How Common Is Sleep-Tracker Anxiety, Actually?

Seven years after orthosomnia was first named from clinical case reports, this study set out to put an actual number on how common it is. Researchers surveyed 523 adults using validated scales for anxiety and sleep-related worry, alongside questions about sleep-tracker ownership, then applied an algorithm combining device use, insomnia symptoms, and sleep-related preoccupation to identify likely cases. Depending on how conservatively or leniently the criteria were applied, between 3 and 14 percent of the sample met the threshold. Just over a third of participants used a sleep tracker regularly, and those flagged with orthosomnia consistently reported more severe insomnia symptoms than those who weren't, regardless of exactly where the cutoff was drawn.

This is a cross-sectional survey rather than a clinical diagnosis, so 'orthosomnia' here means meeting a research algorithm's criteria, not a formal assessment by a clinician, and it can't establish whether the tracker anxiety causes the worse insomnia or the other way round. It's also the first study of its kind, so the true prevalence figure needs replication. What it offers is the first real population-level estimate of something previously known only from clinic anecdotes, confirming this isn't a rare curiosity but a pattern worth naming when it applies.