The weirdness of chasing odd research

There are fitness gurus who will tell you that if you cannot measure it, you haven’t lost any. So, measuring everything is a big deal in the world of fitness: how much you walk or run, how much you eat, how much you sleep. And there are apps that help you keep track. So far, so good. The trouble is, keeping track can become an obstacle to achieving what you are tracking. Happiness has always been a classic example. You pursue happiness too hard, and you get lost in the pursuit, never quite sure whether you caught up with it, trampled all over it or simply left it far behind. Chimera of Greek myth is forever elusive. Now, researchers have come up with the finding that people who use wearable equipment to track sleep might end up losing sleep. They have even given the condition a name: orthosomnia.

Now, we await confirmation for a hypothesis made plausible by this blinding insight on sleep. Things that change when observed are so small that a photon of light made to fall on it for the purpose of investigation shifts its state. This is the world of quantum physics. Is it possible that sleep is a warp in the subjective space-time continuum produced by photons that travel, naturally, at the speed of light? If that sounds absurd, it fits square and fair into the venerable field of research newspapers are only too happy to report.