Are you concerned about the quality of your sleep? Well, if you are like a lot of people out there, then you are using a sleep tracker device to measure your sleep each night. These cool gadgets claim to be able to do everything from tell you how long you sleep to what stage of sleep you’re in and for how long to the overall quality of your sleep. And in today’s data driven world, we just cannot get enough of these things.
But guess what? They might not be all that they’re cracked up to be. A sleep scientist (who knew that was a job!) recently did an AMA over on Reddit where he took all sorts of questions on sleep. And someone actually asked him about these sleep wearables and if these sleep gadgets can do what they claim.
Apparently they can only sort of work as advertised. Sure, they can accurately monitor your heart rate while you are sleeping and how much movement you have while asleep. But they just cannot give you any real information on the quality of your sleep. Apparently, the only way to measure that is via EEG while you are sleeping. Sure, you can buy EEG devices to do this, but they certainly are not cheap. You can also get the same thing in a sleep study.
If you are still super concerned about the quality of your sleep and if you’re doing it right, then you should take the below advice from the scientist. It still remains the single best way to know what is going on with your body when it comes to your sleep.
I think that right now, the best way is still to listen to your body and figure out what is the best schedule and duration for yourself. For example, when you are on vacation and have no social responsibilities and no other external influences, what is your body telling you to do and how do you feel? What makes you feel the best most of the day? Although it sounds primitive, it’s still the most accurate way. You can use fitbit or whatever to measure your sleep duration, but if you don’t feel good, it still has no benefit to help you with your sleep.