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Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

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Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#41

Post by oarsinsync »

poisonborz wrote: post #35

I track sleep simply to note the amount, not quality. I tried a number of sleep trackers - Android apps, smartwatches - all of the "automated" solutions felt having spotty precision. Not talking about minutes, but hours, when I was staring at my phone or been awake without moving. The only precise auto trackers seem to be bulky headbands. The most comfortable method I found is simply manual button pushing. I track my…

AutoSleep (Apple watch + iPhone app) does account for phone screen time in their calculations of awake vs asleep.

It does still suffer from confusing idleness with sleep at times though.

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#42

Post by cassianoleal »

urthor wrote: post #34
drpancake wrote: post #23

Don't do this! Sleep tracking/optimisation and generally obsessing over sleep can trigger insomnia for a lot of people. I've had chronic insomnia for two years and I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. If your sleep is good enough, leave it alone.

What is important is having a fixed bedtime/wake time so your circadian rhythm settles in. How much sleep you can get in a night? Lucky dip, sometimes you just can't. Matthew Walker's book is the one I'd go to. Always find it weird how blog oriented a lot of information has become. If you want to know something... why not find the best researcher in the field and get their book.

> Matthew Walker's book is the one I'd go to.

Personal anecdote here. I've read his book. It's good, it's interesting, and it made me realise how much more I should try to get more and better sleep. I'm a night person. For months I tried each and every technique out there to move my sleep schedule back since I have to wake up in the morning against my natural rhythm.

I started panicking and I went from 4-6h sleep per night + 8-10h on weekends to 2-4h during the week and about 6h on weekends. My whole life took a turn for the worst until I made the decision to stop the madness and go back to my previous, insufficient, sleep schedule.

This is not ideal by a long shot. I'm permanently sleep deprived, but at least not to the point where I can't even function.

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#43

Post by urthor »

cassianoleal wrote: post #42
urthor wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is important is having a fixed bedtime/wake time so your circadian rhythm settles in. How much sleep you can get in a night? Lucky dip, sometimes you just can't. Matthew Walker's book is the one I'd go to. Always find it weird how blog oriented a lot of information has become. If you want to know something... why not find the best researcher in the field and get their book.

> Matthew Walker's book is the one I'd go to. Personal anecdote here. I've read his book. It's good, it's interesting, and it made me realise how much more I should try to get more and better sleep. I'm a night person. For months I tried each and every technique out there to move my sleep schedule back since I have to wake up in the morning against my natural rhythm. I started panicking and I went from 4-6h sleep per…

I mean isn't half of it that everyone has a chronotype?

Shouldn't you just have a fixed, later bedtime. To maximize REM sleep etc?

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#44

Post by methyl »

samtho wrote: post #29

With regard to sleep tracking apps, I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia, a rare sleep disorder that causes excessive daytime sleepiness, sleeping for long hours, sleep “drunkenness”, central sleep apnea, and resulting short term memory problems. I’ve used literally every sleep app I could get my hands on and they are all terrible. I’ve used the Fitbit and Apple Watch heart monitors, the cpap machine’s app (Philips), and me…

> You cannot control it or will it to be better

You certainly can. For example, drinking a single beer before going to sleep correlates not with shorter sleep, but much less deep sleep in my case. Just measuring the time asleep would tell me drinking doesn’t affect my sleep at all, which is not true.

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#45

Post by mild_blanket »

pedalpete wrote: post #31

Sleep is about more than just measuring the time you were asleep. The amount of time spent in N3/4 (Deep Sleep) and REM sleep is very important. The author is using sleep cycle on his phone, which is not a good method of tracking sleep cycles. He says "their ability to wake me in “non-deep” sleep pretty spot on" - you're not in deep sleep in the morning anyway, or very unlikely. So any "app" has a good chance of waki…

Just signed up for your email list.

Please make sure the headband can stay on your head through the night. I have a chinstrap headband that I ordered on Amazon that falls off every single night, making it unusable.

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#46

Post by Majestic121 »

methyl wrote: post #44
samtho wrote: post #29

With regard to sleep tracking apps, I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia, a rare sleep disorder that causes excessive daytime sleepiness, sleeping for long hours, sleep “drunkenness”, central sleep apnea, and resulting short term memory problems. I’ve used literally every sleep app I could get my hands on and they are all terrible. I’ve used the Fitbit and Apple Watch heart monitors, the cpap machine’s app (Philips), and me…

> You cannot control it or will it to be better You certainly can. For example, drinking a single beer before going to sleep correlates not with shorter sleep, but much less deep sleep in my case. Just measuring the time asleep would tell me drinking doesn’t affect my sleep at all, which is not true.

Another anecdotal data on the effect of alcohol : I use a Garmin watch constantly, and it measure what they call Body Battery,(https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=VOFJAsiXut9K19k1qEn5W5) which is a proxy for overall energy level, based on Heart Rate Variability and stress levels.

It's not the most scientific and precise measurement, but from my experience is seems to correlate pretty well with actual 'feeling energized and well' or 'feeling tired and out of energy'.

One of the most interesting information I got from it was how drinking alcohol affects my sleep : on a typical day, I go from 100 to 25, and then a night of sleep gets me back to 100. If I drink even moderately, a night of sleep gets me back to 50 max, and sometimes can even pin down my body battery levels for a few days if it's a long drinking night.

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#47

Post by danuker »

gpas wrote: post #39

I've never tried the apps that claim to track your sleep, so I will not comment on those. But recently I was about to buy a consumer fitness band until I read a couple of technical reviews that show how they are all essentially worthless except for the Apple watch. Here is reviewed an iOS app but since the Apple watch is not mentioned, I don't know how precise his measurings are. IMHO the phone alone is not enough to…

Post links to the technical reviews, or I will continue to believe you are an Apple sales rep.

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#48

Post by najra »

urthor wrote: post #34
drpancake wrote: post #23

Don't do this! Sleep tracking/optimisation and generally obsessing over sleep can trigger insomnia for a lot of people. I've had chronic insomnia for two years and I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. If your sleep is good enough, leave it alone.

What is important is having a fixed bedtime/wake time so your circadian rhythm settles in. How much sleep you can get in a night? Lucky dip, sometimes you just can't. Matthew Walker's book is the one I'd go to. Always find it weird how blog oriented a lot of information has become. If you want to know something... why not find the best researcher in the field and get their book.

Just a heads up there's been some controversy around some of the claims he makes in the book: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#49

Post by cassianoleal »

urthor wrote: post #43
cassianoleal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Matthew Walker's book is the one I'd go to. Personal anecdote here. I've read his book. It's good, it's interesting, and it made me realise how much more I should try to get more and better sleep. I'm a night person. For months I tried each and every technique out there to move my sleep schedule back since I have to wake up in the morning against my natural rhythm. I started panicking and I went from 4-6h sleep per…

I mean isn't half of it that everyone has a chronotype? Shouldn't you just have a fixed, later bedtime. To maximize REM sleep etc?

Yep, that's what I do now. I still need to wake up early (for me) in the morning though. There's no winning.

Re: Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

#50

Post by MezzoDelCammin »

danuker wrote: post #47
gpas wrote: post #39

I've never tried the apps that claim to track your sleep, so I will not comment on those. But recently I was about to buy a consumer fitness band until I read a couple of technical reviews that show how they are all essentially worthless except for the Apple watch. Here is reviewed an iOS app but since the Apple watch is not mentioned, I don't know how precise his measurings are. IMHO the phone alone is not enough to…

Post links to the technical reviews, or I will continue to believe you are an Apple sales rep.

It seems that when it comes to sleep tracking, Apple HW is pretty decent, but by no means the best tracker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHPt14meJo&t=393s&ab_channe...

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