July 10, 2026 | Read Online​

When Tracking Sleep Costs You Sleep

I think I’m breaking up with my Apple Watch. I recently dug around in my bureau and found an old Timex that still ticks. I’m not checking my sleep scores every morning or my steps at the end of the day. It started when I woke up at 2 am. I usually fall back asleep easily, but this night I wondered if my tossing and turning would hurt my sleep score. Big mistake. I’m in my head. My bedside clock reads 3:34 am. Now, I’m in trouble.

Turns out there's a word for this.

In 2017, sleep researchers at Rush University noticed a strange pattern. Patients kept showing up at their clinic convinced they had a sleep problem. Not because they felt tired. Because their trackers told them so. Some patients trusted their wearable over a bona fide overnight sleep study. The researchers named the condition orthosomnia, the perfectionist pursuit of ideal sleep.

Turns out, worrying about your sleep score can cost you sleep.

Goodhart’s Law says, “When a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure.” I’ve written about this before. Cobra bounties in India led hunters to breed cobras just to cash them in. Wells Fargo’s banking incentives led to fake accounts.

When moving becomes more about closing rings than being healthy, we've lost the thread. When we're grinding out steps at 11 pm to keep a streak alive, the watch isn't serving us. We're serving the watch.

Here's the thing. Tracking isn't the problem. Tracking is one of the best ways to learn.

A few years back, we bought an Eight Sleep* mattress cover. You know the ones. They cycle water through the pad to regulate your temperature. Wendy is a light sleeper. Sleep could sometimes be a struggle, and, as we’ve gotten older, it had begun to impact her health. After asking some friends about their experience with Eight Sleep, we invested. It wasn’t cheap.

Every morning, we’d get a notification with our sleep score with suggestions to improve the quality of our sleep. We started to notice the impact of a late meal or a second glass of wine. Late afternoon coffee? Nope. After a month or so, we started to dial in a better program to optimize our sleep.

That's tracking at its best. We had a challenge. The data gave us answers. We made changes, and life improved.

Tracking works in seasons. Use it to establish a baseline. Use it to build a habit or diagnose a problem. Then let the scoreboard fade into the background. The trouble starts when learning quietly turns into competing with yourself, your friends' streaks, or some algorithm's idea of a perfect night. A tool for awareness can quickly become another arena for anxiety.

So here's my challenge. Audit your numbers. For each one, ask a simple question. Is this number serving me, or am I serving it? Keep the servants. Fire the masters. And maybe, every once in a while, leave the watch in the drawer and just go for a walk.

One question to ponder in your thinking time: If I couldn't measure it, would I still do it?

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan
Author | CEO | Coach

* That link will give you $600 off, which is exactly how we got ours. :)

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