The first thing I do when I wake up is check my smartwatch to see how I slept last night, and I know I’m not alone.anyone who has one of these The best fitness trackers Or a smartwatch might be relevant.
Thanks to modern technology, I know how many sleep cycles I have and how long I am in deep sleep, light sleep and REM (rapid eye movement) stages. I can see interruptions like when I get up to get water. But what exactly do I do with all this information, and how can I use it to sleep better?
For starters, it’s good to know that we can be reasonably certain about the accuracy of our sleep trackers even on commercial devices. a study In 2018 such as Garmin Vivosmart and jawbone The band found that “some wearable trackers are closer to self-reported sleep results than previous sleep research-grade devices.”
While they may not be able to cope with more severe sleep disturbances, the study did conclude that “these trackers offer a lower-cost alternative to tracking sleep in healthy people”.
So now we have a lot of high-quality, fairly accurate information about our sleep. But is it important to know exactly how many sleep cycles we go through and other esoteric information? After all, we cannot choose to sleep less lightly and sleep more deeply.
Stephanie Romiszewski from Sleepy Clinic is an expert sleep physiologist with a master’s degree in behavioral sleep medicine. She told us: “Tracking your sleep is really important for a specific reason. As a sleep expert, I would never ask someone to track their sleep unless I’m trying to solve a specific problem and I have a Specific plans for them to follow.
“Even if you have a tracker that shows you’re getting this percentage of deep sleep and that percentage of REM, you can never focus on improving a specific area of your sleep, but only on your overall sleep quality in total.”
So is sleep tracking generally a useless practice? If you’re a new parent working around the clock, your Fitbit admonishing you for a bad night’s sleep may be enough to throw it out the window. But don’t give up on the idea of sleep tracking entirely: we can use this information.
The idea is simple: If you’re concerned about the quality of your sleep, you can make small lifestyle changes. You can use a fitness watch or sleep tracker to monitor your overall sleep quality and see if these changes are working.
How to improve your sleep
“I would call this little regime a ‘reset’ so that you sleep better at night,” says Romiszewski. The first change she recommends is to get up and start the day at the same time every day, even on weekends is also like this.
“Wake up, and I mean get up. It’s very helpful for your circadian rhythm, which is the physiological process that makes up your 24-hour cycle. If you continue to move during that time, even if it’s not much, your body doesn’t Confused about when it should make you feel hungry or full, or what it should do to your mood, alertness, energy, and sleep drive.
“Consistency means you feel sleepy at the same time every night.”
At this point, there is no need to have a strict bedtime. Romiszewski says you should allow your body to go to bed when it feels sleepy, not when you decide it needs to go to bed. “People try to control when they fall asleep, but they don’t want to control when they wake up. It’s all wrong.”
Finally, wake up properly and either let the sun hit you as soon as possible or use wake up light“Using Light: Light is the most amazing free external energy source available to us humans. If you make this schedule, you can use bright light to almost trick you into feeling better.”
“Exercise is also great for reducing drowsiness. Do it consistently and you’ll see improvements in the quality and duration of sleep.”
That’s where fitness trackers come into play: By measuring overall sleep quality, trackers can be very helpful in monitoring your progress and making sure those changes land on the ground, Romiszewski says.
If you still feel groggy when you wake up, check your fitness tracker’s sleep cycle data: you may need to adjust your wake-up time 15 minutes earlier or later to avoid waking phases in REM or deep sleep.
Worried about your bed rest? Make a plan and use the tracker to check if the plan is working.If all else fails, try one of our best pillow choose.
