The other day, I rode hard for a couple of hours, cutting through new spring growth of scrub oak and wild roses, mapping unfamiliar terrain. I returned home well before dusk. Yet as night fell, the stinging in my legs—remnants of those relentless thorns—kept my mind tethered to the day’s journey. I worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
I’ve always believed the best way to rest is to earn it, that sleep follows effort. And that day, I’d earned it—so I slept soundly. “Like a baby,” as they say, though that phrase often misses the mark.
But a few months ago, everything changed.
I dove headlong into sleep metrics—stages, gadgets, mysteries—all in search of “perfect” rest. In reality, I lay on my memory-foam mattress under dim spring darkness, phone aglow, wondering: “What will tomorrow’s sleep score be?” Obsessing over data did nothing to help me drift off.
“Sleep is the Swiss Army knife of health care: When sleep is deficient, there is sickness and disease; and when sleep is abundant, there is vitality and health.” —Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep (2017)
Scientists now call people like me orthosomniacs, obsessed with “perfect” metrics. Orthosomnia can turn bedtime into a battleground—fixating on deep or REM percentages fractures our rest and hijacks our attention from the simple act of surrendering to darkness.
Gamifying Your Z’s
Yet even before midnight, the chase had already begun. I realized I’d gone too far when I found myself preparing for bed one evening, scrolling tracker reviews and convinced that the next device would unlock real rest. Every new gadget promised the same cascade of numbers: rings, under-mattress pads, fancy watches—each one a rabbit hole.
In that moment, I recognized I had traded traditional go-to-sleep methods—star-gazing—for star-ratings, swapping the wonder of the night sky for the glow of my screen. And as researchers studying orthosomnia have found, gaming sleep rarely produces better rest; it often makes rest more elusive.
First-Night Vigilance
But metrics weren’t the only barrier. By Night One, our primal instincts kick in—a built-in “cave-dweller” vigilance. In ancient times, mapping every wall and draft in a cave meant survival; today, a new mattress can feel just as foreign. We tackle that first night in a new bed alert to every creak of floorboards or shift of sheets.
I remember my scoutmaster leaning over a campfire once: “I’ve never slept under the stars. This might be my first,” he said with a straight face. We boys stared, flabbergasted—until he grinned and clarified: “I have, however, spent countless nights lying awake in my sleeping bag—alert to every skittering sound, every breeze under an open sky. Just never slept.” His laughter taught me that vigilance and rest have always coexisted.
Indeed, in nature, animals balance safety with renewal. Ducks sleep one hemisphere at a time—closing one eye for predators, then switching sides so both halves rest. Dolphins and seals do the same in open water, surfacing for air while half their brain sleeps. In each case, safety and rest coexist—no app required.
Night Two’s Quiet Gift
And then comes Night Two, when our cave-dweller vigilance finally relaxes—a reprieve our reptilian brainstem recognizes. Imagine waking on Night Two: the room feels softer, the mattress familiar, even distant traffic hums like white noise.
Specialists at the University of Utah Sleep-Wake Center report that many tracker users experience heightened anxiety on Night One—poring over metrics—only to see stress scores and perceived rest quality ease by Night Two, as familiarity replaces uncertainty.
Screens, Blue Light & Circadian Grace
Of course, it’s not just gadgets or vigilance that keep us awake. As dusk falls, our bodies naturally release melatonin, cool our core temperature, and slow our heart rate—a phase called withdrawal. But blue-wavelength light from screens tricks our master clock into believing daytime persists, delaying melatonin’s invitation to rest.
A Harvard Medical School study found that extended blue-light exposure suppresses melatonin for twice as long and shifts our internal clock by hours compared to green light. That’s why some people turn to melatonin supplements—ingesting the hormone to signal the body that it’s time for rest—but timing matters. Taken too late, melatonin can shift your entire rhythm off-kilter
Personal Rituals for Reclaiming Rest
Finally, a few weeks ago, I’d had enough. After weeks of nightly stress—my final worry: “How can I get more deep sleep?”—I set my watch aside. No more deep, light, or REM metrics. Within a few nights, I rediscovered a calm data never brought.
Instead of reading about sleep, I returned to my failsafe knockout Sudoku—two minutes max. It wipes my mind like clearing a windshield. My eyes roll back, the pencil slips from my fingers, and I’m ready to turn out the light.
But persistent 4:00 AM wake-ups kept me thinking. So I tried other simple games that require no light and little else but focus:
- The ABC Game: Name a word for each letter in order. I rarely make it past M—when I do, I switch to a category (baby names, places, candy, or words ending in “a”). Far better than counting sheep.
- Word Ladder: Pick two four-letter words (e.g., “rest” → “calm”) and change one letter at a time, ensuring each step is a real word. For example: rest → rust → must → mast → malt → mall → call → calm. With each transition, whatever else I worried over disappears.
Full-Circle Rest
Tonight, return to that half-lit room—no glow, no metrics—just the gentle assurance of mapped walls and ancestral biology. In the soft darkness, trade first-night vigilance and blue-light tension for the grace of natural rest. We’ve earned our rest—but this time, not through data, but by trusting that our bodies remember what it means to sleep.
Zzzzz
