcher Dr. Ana Krieger, professor of clinical medicine in the departments of Medicine, Neurology and Genetic Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.
Why? Because researchers are still using rudimentary tools to understand a brain system that is truly chemical controlled, Krieger said, who is head of sleep neurology in Weill Cornell.
“Today, we measure electrical activity and brain waves, when what we need is more science to understand the true neurochemical bases of sleep,” she said. “I often tell patients that it is like a beautiful complete orchestra that plays at night, with many different chemicals, or instruments if they prefer, enter and retreat at different times.”
Science does not yet know enough to completely understand all the stages of sleep, Krieger added, but research is underway. Stay tuned.
“Meanwhile, I suggest that people stop worrying about the division of their sleep,” she said. “Instead, focus on relaxing and working in your environment to sleep without interference or interruption at night.”
See also: Sleep problems can cause anxiety and depression
This content was originally published on sleep monitors can cause anxiety and insomnia, warning experts on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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