WHEN THE REST IS HISTORY

Is a fixation with 40 winks keeping you awake? It's called 'orthosomnia' – and it's on the rise

- SANDRA WALSH

We all crave a decent night's kip, but what if finding the perfect way to nod off turns into an unhealthy obsession?

Google searches for "insomnia hacks" and "sleep hacks" are spiralling as more of us are starting to appreciate the power of a healthy bedtime routine.

Women generally have more trouble drifting off than men and according to research, 36% of all UK adults struggle to get to sleep at least once a week. Almost one in five face this trouble every single night.

Many of us have turned to fitness trackers (an estimated one billion worldwide own a wearable device). These analyse light and deep sleep as well as your heart rate to see if you've had enough restorative shut-eye.

Scientists have discovered this desperate desire for a decent eight hours is responsible for causing a condition called orthosomnia disrupted sleep caused by an obsession with getting a perfect night's slumber.

"Symptoms include checking sleep trackers too often, spending excessive time in bed trying to get the 'perfect' rest and anxiety over the quality, duration or loss of sleep and how that will affect performance the next day," says Stephanie Taylor, founder of health and wellbeing company Stress No More.

"Trackers can make our obsessions worse because they encourage us to examine our sleep even more than before looking at data, such as heart rate, how many hours of deep sleep we've achieved or if we've moved during the night.