Chasing a perfect sleep score? You could be making it worse

Sleep scores, magnesium, white noise machines - what was once the simple act of sleeping has become a minefield.Trying to optimise sleep in this way is called "sleepmaxxing". Take it too far, and you could end up with "orthosomnia" - the clinical term for an obsession with achieving perfect sleep.While it's not formally recognised as a condition in the UK, doctors tell the BBC they've noticed signs of orthosomnia in their patients, with some bringing their sleep tracker data into appointments convinced, wrongly, that they have a sleep disorder. That fixation with sleep is actually making people's sleep worse, they warn.So how and why did sleep become so complicated? And if sleepmaxxing isn't the answer, what is the elusive secret to a good night's sleep?'Sleep scores are completely made up'The first commercial fitness tracker to incorporate sleep analysis was the Fitbit Classic in 2009. Since then, many others - including Garmin, Whoop and Apple - have integrated sleep trackers into wrist-worn devices, as have smart rings such as Oura, Ultrahuman and RingConn.These devices vary, but in general they all provide users with a report of their night, broken down by sleep stages - time a...