Health Farm

Sleep specialists are treating a rising number of bleary-eyed patients suffering from insomnia.

A growing preoccupation with measuring sleep is backfiring, with obsessive use of sleep tracking apps keeping users awake at night.

On the plus side, sleep apps record your crappy sleep – so you know it wasn’t just a bad dream. Though, perhaps not, because most sleep apps have not been clinically validated and simply track movement – providing little information about quality of sleep.

A series of case studies published last year in the Journal of Sleep Medicine describe patients whose micromanagement of sleep using apps led to a condition now so commonplace that medical professionals have coined a new term for the disorder – orthosomnia (a perfectionist quest to achieve perfect sleep).

With an estimated 15 percent of US adults aged 18 to 29 years regularly using an app to track sleep – and many more contemplating using a tracking app – the sheer amount of app-inflicted insomnia is enough to, well, keep you awake at night.

Pro sleep tip: counting sheep works better than most sleep apps.