How Sleep Tech Is Actually Impacting Our Sleep

Don’t sleep on getting quality shuteye at night. Good sleep is essential for your health, and poor sleep has been linked to everything from cognitive impairment to metabolic and cardiovascular issues. It’s no wonder many adults and teenagers are on a mission to optimize theirs. 

In recent years, a growing number of health tracking apps and wearable tech devices have popped up that essentially “gamify” sleep — for instance, the Apple Watch or super-popular Oura Ring. Both devices track key biometrics, like your breathing, heart rate, and movement, and report how well you’re resting at night with numerical sleep scores. 

An estimated 30 percent of U.S. adults now use tracking devices like this to obtain data on their fitness and sleep habits. By 2030, this $5 billion subset of the consumer health tech industry is expected to double in revenue. But does turning sleep health into a competition actually work? And is it healthy?

“It can be helpful, but it can also backfire,” Kelly Murray, FDN-P, certified adult and pediatric sleep consultant, tells SheKnows. It all depends on your mindset and how you use the data. Keep reading to learn more about the benefits and potential drawbacks of gamifying your sleep health.

The Pros and Cons of “Gamifying” Sleep

To state the obvious: It’s difficult to improve your sleep if you don’t know how much or how well you’re sleeping at night. Gamifying sleep with wearable tech devices offers loads of health data, which can help you determine your baseline and track trends over time.

“Providing an objective measure of sleep may provide a different perspective,” notes Dr. Mike Gradisar, PhD, clinical psychologist, sleep researcher, and head of sleep science at Sleep Cycle, but this information alone won’t help you sleep better. In his experience, “this is a misconception by many these days.” That data should be used to inform and empower you to change your habits for better sleep. You can also present it to your medical provider for expert input.

Murray has found that for many people, sleep tech devices can reduce anxiety. “Research shows that insomniacs underestimate their total sleep time by around 46 minutes and overestimate how long it takes them to fall asleep by about 30 minutes,” she explains. “So when clients start tracking, they often discover they’re sleeping more than they thought, which rebuilds confidence in their body’s ability to sleep.”

That said, it’s possible to go overboard. “The biggest drawback is developing ‘orthosomnia,’ an unhealthy obsession with perfect sleep data,” Murray says. Wanting to sleep more soundly is great, as is challenging yourself in the spirit of self-improvement — but when someone compulsively checks their fitness app first thing every morning to see how well they “performed,” she says, “that’s a problem.” 

As a clinician who’s researched sleep for decades, Gradisar caveats that he rarely sees anxious or obsessive tendencies like this: “I don’t think we have good prevalence data about this phenomenon.”

Also worth noting? Wearable sleep tracking devices aren’t 100% accurate. Often, they overestimate your total sleep at night. No sleep tech device can replace polysomnography or at-home sleep apnea testing. If you’re concerned about a serious sleep issue — like severe insomnia, or a sleep apnea, which can become life-threatening if it goes untreated — consult with an expert physician for an accurate diagnosis.

Gamifying Sleep for Teens

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) recommends 8 to 10 hours of sleep at night for teens, sometimes up to 11. However, research indicates that the vast majority of U.S. adolescents are undersleeping. If you’re a parent in the age of smartphones and social media, that probably won’t come as a surprise to you.

For this demographic, using health and fitness trackers presents unique challenges. Murray describes it as a “double-edged sword.” While objective data can incentivize real behavioral change in a way that parental nagging rarely does, it can also add to the cumulative stress that today’s teens already face. That includes school, extracurricular activities, and social pressures.

“If your teen wants to try tracking [their sleep], let them,” she advises, “but have a conversation about using it as information, not judgment.” Connecting the dots between grogginess and late-night scrolling on TikTok is only productive if it’s not a source of anxiety or shame.

How Do We Gamify Sleep in a Healthy Way?

Instead of obsessively fixating on achieving a perfect sleep score night after night, focus on improving one or two indicators of sound sleep. Your total sleep time and time awake each night are two basic but effective metrics that Murray recommends tracking with wearable tech.

Most adults need between 7 to 9 hours of sleep at night, per NSF. And if you’re repeatedly waking up overnight for more than 15 minutes at a time, that’s something to examine. Depending on your personal health goals, you could also track your heart rate variability (HRV), which reflects your nervous system function and stress levels. 

In her client practice, Murray often recommends the Oura Ring to clients because it’s worn on your finger, where your arterial signal is strong, and tends to capture more accurate data than smart watches. “Be wary of any promising to ‘cure’ your insomnia,” she cautions. Sleep tech devices can highlight unhealthy trends and drive lifestyle changes, but again, they can’t fix your habits.

There is merit to people’s subjective perception of their sleep health, Gradisar adds. Too often, this is underestimated. It’s worthwhile to note how you feel when you wake up in the morning, even if your mental or physical state doesn’t line up perfectly with your purported sleep score.

Murray agrees: “If you’re basing how you feel entirely on what an app tells you, you might be getting a skewed picture. Use the data as one piece of the puzzle, not the whole thing.”