Kelly Glazer Baron, PhD

Kelly Glazer Baron

Clinical psychologist and sleep researcher

I treat people with insomnia at the University of Utah, and I run a lab that studies what sleep does for the heart and metabolism. I’m also the person who coined the word orthosomnia, for when the effort to sleep perfectly starts keeping you up.

About Kelly Media and speaking

Kelly Glazer Baron

As seen in

  • The New York Times
  • The Atlantic
  • TIME
  • BBC
  • CNN
  • Popular Science
  • WebMD

What I do

See patients

At the Sleep Wake Center in Salt Lake City I treat insomnia, circadian rhythm disorders, nightmares and other sleep problems, mostly with behavioral treatment instead of medication.

Appointments

Run a research lab

The Behavioral Sleep Medicine Lab studies how short and irregular sleep affect blood pressure, blood sugar and weight, and tests ways to help people sleep more.

Research

Talk about sleep

I work with journalists and speak to clinical and general audiences about insomnia, sleep trackers, body clocks and daylight saving time.

Media

Orthosomnia

When tracking your sleep makes it worse

In 2017 my colleagues and I described patients who were sleeping worse because of the effort they put into improving their sleep-tracker numbers. We named it orthosomnia. The word caught on, and it now shows up in clinics, in research and in news coverage of wearables.

The more anxious you become about getting “perfect” sleep, the harder it is to actually sleep.
Read more about orthosomnia

Watch

On the BBC with Katty Kay

I joined Katty Kay on New Normal to talk about why so many people sleep fine, check their smartwatch, and then decide they didn’t.

Watch the interview on BBC

Recent media

All news, podcasts and video