Why I Recommend a Sleep Tracker
45 to 75 minutes.
That’s the range of time I spend “awake” every night during sleep. That’s the amount of time I thought I was sleeping but was not. That was time I thought my body was working to recover and repair itself, from whatever stresses I put it under, that it wasn’t. For me, the concerning thing is I never would have realized this if it wasn’t for the FitBit I got as a Christmas present.
We all know that we need a certain amount of sleep in order to be healthy, productive, happy individuals. It has been drilled into us from all sorts of avenues – media, family, medical providers, and more. Generally, that number is 7-9 hours for most adults, with an additional hour needed for those in high school (keep adding more hours the younger a child is) (1). The overall number of hours is important, but so is the quality of that sleep. If we are awake for longer periods of time, we aren’t getting the full benefits of sleep.
It is important to get sufficient sleep for many reasons. For people recovering from injury or surgery or dealing with pain, it is one of the most important aspects of the recovery process. Quality sleep allows for improved muscle and cell repair, increased protein synthesis, and the release of hormones for tissue growth (2). Sleep aids in physical recovery surely, but it also improves recovery from other forms of stress. It helps to regulate our immune system, our mood and cognitive function, and can help prevent diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. These are also important factors in the recovery from injury.
A lot of people understand sleep is important and generally know how much sleep we need, but most of us probably aren’t aware of how many hours we actually sleep each night. This is where a sleep tracker can really help. Scientific studies have shown that wearable sleep trackers can accurately track sleep and have a positive impact on sleep quality (3,4). These are exciting findings since we know sleep has such a large impact on our lives. The more we know about our sleep and our sleep habits, the easier it is to make changes to improve it. Since getting my FitBit, I have been able to improve my sleep habits and cut my awake time down to 40-55 minutes each night. While this is still more than I’d personally like to see, it is a great improvement!
Wearables can allow us to gather data and use it to improve our health, our recovery, and ultimately our quality of life, but we have to remember that they are just tools for us to use. My only caution with wearables is not to get swept up in the data itself. If you are someone who gets caught up in a cycle of stress because your numbers aren’t getting to where you want them, it might be better to use a wearable sparingly to check in on progress or not at all if it ends up negatively impacting your health. There are other ways to monitor and improve your sleep.
Keep an eye out for a future blog post for tips on improving your sleep and sleep hygiene!
1. Suni, Eric. “How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?” Edited by Dr. Abhinav Singh, Sleep Foundation, 10 Mar. 2021, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need.
2. “Sleep: Theory, Function and Physiology.” Physiopedia, https://www.physio-pedia.com/Sleep:_Theory,_Function_and_Physiology.
3. Miller, Dean J., et al. “A Validation Study of a Commercial Wearable Device to Automatically Detect and Estimate Sleep.” Biosensors, vol. 11, no. 6, 2021, p. 185., https://doi.org/10.3390/bios11060185.
4. Berryhill, Sarah, et al. “Effect of Wearables on Sleep in Healthy Individuals: A Randomized Crossover Trial and Validation Study.” Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, vol. 16, no. 5, 2020, pp. 775–783., https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.8356.
