By Arabella Peterson Wellness 16.05.2025

The Rise of Sleepmaxxing – How TikTok Made Us Obsessed With 'Perfect' Sleep

What happens when sleep stops being restorative – and starts becoming performative?

Bed Threads Editor Arabella Peterson takes a closer look at the internet’s growing obsession with sleep. In this feature, she unpacks the rise of Sleepmaxxing, a TikTok-driven trend that reframes sleep as something to curate, measure, and perfect.

The other night, while doom-scrolling TikTok in bed (yes, the irony isn’t lost on me), I landed in the melatonin-laced, lavender-scented world of Sleepmaxxing. Put simply, this trend involves hacking your way to the perfect night’s rest – hyper-curated bedtime routines promising glowier skin, sharper focus, and optimum wellbeing.

According to every clip I watched, my usual routine – shower, brush teeth, slap on some skincare – barely scratched the surface. If I really wanted to optimise my sleep, I needed magnesium sprays, sleep gummies, sunrise alarm clocks, and a bedtime routine with the production value of a Kardashian brand launch (speaking of sleep gummies).

I’ll admit: some of these products and rituals were tempting. The allure of a perfect night’s sleep – and therefore better mood, better skin, and ultimately, a better life – was hard to ignore. But when I considered everything that was being recommended – sprays and supplements, mouth tape, nasal dilator, eye mask, red light lamp, white noise machine, journaling, yoga, breathwork, and an Apple Watch to track my sleep – it started to feel like a serious time and energy commitment, without any guarantee it would actually help.

But for some TikTok creators, that level of investment is no exaggeration. Influencer Ashton Hall recently went viral for his four-hour morning routine, which involved bizarre hacks like plunging his face into a bowl of ice and rubbing banana peel on his skin. Unsurprisingly, his bedtime ritual is no less intense, spending two and a half hours preparing for slumber. This is, of course, an extreme case – and many people take these routines with a grain of salt. Still, we’re increasingly encouraged to see sleep as another space for perfection. Sleepmaxxing has seeped into regular wellness spaces, and for people with already-anxious or compulsive tendencies, absorbing this kind of lifestyle content can be overwhelming – even harmful.

A common message threaded through Sleepmaxxing content is the idea that REM sleep is the “best” type of sleep. But the notion that you should be striving for deep, uninterrupted sleep all night is a myth – and one that Professor Delwyn Bartlett, Health Psychologist and co-ordinator of Medical Psychology at the Woolcock Institute, says reflects a misunderstanding of what healthy sleep really looks like. “Current misinformation is that to be a ‘good sleeper’, you spend most of the night in deep sleep where you don't wake… which is totally incorrect,” she explains. “Your dominant sleep is Non-REM2 sleep, which is relatively light sleep, where you can easily be woken. You may be aware of noises, and you can move to change your body position. You generally spend 45–55% of the night in this stage of light sleep.”

These misunderstandings come from deeply ingrained beliefs about what “good” sleep should look like. “We don't even really know where the idea of needing eight hours comes from,” says Professor Bartlett. “There's some speculation that it originated from the trade union movement: eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure, eight hours of sleep – but we don’t really know. In reality, the average amount of sleep for individuals in both isolated hunter-gatherer communities and modern Western societies is closer to seven hours.”

Unrealistic expectations of rest have contributed to a rise in sleep anxiety – a persistent worry about falling or staying asleep. They've also given rise to a newer phenomenon, coined in 2017: orthosomnia. Unlike traditional insomnia, this tech-fuelled condition is driven by an obsession with tracking sleep metrics and achieving perfect rest, often worsening sleep through anxiety and overanalysis.

As Professor Bartlett explains, the framing of sleep as something you need to get ‘right’ is misguided, “You want sleep to be something you look forward to doing, just to let go of the day and have some time to yourself,” she notes. “You lose that enjoyment if you put pressure on yourself thinking, ‘I have to get eight hours of sleep and if I wake, that's abnormal and if I'm aware of my surroundings, that's abnormal’ – it's not.”

Jess*, a London-based art director, says that her sleep anxiety has escalated to the point where bedtime is a “source of stress, not rest.” She considers herself a generally anxious person with perfectionist tendencies, so once she went down the Sleepmaxxing rabbit hole, she was “completely consumed.” “It’s so easy to buy into this stuff. I definitely have sleep anxiety. As far as I know, they’re not able to formally diagnose orthosomnia yet – but I wouldn’t be surprised if I had it.” Jess says she often lies in bed replaying the day’s choices, wondering if something she ate or watched or forgot to do might affect her sleep. “It becomes this spiral – like I’m punishing myself for not sleeping well, even when I did everything 'right'.”

Professor Bartlett also explains that we tend to place an enormous onus on sleep. It’s undoubtedly important, but by anchoring our emotional wellbeing to it, we may overlook other factors that could be contributing to how we feel day to day. She works with individuals who believe their anxiety is entirely dependent on their sleep, telling her, “If you can fix my sleep, I'm going to be fine.” But, she notes, “Anxiety is normal… We all have anxious symptoms and depressive symptoms… And it’s not just sleep helping us cope with those things – it’s social interaction, it’s exercise, it’s diet.”

“It is important not to only blame our sleep if we are feeling irritable or really tired. We need to explore other possible factors, such as other sleep disorders, your mental and physical health. Are you isolated? Are you lonely? Are you fixating and pinning everything on your sleep? Sleep is important, but not so important that it rules your life.”

Zachary Gallagher, a naturopath from Sydney, has seen a steady rise in clients experiencing anxiety and overwhelm around sleep since 2020. The pandemic brought with it a wave of uncertainty – around health, finances, and daily life – and the resulting chronic stress, coupled with disrupted routines, wreaked havoc on people’s sleep. It was also a time when more people turned to the internet for guidance, leading to increased exposure to wellness content focused on productivity, self-care, and so-called “optimal” living. As part of this boom, sleep trackers became increasingly popular – helpful for some, but a source of obsession and anxiety for others.

“From what I’ve seen, I’m certain the rise of the smartwatch plays a part in sleep anxiety,” says Zachary. “They might work for some individuals, but when a client is using a sleep tracker and I see a disordered pattern of thinking around it, I’ll try and remind them that maybe journaling or doing something more reflective – not on a screen – could be a better option. Something that’s not trackable.” He adds that “very few people are able to recognise that they're heading towards orthosomnia,” and while they “might acknowledge that they're being neurotic, they won’t admit it’s disordered.”

According to a recent study, while orthosomnia only affects less than 5% of people overall, it impacts up to 14% of wearable sleep tracker users. Jess explains that what started as a well-intentioned purchase over time slipped into a “negative feedback loop.” “My Apple Watch basically dictated how I felt,” she says. “Even if I felt okay, if my sleep score was bad, my whole day was off.”

Dr Bartlett is skeptical about sleep-tracking apps and wearable tech, noting that it’s not an exact science, but rather “only an algorithm.” “It's based on movement, not the individual,” she adds. “I do think [sleep trackers] can have a negative influence on sleep health… It may give you an understanding, but it’s not absolute. The only absolute you can obtain is to have a sleep study – which is still only a one-night assessment.”

While sleep tracking can be detrimental for some, others have reported feeling more reassured and in control. Adrienne*, who lives in Aotearoa/New Zealand, has experienced sleep anxiety since growing up with a disrupted schedule. “If I don’t fall asleep, then I spiral… I feel pressure to sleep, I know if I get less than seven hours I will be so tired, and I won’t want to move my body. Then the spiral begins again.” But she says her Apple Watch has helped her manage it. She explains that she used to think she wasn’t falling asleep for hours, but since she started tracking her sleep cycles, when she checks her data the next morning and realises she did doze off earlier than she thought, it’s comforting and stops her from catastrophising.

Crucially, for some people – especially those with chronic illness or fatigue disorders, sleep tracking and ritual aren't about optimisation, but about function. And for many neurodivergent individuals, sleep rituals are less about performance and more about regulating a sensory world that can feel unpredictable or overwhelming. For other communities, structuring rest is essential care. Sleepmaxxing assumes a level of control over time and environment that many don’t have – for shift workers, parents of young children, or those living in precarious housing, the conversation around sleep looks very different.

We can draw a pretty clear line between hyperproductivity culture and the desire to enhance sleep. Biohacking, self-quantification, and the pursuit of peak performance can lead people to want to optimise rest in order to optimise output. Zachary observes the impact of wellness and performance-driven content in his work: “I think people are generally a lot more health conscious now because of TikTok and other social media content. They listen to Huberman Lab or Joe Rogan or whichever crazy health podcast and take what is generalised information as dogma… Everyone is different though, and one rule doesn’t apply to everyone.”

In a goal-fixated culture, it seems we’ve leant into the productivity benefits of sleeping, while forgetting that there’s also value to gain from treating sleep as rest for its own sake, rather than self-improvement. Professor Bartlett encourages us to consider the restorative side of sleep: “Sure, you want to be able to perform at work or school or university. You might worry about the impact [of lack of sleep] on your memory, which are all valid things. But the other thing you want from sleep, which I think is just as important, is not having to feel responsible for anything for at least a few hours every 24 hours.” If we don’t relinquish the pressure to perform at night, she says life is like “Groundhog Day.”

Sleep was once one of the final spaces free from the grip of metrics and validation. It was a respite from the barrage of self-improvement messaging we’re affronted with each day. Now, it can be treated like a problem to solve, something we measure rather than experience. Many of us are so depleted and so exhausted that we turn to ‘quick fixes’ – solutions that promise to make us feel better, fast. In a world where we’re constantly looking for ways to feel more in control, it’s no surprise that people are turning to sleep trackers and structure to support their rest. Thoughtfully chosen tools and routines can offer a real sense of comfort — but they’re not a magic solution, and what works can vary wildly from person to person.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with seeking comfort and self-soothing. Feeling grounded and relaxed while creating an atmosphere and practice that feels cosy is completely valid. A wind down routine is personal and will be different for everybody. For example, content creator Miles Taylor W has crafted a sleep routine in response to insomnia caused by ADHD and OCD. After trial and error, it now involves wearing a bonnet, sleep mask, magnesium and melatonin sprays, prescribed anxiety medication, stuffed toys, a sunrise alarm clock, 30 minutes of reading and no screen time before bed, and having the temperature set to below 21 degrees Celsius. It might be excessive to some, but if it helps, who’s to say it’s too much?

As Professor Barlett suggest, “We have to be kind to ourselves – we have to be nurturing. We have to take a lot of the pressure off ourselves.” In a culture that commodifies even our downtime, it's no surprise that sleep has become another site of self-improvement. But the answer probably isn’t to simply abandon our rituals or throw our trackers in the bin, but to shift how we think about sleep altogether. Rest doesn’t need to be productive to be worthwhile and sleep doesn’t need to be earned – it just needs to be allowed.

If you or someone you know is experiencing anxiety around sleep, Professor Bartlett recommends speaking with your GP as a first step. The Woolcock Institute of Medical Research offers Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi) group programs, as well as one-on-one support through a team of six psychologists. Online resources like This Way Up and MindSpot from Macquarie University also provide accessible support and evidence-based tools.

*These names have been changed at the request of participants.