We’re all on the lookout for the ideal night’s sleep, and there are a variety of activities we know we should avoid before bed. For example, drinking, scrolling on Twitter, drinking coffee (although studies indicate that the latter is not as detrimental to our health as previously believed.) However, you probably never considered that your fitness tracker could be to blame for your lack of sleep.

Today’s greatest sleep monitors will monitor precisely when and how deeply you sleep and will report back in shocking detail each morning. However, some experts believe that your obsession with attaining the perfect sleep score on your tracker may be contributing to your inability to sleep well. Orthosomnia is the term for the phenomenon, and there is research to support it.

Are Sleep Trackers Useful?

So should you unbuckle your sleep tracker and toss it out the bedroom window? Experts believe the following:

Olivia Arezzolo is a sleep specialist with degrees in psychology and sleep psychology. She is well-known for her advice on sleep. “While sleep trackers can be beneficial in that they improve awareness of sleep quality and possibly boost awareness of factors that hinder and promote sleep, they can also be negative in that an individual might become overly identified with the numerical figures,” she states.

A Healthy Bedtime Routine Is Better than a Sleep Tracker

Olivia suggests establishing a healthy sleep habit – she has a distinctive bedtime routine that may serve as a good starting point – rather than starting with a tracker and addressing concerns as they occur.

Olivia suggests that once you’ve established a solid schedule, you may begin with a sleep tracker. Although, at that point, it’s probably only helpful for congratulating oneself on being such a fantastic sleeper.

According to James Wilson, the inventor of Beingwell, sleep trackers are just as likely to exacerbate sleep problems as they are to alleviate them. He believes this for a variety of reasons. To begin with, they are intended solely to collect data, rather than to guide changes. The second argument is that they increase the pressure on those who fall short of those ideal scores.

Block the Sounds! If you’re seeking sleep aids, you may start by experimenting with these ways for falling asleep quickly, or you could invest in a set of the best sleep headphones to block out background noise.

According to new research from the University of Oxford, there is no reason to link exercise and developing arthritis in the knee. This became evident after a meta-analysis of six global studies with over 5,000 participants, of which some had arthritis in the knee, and some didn’t. They were followed for periods of five to twelve years, and the gathered data showed that adults over 45 were mostly free of risk when it came to recreational activities.

Recreational Exercise, Sport, Running, Cycling, and Swimming Do Not Cause Arthritis of the Knee

While this recent study found that recreational exercise involving cycling, swimming, running, or sports with little to no impact on the knee will not cause arthritis, occupations that involve heavy physical work, whole-body vibration, kneeling, and repetitive movements should be considered risky. The researchers at the University of Oxford have stated that the study was the first of its kind, assessing the relationship between physical exercise, the calories burned during activity, and osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis Is the Most Common form of Arthritis Among Adults

Apparently, osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and is more common in women and people of older age. Obesity is another one of the common risk factors related to the disease. According to Dr. Thomas Perry from the University of Oxford, the recent findings suggest that whole-body, physiological energy expenditure related to sports, walking, and cycling activities is not directly associated with arthritis of the knee. Also, time spent in recreational physical activity should not be associated with incident osteoarthritis.

Now that scientists know that the time spent doing physical activity and the amount of exercise is not a cause for the development of knee osteoarthritis, clinicians can feel better about prescribing physical activity for health. The evidence can also encourage more people to go out and exercise without worrying about arthritis.

The study from the University of Oxford was published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology and accepted for publication after undergoing full peer review.