Anyone Track Their Sleep With Things Like Wearable Tech?

[Insaneacinamide]

Anyone have experience tracking sleep?
Such as what tech you use, supplements, time of actual sleep, any tricks/tips in environment, foods prior etc. I've heard people doing things like temp/pulse which I have not done yet.

I got a wireless wristband tracker that I have been using the the past week for sleep.
Mainly because I am not waking up refreshed even after 7-9 hours of rest.
Only ever done 1 sleep study back 16 years ago or so... and did not get me much results.
I have asked my DR to book me an appointment for sleep apnea but that takes a long wait I was told. So decided to track my own sleep.

Well, after tracking the past 5 nights I learned a few new things that seem to need some fixing.
-On average I was only sleeping 3-4.5 hours for approx an 8 hour rest. Had no idea actual sleep time was so low but it makes sense to waking up not refreshed.
-Woke up around 3-4 times average.
-restless around 20-26 times average. Cannot even tell this is happening.

Did try a supplement or 2 most nights such as zinc/magnesium, melatonin, aspirin.
Going to try some pregnenolone, cypro soon.

Any ideas on what might be causing my restless sleep, or medication/supps to try?

 

[luke gadget]

I used to use a Fitbit for sleep, but I found that simply wearing it would wake me sometimes - so, not worth it.

Getting decent sleep is a bit of a Mission for me these days - my sleep is really bad and I'm throwing all kinds of substances, techniques and devices at it.

For a monitor, I now use the "Sense by Hello". It's pricey, but I was desperate for something that actually helps.

This is likely the best product on the market. No wearable, instead a small disk ("sleep pill") is attached to the pillow which communicates to a device that can act as monitor and alarm. The device - I have the black one - is quite attractive, and will glow to tell you the environment quality - pretty cool. The device senses everything - temp, humidity, air quality, ambient sounds, light. Overkill, but useful anyway.

The alarm uses predictive timing: if you move around in your sleep, close to your official wake-up time, it'll play very gentle music. This more closely emulates natural walking, so one feels more rested even if the total sleep is unchanged.

My only complaint is that the iPhone App is awkward to use. Hopefully this will be addressed over time, since it's a rather new product.

I also just tried some ambient sounds using the 'Rain Rain' App on my iPad. This actually helped, more than I expected. I used the 'City Rain' sound which had more pink noise than the other sounds.

Also working on room darkening, but haven't decided yet the best course. Probably I'll hang some dark curtains around my bed area.

No magic bullets for supplements. Too much Benadryl is BAD - it gives me Central Sleep Apnea which is scary as hell. Trazodone does the same (though smaller - ~25mg - doses do make me very groggy, without the CSA, and I want to experiment going lower). Cypro helps more. Some Aminos are good, glycerine and taurine in particular. Melatonin has never worked for me - I get groggy and fall asleep but then wake and can't get back to sleep. Aspirin is helpful; especially if I've had alcohol, high dose aspirin is amazing for sleeping through it and not getting a hangover.

I think zinc is a bad idea for sleep. I take mine in the morning only; if I take it in the evening I'm guaranteed to have insomnia.

Last night I experimented by taking my Tianeptine before bed, and I did sleep a little better. I don't know if it helped since I was also doing the cypro and ambient noise - but at least it doesn't hurt.

 

[Insaneacinamide]

Hey luke, thanks for the reply!
Never had heard of the Sense product. Sounds like it has some good features on it!
How many hours you sleeping a night out of total rest time? Plus amount of times restless on average?

I ended up trying 2mg Cypro (4mg is too much for me) around 3:30pm yesterday and was in bed by 7pm and up at 7am. Though only logged 4:45 hours of sleep, 3x awake, and 29x restless. Woke up tired. Insane!
Did feel like I slept around 10 hours but the fitbit showed other wise.
Also had a long track of delta binaural sounds playing all night, as I usually do.
Sometimes I switch between using some red light in the room on low, or an all black room. It does not seem to matter cause my sleep it still the same.

Still many things to try however. Will look into other things that effect gaba.
I fear the issue might be sleep apnea or brain damage.

 

[Nighteyes]

Hey luke, thanks for the reply!
Never had heard of the Sense product. Sounds like it has some good features on it!
How many hours you sleeping a night out of total rest time? Plus amount of times restless on average?

I ended up trying 2mg Cypro (4mg is too much for me) around 3:30pm yesterday and was in bed by 7pm and up at 7am. Though only logged 4:45 hours of sleep, 3x awake, and 29x restless. Woke up tired. Insane!
Did feel like I slept around 10 hours but the fitbit showed other wise.
Also had a long track of delta binaural sounds playing all night, as I usually do.
Sometimes I switch between using some red light in the room on low, or an all black room. It does not seem to matter cause my sleep it still the same.

Still many things to try however. Will look into other things that effect gaba.
I fear the issue might be sleep apnea or brain damage.

Have you tried thiamine to increase CO2 or progesterone? Progesterone is really effective for sleep ime

 

[luke gadget]

Cypro is tricky - a tiny dose can totally knock me out, and I have to time it careful or I'll be super groggy the next day.

But the good thing about cypro is that one adapts - so if 2mg impacts you now, after a week or so you'll be fine with 3, them 4. So no need to push it.

I average 4-5 hours a night, with a lot of waking.

I was really excited about the Trazodone - I thought I had a med that would at least get me through the night. And then quite disappointed when it caused the Central Sleep Apnea. Oh well on to the the next, whatever that is.

 

[luke gadget]

Have you tried thiamine to increase CO2 or progesterone? Progesterone is really effective for sleep ime

For me I feel nothing from Progesterone, at any dose. And high dose thiamine doesn't seem to do much. If I take a lot in the evening it does disturb my sleep (same with Taurine) so I try to spread it out more.

 

[Agent207]

For a monitor, I now use the "Sense by Hello". It's pricey, but I was desperate for something that actually helps.

Does the wifi need to be on during night for sense to work? I use to turn off wifi at night, no wireless signals on bedroom, so I wonder if this device can record the data internal for then transfer it to the app/smartphone.

 

[Insaneacinamide]

Hi Nighteyes, appreciate the reply!
I have tried progesterone a year ago, bought a few bottles and still have one left. Nothing major to be honest upon waking. Used dosages 50mg-300mg but I do recall feeling lowered stress before bed.
I've probably only done 50mg of thiamine in my bcomplex 3-4 hours prior to sleep I can recall. I do have 100mg single capsules of it.
What dosages do you recommend for thiamine and progesterone for sleep? I can try it out sometime.

Luke, you are in a similar situation to me it appears with amount of time slept and trying new things. That stinks to hear about the Trazodone not working. I have never tried that. What is next to try out?
Cypro is indeed tricky. I will do 1mg next time I try it.

 

[luke gadget]

Does the wifi need to be on during night for sense to work?

Not sure. I think the 'pill' uses Bluetooth - which is a lower power wifi - and that does have to be on. But the other stuff - configuring, getting the data on your phone - that likely can happen later.

Not sure if that Bluetooth part nixes it for you.

 

[yerrag]

Anyone have experience tracking sleep?
Such as what tech you use, supplements, time of actual sleep, any tricks/tips in environment, foods prior etc. I've heard people doing things like temp/pulse which I have not done yet.

I got a wireless wristband tracker that I have been using the the past week for sleep.
Mainly because I am not waking up refreshed even after 7-9 hours of rest.
Only ever done 1 sleep study back 16 years ago or so... and did not get me much results.
I have asked my DR to book me an appointment for sleep apnea but that takes a long wait I was told. So decided to track my own sleep.

Well, after tracking the past 5 nights I learned a few new things that seem to need some fixing.
-On average I was only sleeping 3-4.5 hours for approx an 8 hour rest. Had no idea actual sleep time was so low but it makes sense to waking up not refreshed.
-Woke up around 3-4 times average.
-restless around 20-26 times average. Cannot even tell this is happening.

Did try a supplement or 2 most nights such as zinc/magnesium, melatonin, aspirin.
Going to try some pregnenolone, cypro soon.

Any ideas on what might be causing my restless sleep, or medication/supps to try?

I was surprised that I slept pretty well last night. I only took abot 1.5g of ascorbic acid in a glass of water. I didn't take milk, which I usually mix with collagen, salt, sugar, and coconut oil or milk, with 500mg GABA. I thought I'd be urinating more, but I actually ended up waking up about twice to pee (as I usually pee about 4x), and I felt refreshed. Will have to do this again tonight and next, just to see if this was an aberration. But I'm hopeful that it isn't. I've fasted through lunch with this much vitamin C, and I didn't get hungry nor feel sleepy, which would happen when my blood sugar runs low out of fasting. So I think it the vitamin C can somehow regulate blood sugar and make it stable, it will help with sleep.

 

[Insaneacinamide]

I was surprised that I slept pretty well last night. I only took abot 1.5g of ascorbic acid in a glass of water. I didn't take milk, which I usually mix with collagen, salt, sugar, and coconut oil or milk, with 500mg GABA. I thought I'd be urinating more, but I actually ended up waking up about twice to pee (as I usually pee about 4x), and I felt refreshed. Will have to do this again tonight and next, just to see if this was an aberration. But I'm hopeful that it isn't. I've fasted through lunch with this much vitamin C, and I didn't get hungry nor feel sleepy, which would happen when my blood sugar runs low out of fasting. So I think it the vitamin C can somehow regulate blood sugar and make it stable, it will help with sleep.

Interesting. L.Pauling would probably approve it.
Ya keep us posted about how it works again. Perhaps if it does not work continually, try adding 1 thing at a time to the vitamin c.

 

[yerrag]

Interesting. L.Pauling would probably approve it.
Ya keep us posted about how it works again. Perhaps if it does not work continually, try adding 1 thing at a time to the vitamin c.

Please don't try vitamin C yet. I'm having second thoughts and have to find out for myself in the next two weeks whether vitamin C is causing me to urinate more at night, thereby ruining my sleep.

 

[baggywrinkle]

snorelab is a great application to monitor sleep

 

[bawild]

I've used the ResMed S+, Sleepyhead software (works with BiPap machine and records every breath) and a CMS-50F SpO2 monitor to track O2, heart rate and pulse intensity. Eliminated my sleep apnea which was destroying my health. Other sleep tips I've found useful: spending as much time outside as possible, opening sinuses with nasal breathing & natural antihistamines, mouth taping, tongue stabilization, and not eating 2 hours before sleep. Waking at night to pee is highly correlated to sleep breathing disorders.

 

[yerrag]

snorelab is a great application to monitor sleep

Thanks for recommending it. I tried it but found that it focuses on the sound that's recorded all night, but it doesn't graph out results of sleep that has it go through awake to light sleep to deep sleep, unlike other apps I've tried like Sleep and Sleep Cycle. I'm sing the free version which doesn't let me in on listening on the entire time I slept, and I can't really tell whetehr it's worth buying. Unlike the other two apps, it doesn't give yo a limited period full feature trial. Are you using the paid version? It seems you are satisfied with it that's why you'e recommending it.

It may be that this is an app that is just simple and easy to use without the bells and whistles. It just records snoring (et al) and it lets you know how much you've been snoring, as well as classifying the snores from light to loud. If the absence of snoring and frequent waking up (which can be recorded when say you get up to head to the bathroom) can be considered what makes for good sleep. this may be good enough for me. I'm just not sure if the other apps I mentioned offer much more substance in terms of them being able to providing a graph of my sleep where it shows me going throu the cycle of being awake to light to deep sleep, and back to another cycle. I don't really know how they can tell I'm in deep from light sleep from listening to sound and from detecting my movements (Sleep can use both the mic and the accelerometer whereas Sleep Cycle offers a choice of one of the other). Perhaps they're simply basing the graph on the known sleep cycle being that if I am asleep without snoring for 2-3 hours I would be having so much light sleep and deep sleep based on an algorithm.

Seems that all that matters really is that we sleep soundly, and that the less we snore and the less we are awakened in the middle of the night the more soundly we sleep. And we don't really need the graphs at all.

Anyway, haven't decided which to use to I'm leaning towards sleep. It's just because SnoreLab doesn't let me try the full version before I decide on purchasing it. And certainly, I don't want to pay $30/yr to subscribe to using Sleep Cycle. Seems too much for bells and whistles.

Just my 2 cents.