“Hard-core sleepers” gamify nightly snoozes

The Future. People all around the world are using wearables, video games, and other devices to get better sleep. In an age of anxiety and burnout, getting a good night’s rest may become a fundamental part of the culture’s push towards health and wellness… with peak sleep quality turning into the new office brag.

Sleep stats
Some people are working hard to get some good rest, according to WSJ.

• Mike Skerrett, a 27-year-old TV writer in LA, wears the biometric-tracking WHOOP band to log his sleep cycles and “optimize” sleep performance (on top of using blackout curtains and taping his mouth shut).
• Claire Chivell, a 31-year-old designer and illustrator in Sydney, has been religiously playing Pokémon Sleep, which uses a phone’s microphone and accelerometerto track users’ sleep and reward them.
• Emily Bottkol, a 54-year-old marketing consultant in Chicago, has been using an Oura smart ring that tracks biometrics through the wearer’s finger to determine sleep quality, giving the users a “Readiness” score each morning.

Dr. Michael Gervais, a performance psychologist who advises chief executives and Olympic athletes, says the obsession with sleep is a rejection of the past grinder mindset that viewed sleep as a nuisance. “Now, more people are attuned to the science, which shows that if you want to live a good life, prioritizing sleep will be one of the best practices you can do.”

But that obsession may actually make some lose sleep. Or, worse, develop a case of “orthosomnia” — an anxiety about optimizing sleep that can lead to trouble getting a good night’s rest.