“Sleep tracking is an increasingly popular feature of fitness devices and smartwatches, with millions of users monitoring their nightly rest. However, experts warn that this obsession with data could be the very thing keeping people awake, creating a cycle of anxiety and poor sleep. – Sunday Times (2 November 2025).
According to Professor Dale Rae, director of the Sleep Science Institute at UCT, the devices can provide a "misleading assessment" causing unnecessary worry and anxiety leading to an obsession with trying to perfect sleep.
Despite these risks, awareness of sleep's importance is growing, partly driven by medial schemes’ wellness programmes such as Discovery Health Vitality.
Dr Mosima Mabunda, Vitality's chief clinical officer, stressed that "sleep is not a luxury" but "one of the most potent, yet underutilised ways to reduce cardiometabolic risk".
However Prof Rae says:“Sleep cannot and will not be perfect all the time, and we need to let that go” .