If you’ve opened TikTok at any time in the past few months, you’ve probably seen someone taping their mouth shut before bed, sipping tart cherry juice like it’s liquid gold, or flexing about their Oura Ring sleep efficiency report. Welcome to the era of sleepmaxxing, the viral trend (98 million posts and counting) turning sleep into the latest thing to optimize, track, and “hack.”
On the surface, it seems like a good idea, seeing as sleep is a biological necessity—and many of us don’t get enough. In fact, it’s estimated that as many as 70 percent of young adults report insufficient sleep. However, experts warn that obsessing over sleep can actually backfire, creating more stress and less rest.
“When you’re lying in bed wearing blue-light blocking glasses, tracking your heart rate variability, stressing because you only got an hour of deep sleep last night, wondering if you took your cherry juice too early, and panicking that you didn’t stick to your perfect routine, you’re not relaxed,” says Sunjya Schweig, M.D., integrative family physician and Founder at California Center for Functional Medicine.
In other words, while sleep is supposed to be the ultimate act of letting go, sleepmaxxing flips the script and encourages controlling everything. The issue isn’t trying to improve your sleep (which is certainly a good thing!); it’s when the pursuit of “perfect” sleep ends up keeping you awake.
So where’s the line between healthy sleep habits and full-on sleep anxiety—and which sleepmaxxing trends are worth doing? Ahead, experts break down what this trend gets right, what it gets wrong, and how to get better sleep without losing your mind.
- ABOUT OUR EXPERTS: Sunjya Schweig, M.D., is an integrative family physician and Founder at California Center for Functional Medicine. W. Chris Winter, M.D., is a physician specializing in sleep and author of The Rested Child.
What Is Sleepmaxxing, Exactly?
At its core, sleepmaxxing is the idea of aggressively optimizing your sleep through myriad “hacks,” including taking certain supplements, using light therapy, mouth taping, sleep trackers, temperature control, blackout curtains, and more. Sleepmaxxing turns getting rest into a personal science experiment (with a side of social media performance).
“What distinguishes sleepmaxxing from traditional sleep hygiene is the intensity, the tech integration, the performative social media aspect, and frankly, the obsessive quality that can accompany it,” says Schweig. “The body doesn’t need flawless sleep data to function well, and unfortunately, the more pressure you put on sleep, the harder it becomes to drift off naturally.”
Signs Sleepmaxxing’s Gone Too Far
There’s a fine line between being intentional about sleep and letting it take over your life. According to experts, here are a few red flags suggesting your “optimized” routine might actually be doing more harm than good.
1. Your bedtime routine feels like a part-time job
If your before-bed regimen takes more than 30 to 45 minutes and has so many steps that missing one spikes your anxiety, your self-care has transformed into compulsion, warns sleep specialist W. Chris Winter, M.D., author of The Rested Child. In other words, a wind-down routine should help you relax, not stress you out even more.
2. You trust your sleep tracker more than your own body
If you woke up feeling great but can’t stop thinking about the fact that your sleep tracker says you got “only” an hour of deep sleep, you’re also in a danger zone. “Constantly checking your tracker, worrying about deep sleep percentage, or stacking multiple supplements can spike cortisol at night, disrupt natural circadian rhythms, and turn bedtime into a performance,” warns Winter. What’s more: Most trackers get sleep stages wrong by up to 35 percent anyway, so you’re likely beating yourself up over bad data. The best data is how you feel upon waking and throughout the day.
3. You plan your entire life around sleep
If you start noticing behaviors like saying no to dinner with friends because the reservation is later than 7:30 PM or stressing about an Airbnb not having blackout curtains, sleepmaxxing has officially become too taxing. “When sleep starts dictating your relationships and decisions, the goal has shifted from health to control,” shares Schweig.
One of the most telling questions experts use: “If your sleep tracker broke and you couldn’t replace it, would you feel relieved… or panicked?” If the answer is panic, or if you cannot imagine sleeping without your whole routine, you have developed psychological dependence, Schweig says.
Sleep Hacks Experts Recommend Instead
If you’re one of the millions of Americans struggling with poor sleep, you’re in luck: Several simple strategies can effectively help you get the quality shut-eye you need and deserve. Here are the experts’ top recommended sleep hacks.
1. Take magnesium before bed
Of all the sleep supplements trending on TikTok, magnesium deserves the hype. Nearly half of Americans don’t get enough of it, and low magnesium can mess with the exact systems that help you wind down at night (think calming your nervous system, supporting melatonin production, balancing cortisol, and even helping your brain “turn off.”)
Read More: 7 Signs You’re Not Getting Enough Magnesium
And, unlike many trendy sleep hacks, magnesium has legit clinical data behind it. In one study published in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 500 milligrams improved both subjective and objective sleep in people who typically had issues.
Here’s the catch, though: Not all magnesium is created equal. Schweig recommends magnesium glycinate, which he says is the gold standard for sleep. “It’s well absorbed, gentle on the stomach, and the glycine component itself has a calming effect,” he says. “Another great option is magnesium l-threonate, which also has some brain benefits since it crosses the blood-brain barrier.” He recommends taking 200 to 400 milligrams of magnesium glycinate or l-threonate an hour or two before bed.
2. Keep your bedroom cool
The “arctic bedroom” trend has scientific legitimacy, according to Schweig. In order to fall asleep, your core body temperature has to drop by about two to three degrees Fahrenheit. It continues to drop throughout the night, hitting its lowest point around four in the morning. “This isn’t just a coincidence; your brain’s master clock intentionally signals your body to cool down as a way of saying ‘it’s sleep time,’” Schweig says. “When that cooling process gets disrupted, your sleep quality tanks.”
Most studies report that the ideal bedroom temperature is between 65 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, personal comfort, bedding, and pajamas matter—but, generally, cooler is better. To make your bedroom cooler, Winter recommends programming your thermostat to drop the temperature in your home 60 to 90 minutes before bed. Depending on the time of year, you can also crack open the windows as you start settling down.
3. Use light to your advantage
Another thing that tells your brain when to sleep and wake up is light. In fact, it’s the most powerful circadian “time cue” we have, which is why managing it correctly is a total sleep game changer, according to Schweig. Where sleepmaxxers often go wrong is that they obsess over blocking blue light at night but completely skip getting light in the morning.
“Bright light (especially natural sunlight) hits receptors in your eyes that signal the suprachiasmatic nucleus (your body’s master clock) to boost cortisol and shut down melatonin,” Schweig explains. “This anchors your rhythm for the whole day.” For that reason, he recommends aiming for 10 to 30 minutes of outdoor light within an hour of waking. (Yes, even cloudy daylight beats indoor lighting by a mile!)
Read More: 6 Simple Morning Routine Tweaks That Will Boost All-Day Energy
Of course, since blue wavelengths (screens, overhead LEDs) do suppress melatonin, Schweig also recommends getting off screens in the hours before bed.
4. Befriend tart cherry juice
Tart cherries are one of the only foods that naturally contain meaningful amounts of melatonin. What’s more: They’re also packed with proanthocyanidins, plant compounds that help your body hang onto tryptophan (the amino acid that your body converts first into serotonin and then into melatonin), explains Schweig.
In one randomized controlled trial, people with sleep issues who drank eight ounces of Montmorency tart cherry juice twice a day (in the morning and before bed) slept for 84 extra minutes and had better sleep efficiency after two weeks. That’s right, you need to sip this stuff consistently to see results, Schweig says.
It’s also worth mentioning that an eight-ounce serving of tart cherry juice contains about 25 grams of sugar, which may not be ideal if you’re watching your blood sugar or have insulin resistance. Tart cherry juice concentrates or capsules can offer similar benefits with less sugar.
5. Keep your wake times consistent (even on weekends)
Fun fact: Your brain anchors your body’s routines and rhythms to a schedule, meaning it fares best when you stick to predictable sleep and wake times. In fact, “When you stay up late and sleep in on weekends, you create social jetlag, which research links to higher risk of cardiometabolic issues, mood problems, and daytime fatigue,” Schweig says. Yep, even if you think you’re making up for going to bed late by sleeping in, you’re actually messing with your body’s ability to sleep well.
It’s not just your brain, either. Your liver, pancreas, fat cells, and basically every organ and system in the body have their own internal clocks, meaning they expect a predictable schedule to function properly, Schweig explains. “When your sleep times swing all over the place, those peripheral clocks never fully sync, which messes with everything from blood sugar to hormone balance,” he says. He recommends picking a wake-up time you can stick to seven days a week, even on weekends.
When to Seek Help
There’s a big difference between “my sleep isn’t perfect” and “I might actually need help,” and understanding the distinction is crucial. If you’re showing signs of a true sleep disorder (think loud snoring with breathing pauses, restless legs that get worse at night, physically acting out dreams, or uncontrollable daytime sleep episodes), no amount of hacks or supplements will fix it, according to Schweig. In this case, you probably need a sleep doctor and perhaps a sleep study.
You may also consider more serious support if you’ve followed legit sleep hygiene consistently for four to six weeks without improvement. “Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is the gold standard and works better long-term than sleep meds because it tackles the thought patterns, habits, and anxiety that keep insomnia alive,” Schweig explains. Similarly, underlying issues like hormone imbalance, thyroid dysfunction, gut troubles, chronic illness, or depression can sabotage sleep.
Finally, consider professional support if optimizing your sleep has left you obsessing over data (the fixation on achieving “perfect” sleep that inevitably leads to insomnia is called orthosomnia), or causes anxiety, compulsive behaviors, or affects your quality of life.