The Best Way to Use a Sleep Tracker
If you check your Fitbit or Apple watch every morning to see how well you slept, I humbly declare that you should stop right now . There is a better way to use this data, and it involves ignoring it a bit.
There are two problems with daily sleep data checking. First, sleep trackers are not as accurate as you might think . They can roughly indicate the correct number of hours that you have been motionless in bed, but they cannot tell you how “deep” or “good” your sleep is. And they don’t know how much sleep you personally need that day.
Second, we react emotionally to the number in the app. If you think you are sleeping poorly, you can convince yourself that you are feeling tired or lazy, even if you did sleep well . Why not wait and see how you really feel?
Instead, sleep science researcher Rafael Wallat told The New York Times , the best way to use a sleep tracker is weekly . Watch for trends – on average, do you spend seven to nine hours a night? Are you so sleepy on weekdays that you often fall asleep on weekends ? Are there certain times of the week when you find it particularly difficult to get enough sleep?
This weekly review is best because the information is current. When you check your tracker in the morning, there is hardly anything you can do with this information. But by looking at the weekly data, you can plan ahead of time to change your schedule or bedtime for the next week.