“Why would I need a gadget to track my sleep?” you might ask. “I know if I’ve slept well or not!”
It seems a logical thought. But research points to the reality that we don’t judge the quality of our rest as accurately as we might think.
As the Huffington Post put it, “Whether you over- or underestimate your sleep quantity and quality, you’re rarely on target. That’s because without scientific tracking methods to confirm your sleep details, it’s all a matter of perception that can be altered substantially by your given mood.”
Hmm- that basically means that people don’t really know how well they slept based on how they feel the next day. If you’re in a bad mood or feeling lousy, you’re more likely to blame lack of sleep. (It’s a plausible reason, after all!) If you’re in a good mood and feeling energetic, you’re more likely to assume you got decent rest.
A study recently published in the American Journal of Physiology looked at subjective and objective awareness of sleep deprivation and found that even people who slept only four hours and knew they weren’t getting enough sleep might say they feel fine the next day and assume it was no biggie.
But the moral of the study is that even those who felt fine performed poorly on a computerized test. There was no difference between those who felt awful and those who felt OK—they both performed poorly.
And of course there are your circadian rhythms to consider. When that sun comes up, “Bing!” Your body tells you it’s time to rise and shine and it keeps telling you that basically until the sun goes down and maybe a while afterward, considering all of these electric lights and blue-light gadgets (TVs, computers, iPads) we like to keep around. So you can feel wakeful even when you’re really tired.
In a nutshell, sometimes we don’t know how exhausted we are until we’re basically comatose.
This is where sleep trackers come in. They’re flooding into the market these days as technical innovations include smart phone apps, sensors and even smart mattress covers that can control your room temperature and start your coffee pot for you.
A sleep tracker allows you to look at the numbers instead of relying on your subjective reading of your sleep quality. How long you slept is only part of the picture; how well you slept matters, too.
If your sleep is restless or you’re even waking up a lot in the night briefly, chances are you won’t remember. But your sleep tracker will. Who knows? It might explain why you’re dragging work or the gym that day! And you might learn some things that’ll help you make valuable changes.
Which sleep tracker should you choose? Well, there are tons of options and more seem imminent. But we recommend the more scientific ones that’ll give you some solid, useful data on restlessness and awakenings instead of just measuring sleep times. If your tracker measures sleep rhythms and temperature, that could be helpful too. It’s not unusual for temperatures too high or low to disturb sleep.
Also, try to go for one that doesn’t require your phone by your bed: too many chances for disturbance there, and too much temptation for that late-night email check. (We only say that because we’ve been there too many times, haha.)
Sleep tight, Urbanites!