Is Your Longevity Routine Making You Anxious? Why Nervous System Regulation Comes First

• Tracking can backfire: For some people, worrying about sleep scores becomes a source of sleep anxiety, a pattern known as orthosomnia.
• Wellness is shifting from scores to sensation: The Global Wellness Summit’s 2026 report describes a move towards regulation over results and sensation over scores.
• Many of us live in permanent background readiness: Nonstop stimulation can keep the nervous system in a chronic low-grade fight or flight state, which is not a crisis, but is not rest either.
• The body does not repair while it is bracing: Regulation is not a pleasant extra on top of a long life. It is a condition of one.
• Data and body awareness work best together: Knowing your resting heart rate is useful. Knowing where you are holding tension is just as important.
• Small, regular practices help: Short Sophrology exercises can help you come back to the body, slow the breath and recognise your own state without a device interpreting it for you.

The term orthosomnia was introduced in 2017 by sleep researcher Kelly Glazer Baron and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. They described patients seeking help for sleep problems based on what their wearable devices were showing, and who were preoccupied with improving or perfecting that data.

Orthosomnia is not a formal medical diagnosis, but the experience behind it is real. The worry about a poor score can make it harder to fall asleep, creating the very problem the device was meant to solve. Baron has also pointed out that consumer trackers do not measure brain activity the way a sleep lab does, which means their readings are estimates rather than certainties.

None of this is an argument against science or technology. Wearables have genuinely expanded what we understand about the body, and for some people the data is valuable, particularly when it is shared with a healthcare professional.

The question is what happens in our nervous system when a number becomes the authority on how we feel.

The Global Wellness Summit’s Future of Wellness report identifies ten trends for 2026. Two of them speak directly to this conversation.

The first is the over-optimisation backlash. The report presents it not as a rejection of science, but as a recalibration: a shift towards regulation over results, sensation over scores, and wellbeing measured by how fully alive we feel. After years of tracking everything, the risk is that wellbeing becomes something we perform correctly rather than something we feel.

The second is the rise of neurowellness. According to the report, modern life keeps many people in a chronic low-grade state of fight or flight, driven by nonstop digital stimulation, blurred work boundaries, artificial light, social media and global uncertainty. It describes regulating the nervous system as a priority for recovery and resilience before breakdown occurs, and links this overactivation to a range of consequences, from hormonal imbalances to accelerated ageing.

This chronic low-grade state is easy to miss because it rarely looks like a crisis. It is more like permanent background readiness: a body that is never quite off duty.

Over time, that state can contribute to poor sleep, anxiety, inflammation, hormonal imbalance, cognitive fog and weakened immunity. And the body does not repair while it is bracing.

This creates a striking paradox. We now have an enormous market built around adding years to life, alongside growing recognition that the never quite switched off state many people live in while pursuing it may itself be one of the things ageing them faster.

In Dominique Antiglio‘s work with clients, the pattern is consistent. People arrive with detailed data about their health and almost no sense of what their own baseline feels like from the inside. They can say what their resting heart rate is. They cannot say where they are holding tension.

That gap matters. A device can tell you what it measured. It cannot tell you what you feel, what you need, or when you are starting to tip from alert into overwhelmed. That awareness lives in the body, and it can be rebuilt with practice.

This is what draws many people to Sophrology: not another protocol to follow, but the ability to come back to the body, slow the breath and recognise your own state without outside interpretation.

There is no universal answer, but a few honest questions can help you find yours:

1. Does checking my data leave me calmer or more anxious? If the number regularly changes your mood, it is worth noticing.
2. Do I know how I feel before I look at the score? Your own sensation should come first, and the data second.
3. Would I still trust my own signals if the device stopped working tomorrow? Dependence on a reading can quietly replace self-awareness.
4. Is this measurement helping me make a decision, or just giving me something to monitor? Useful data leads somewhere.
5. Am I tracking because a professional recommended it, or because I feel I should? The reason changes the relationship.

If you track something for a medical reason, continue to do so and speak to your GP or healthcare professional before changing anything.

You do not need a device, a protocol or a perfect routine. These small practices, rooted in the principles of Sophrology, can help you reconnect with your own baseline:

1. Check in before you check the numbers. When you wake up, take thirty seconds to ask how your body feels before looking at any score. Notice first, interpret later.
2. Locate the tension. Move your attention slowly through your jaw, neck, shoulders, belly and hands. You are not trying to fix anything, only to notice where you are holding.
3. Lengthen the exhale. Breathe in naturally, then let the out-breath be a little slower and longer. This simple shift can help the body move away from alert mode.
4. Add gentle movement. Roll the shoulders, stretch the arms, shake out the hands. Sophrology combines breathing, movement, relaxation and visualisation to bring attention back to the present moment.
5. Choose one practice and keep it regular. Short, repeated practices are easier for the body to integrate than intense efforts. Let it be enough for now, with no tracking and no score. Just felt.

What is orthosomnia?

Orthosomnia is a term introduced in 2017 by sleep researchers to describe a preoccupation with perfecting sleep data from wearable devices. It is not a formal medical diagnosis, but it can contribute to sleep anxiety and difficulty sleeping.

Are sleep trackers and wearables bad for you?

Not necessarily. Many people find them useful, and they can help a healthcare professional understand a sleep problem. The concern arises when the data creates anxiety or replaces your own sense of how you feel.

What is nervous system regulation?

Nervous system regulation is the body’s ability to shift between activation and rest, and to return to a calmer state after stress. When the nervous system stays activated for long periods, recovery can become more difficult.

How can I tell if I am stuck in a low-grade fight or flight state?

Common signs can include difficulty switching off, persistent tension in the jaw or shoulders, light or disrupted sleep, irritability and a busy mind. If these are persistent or affecting your daily life, speak to your GP or a qualified healthcare professional.

Can Sophrology help?

Sophrology is a complementary wellbeing practice that uses breathing, gentle movement, relaxation and visualisation to build body awareness and support emotional regulation. It was developed by neuropsychiatrist Dr Alfonso Caycedo.

Do I need to stop tracking altogether?

Not at all. The aim is to build a healthier relationship with the data, so that your own awareness comes first and the device supports it rather than replacing it.

The wellness industry spent years building tools to measure us. Many people are now rediscovering something simpler: the information we need is often already available inside the body, if we slow down enough to notice it.

Regulation is not a pleasant addition to a long life. It is a condition of one.

Because if we succeed in adding years, the question worth asking is what state we will be in to live them.