I admit it: I am a bit of a data nerd.
I wear my Garmin pretty much 24/7. Whether I’m out mountain biking, Nordic skiing, running the trails, or hiking, I love seeing the stats. There is something satisfying about tracking a workout, seeing the elevation gain, and knowing exactly how my pace is improving. For me, and for many of the people I work with, these devices are powerful tools for health and motivation.
But in my practice, I have started to see a shift. For a growing number of my clients, the relationship with their wearable has moved from informative to anxiety-inducing.
You might recognize this cycle: You wake up feeling relatively rested. You check your sleep score. It’s a 55/100. Suddenly, the “rested” feeling evaporates. You begin to scan your body for signs of fatigue. By the time you’ve had your morning coffee, you have convinced yourself you are exhausted—not because of how you feel, but because of what a screen told you.
This phenomenon is becoming so common that researchers have given it a name: Orthosomnia—the obsession with “correct” or “perfect” sleep, driven by tracking data.
The “Nocebo” Effect: Stressing Yourself Out
We are all familiar with the placebo effect (believing a treatment will work makes you feel better). Smartwatch anxiety is often driven by its evil twin: the Nocebo Effect.
When you see a negative metric—a low “Body Battery” or a high “Stress” reading—your brain interprets this as a threat. This anticipation of a negative outcome can actually cause the negative outcome to manifest.
If your watch tells you that you are stressed, your body releases cortisol. This, ironically, lowers your Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which is the metric most watches use to measure stress. Effectively, the anxiety about the data proves the watch right. You stress yourself into matching the numbers.
The Illusion of Precision
One of the primary drivers of this anxiety is what I call the Illusion of Precision.
Consumer wearables present data as hyper-specific numbers. They don’t say you slept “okay;” they say you had “14% Deep Sleep” or that your “Recovery” is 32 hours. Because the number is specific, we assume it is medically accurate.
However, as much as I love my Garmin, it is vital to remember it is not a medical diagnostic tool. It is an estimator.
• Medical tools (like an ECG): Measure electrical signals directly from the heart or brain.
• Smartwatches (Optical PPG): Shine a green light into your skin and guess your physiological state based on how blood reflects that light.
Factors like skin tone, tattoo ink, a loose strap during a mountain bike ride, or even cold weather while skiing can significantly skew these readings. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine highlighted that consumer sleep trackers often struggle to accurately differentiate between sleep stages, sometimes reinforcing poor sleep habits as patients spend more time in bed trying to improve their numbers (Baron et al., 2017).
Signs You Might Have “Data Anxiety”
How do you know if your relationship with your device has become unhealthy? Here are a few indicators I often see in my practice:
1. The Morning Check: You look at your sleep data before you even ask yourself how you actually feel.
2. Validation Seeking: You feel like a hike or ski session “didn’t count” if the watch died or didn’t track the GPS correctly.
3. The “Check Engine” Panic: You feel a spike of anxiety when you see a low HRV score, regardless of how you felt moments before.
4. Avoidance: You skip a social glass of wine or a late movie strictly to protect your “score” for tomorrow.
Moving from “Data-Driven” to “Body-Informed”
If you are struggling with Orthosomnia or smartwatch anxiety, the goal isn’t necessarily to throw the watch away (I certainly haven’t!). The goal is to demote the watch from Master to Consultant.
Here are three strategies I use and recommend to regain control:
1. The Interoception Test
Interoception is your ability to sense the internal state of your body. Smartwatches can sometimes dull this sense because we outsource the feeling to the device.
• Try this: For one week, do not look at your watch immediately upon waking. Instead, take a moment to scan your body. Rate your energy and sleep quality on a scale of 1-10. Then look at the watch. If there is a discrepancy, choose to trust your body.
2. View Trends, Not Incidents
Physiological data is “noisy.” Digestion, a slightly warm room, or even an exciting conversation can tank your HRV temporarily.
• The Shift: Stop obsessing over the daily score. Look at your monthly trends. A single bad data point is statistically irrelevant; a month-long trend is worth being curious about.
3. The “Blind” Weekend
If you find yourself checking your stress or body battery scores multiple times a day, you need a reset.
• The Challenge: Take the watch off (or tape over the screen) from Friday night to Sunday morning. Go for your run or your ride without the feedback. Notice if your anxiety decreases. Notice if you feel more “in your body” and less “on the grid.”
Conclusion
Technology should serve us, not rule us. Whether you are training for a Nordic ski marathon or just trying to get 10,000 steps, the device should make you feel capable, not fragile. Your body has evolved over millions of years to regulate itself; it knows much more than the algorithm on your wrist does.
References & Further Reading
On Orthosomnia:
• Baron, K. G., Abbott, S., Jao, N., Manalo, N., & Mullen, R. (2017). Orthosomnia: Are Some Patients Taking the Quantified Self Too Far?. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 13(2), 351–354. Link to Study
◦ This is the seminal paper that coined the term “orthosomnia.”
On the Nocebo Effect:
• Colloca, L., & Miller, F. G. (2011). The Nocebo Effect and Its Relevance to Clinical Practice. Psychosomatic Medicine, 73(7), 598–603.
Recommended Reading:
• “The Hacking of the American Mind” by Dr. Robert Lustig – Explores how technology and data can hijack our reward pathways.
• “Unwinding Anxiety” by Dr. Judson Brewer – A great resource for breaking the “loop” of anxiety checking.
If you are struggling with health anxiety or find that tracking data is impacting your quality of life, please reach out to discuss how we can work on this together.