How “Sleepmaxxing” became a viral wellness trend

We have now entered the era of “sleep optimization,” or “sleepmaxxing” as it is now called. While dream interpretation and interpretation have existed since ancient times, the current hype around rest is less spiritual and more analytical.

From TikTok videos that promise you 34 percent more deep sleep per night through “biohacking” methods to viral “Sleepy Girl” mocktail recipes and people boast about their ratio of “high sleep quality” onlineOptimizing your sleep has become one of the hottest wellness trends of the past year. Of course, that means there are now a wealth of targeted products to help you achieve a new, coveted level of deep rest. Weighted sleep masks are sold out online and sleep tech trackers like the Oura Ring are selling like hot cakes. The technology itself is not new (Oura was introduced in 2015 and Fitbit released a sleep analysis feature in 2022), but it has spread beyond the CEO circles where it originally gained popularity. Now it's not just the tech bros or the team monitoring every moment of their nightly sleep.

Michelle Siman, creator and host of the wellness podcast Lemon waterbegan monitoring her sleep in January this year, with Whoop. Within the first month, her sleep score improved by seven percent. Whoop measures your sleep performance by tracking all four sleep stages – deep sleep, REM sleep, light sleep and awake sleep – and Monitor your sleep consistency and breathing rateIt is worth noting that a recent study found that sleep tracking technology can provide inaccurate data and lead people to orthosomnia, a preoccupation with improving wearable sleep data (yes, there is a medical term for it). And, according to Sleep FoundationThere are no exact guidelines for the amount of deep sleep a person needs. It is also something that your brain naturally “self-optimizes” by cycling through each sleep stage four to six times each night.

Despite the controversy surrounding sleep data, at-home trackers give people a sense of control over a natural bodily process. For some, the set routine itself is motivating (regularity is important for healthy sleep, after all). “I now take my evening routine as seriously, if not more seriously, than my skincare ritual,” says Siman. “Lemon balm and valerian tea an hour before bed, turning on Night Shift two hours before bed, and listening to an open guided meditation is my new favorite ritual.” Her current goal is to improve herself (and her rest) by at least one percent every day, but says her sleep has been “unsettled” since the eclipse, so she's working to get it back on track. And Siman isn't the only one taking her sleep prep seriously. On TikTok, creators share their own evening routines, and the list of steps is extensive: including Mouth tape, magnesium supplements, weight masks and blankets from childhood. They can end up looking like they are preparing for a night out in an arctic storm.

As with everything on the internet, there is a competitive element to sleep tracking. For every person sharing their high sleep score, there is another asking for help because You get “zero deep sleep”. Instead of judging how well we slept by how well rested we feel, there are apps that either give us plus points or tell us we're doing it all wrong. That, says Callan Malone, founder of Thistlescoincides with a growing interest in Metric-oriented health measurements. Although Malone doesn't count calories, steps, or grams of protein, she has fallen into the trap of being “a little obsessive” about her sleep. “I started logging my sleep during Dry January (which I failed to do) as a way to approach my health holistically,” she says. Being conscious of her sleep has triggered a “trickle-down effect” in the form of healthy habits, like turning her phone on Do Not Disturb in the evening. The addictive nature, Malone says, is “fun, but not necessarily life-changing.”

For those trying to keep up with the revolving door of wellness trends online, it should come as no surprise that when it comes to sleep health, we turn to obsessive metrics and words like “optimize.” The entire wellness industry is built on the idea that we should constantly track and improve every element of our lives.. Nevertheless, the growing debate about sleep actually represents an important turning point in the world of sleep research. “Over the past decade, we have moved away from our cultural tendency to undermine the importance of sleep,” says Wendy Troxel, a senior behavioral and social scientist at the RAND Corporation and a licensed clinical psychologist with specialized training in sleep medicine.

@lukehoplife Reply to @Garrett Berry #greenscreen I would be very grateful if someone with more knowledge on sleep could correct my mistakes. #hybridathlete #gymtok #motivation #sleepquality ♬ Cruel Summer – Taylor Swift

We can happily say goodbye to the #Girlboss mentality that wears insomnia as a badge of honor, but our newfound obsession with “sleep performance” hyper-individualizes a collective problem. At a time when the average person in the U.S. receives less than seven hours sleep one night, Celebrities are boasts of sleeping 14 hours a night. This underscores the importance of sleep equity, says Troxel. Taking into account your income bracket and the Neighborhood you live in can affect your sleep health (and of course other factors, like whether you have young children or mental health issues). Troxel says we should provide resources to make good sleep accessible to everyone – and not treat sleep as an individual wellness trend. “Healthy sleep is not just for those who can afford it.”

There's no denying that sleep quality is an important factor in our overall health. For people with insomnia, however, the path of “the arduous pursuit of sleep” can become a rabbit hole. “Sleep is not something you can force yourself to do with gritted teeth,” says Troxel. “Our brains need to feel like the world is safe and secure, not that bedtime is the start of a race.” Troxel herself doesn't track her sleep and says that while increased attention is positive, obsessive monitoring of the data can be anxiety-inducing. “If the tracking is motivating, that's great, but I wouldn't focus on the specific sleep stages, as that's the least accurate data the trackers capture, and it will change over the course of your life.”

Your deep sleep percentage is therefore likely “pretty meaningless.” “The idea of ​​selectively trying to improve one sleep phase is a fundamental misconception in the public,” Troxel says. Instead, taking a holistic, no-pressure approach to your rest can be helpful. There's even a new movement in the world of sleep science called Ru-SATED, which emphasizes that sleep health is multifactorial, including components such as sleep duration, regularity, subjective satisfaction and sleep patterns. For those without trackers, this is good news. It means you can check your sleep quality by simply asking yourself the question: “How restful was my sleep?”