What they're saying: Trackers "can be motivating for some people," but "we do have the concept of orthosomnia, which is basically insomnia from the trackers," Karin Johnson, a sleep medicine specialist and professor of neurology at UMass Chan School of Medicine-Baystate, told Axios.

Tracking turns from helpful to stressful when people start looking for ways to hack their sleep score, like lying in bed longer. Or: They spiral after seeing a suboptimal score.

• Orthosomnia can particularly plague perfectionists because "sleep is not going to be perfect every night, even if you're doing everything right," Rebecca Robbins, sleep researcher and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, told Axios.

Yes, but: Sleep trackers could help pinpoint sources of sleep problems, because a score "prompts an automatic process of reflection, and the behavior change that follows from that kind of introspection [can be] powerful," Robbins said.

• For example, trackers have influenced some people to quit drinking.

By the numbers: More than 1 in 3 Americans use electronic sleep trackers, according to a 2023 survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Between the lines: Sleep trackers have gotten exceedingly accurate, but they're not perfect.

• "So take the data with a grain of salt," said Robbins, who's on the Oura Ring medical advisory board and has studied how well wearables track sleep.

Bottom line: Instead of obsessing over data, "put in the work" to make your environment and mental state calmer, Johnson said.