Sleep when it’s good, life is good. But when it’s bad, life can seem a lot harder. It’s not surprising that a fair chunk of social media wellness content is given over to advice about sleep: how to get more of it, how to improve it, how to measure whether you’re getting quality sleep, and many, many pitches for (sometimes expensive) sleep aids. There’s a name for the trend: sleep Maxxing. Sleep maxxers are doing all sorts of things to promote better sleep, from concocting ‘sleep mocktails’ to taping their mouths shut at bedtime. useful to adjust our expectations when it comes to sleep. We might have absorbed the idea that it’s normal or ideal to have eight hours of tranquil, undisturbed sleep and that if we don’t, we’re wrecking our health. But that is not realistic. Sleep requirements vary from person to person, he stresses, and sleep changes over time. We tend to get less deep sleep and less REM sleep, and more of the other types of sleep. And also, as you get older, more things can intrude on your sleep. You get more sleep disorders or more medical problems, which can impact sleep quality; be it pain or anxiety, or other things like medication side effects. Mouth taping. A favorite practice of TikTok sleep maxxers, the evidence for mouth taping helping with sleep is, says Hlavac, “not strong. I would not recommend that my patients do it. breathe through our noses, including when we sleep. “That’s the way that we are designed, breathing through your nose humidifies and warms air when it comes in, so it’s more efficient at gas exchange and getting oxygen into your lungs. Monitoring your sleep. Tracking your sleep with a wearable or app has become popular. Hlavac says it can be useful, to a point. “Often, patients are reluctant to admit that they use a tracking device or a wearable, but I’m very engaged with it. I like seeing people taking an interest in their sleep, and there’s always something you can learn from it.” Don’t get overly obsessed with tracking your sleep, though, or it might have the opposite effect and cause sleep anxiety. And understand that most sleep trackers have limitations; most only track movement and position, which doesn’t give a full picture of your sleep quality.
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Sunday, October 12, 2025