Glossary
Orthosomnia
Kelly Baron's 2017 name for patients chasing the perfect sleep score a wearable reports, trusting the device more than how they feel.
Published Updated
Where this comes from
In the reference topic that owns this term
Reference topic 43, The Mismatch Within the Mismatch, states the mismatch as a card: what the system evolved to expect, what it gets instead, and what happens in the gap.
Mismatch card
- What it expects
An environment that supplies the right behavior by default, so that eating, moving, sleeping and resting require no deliberation.
- What it gets
An environment that supplies none of them, plus a $6.8 trillion market selling deliberation back as the remedy.
- What happens in the gap
Health becomes a permanent cognitive task; vigilance curdles into orthorexia and orthosomnia in some people, and into abandonment in many more.
What that chapter recommends
3 of the 4 graded recommendations in Reference topic 43, strongest evidence first. How the grades work.
Change the environment before you change the tracker
ProbableEvidence grade: Probable. Good observational evidence with a plausible mechanism, or small or few trials.One rearrangement that requires no decision later beats one reminder that requires a decision daily.
Treat a tracker as a conversation starter, never a verdict
EmergingEvidence grade: Emerging. Early, small, animal-only, or actively contested.Bring the data to a clinician and let it open a discussion about what you are experiencing.
Use impairment as the warning sign, not virtue
EmergingEvidence grade: Emerging. Early, small, animal-only, or actively contested.If a diet or regimen is costing you more in cognitive energy, money or social life than the health benefit it targets, that is the marker the orthorexia literature actually describes.
Related terms
The argument behind this term, its studies and its notes are in Reference topic 43 of the reference library. The book gives the practical version. Get the book.