I recently came across a Financial Times article pondering whether the search for a perfect night’s sleep with trackers and wearable devices like the Apple Watch, Oura Ring, or Fitbit is actually keeping us awake. The verdict was quite straightforward: trackers will only worsen your sleep issues or insomnia as they make you aware of how little you’ve slept.

According to an article published in Science Daily in 2018, up to 20 percent of Americans and up to 50 percent of US military veterans are said to have trouble sleeping. Having struggled with sleep myself for a big chunk of my life, I wanted to share my personal experiences on sleep trackers and their impact on my sleeping disorders and quality of sleep.

To kick off with the subject, we need a clear definition of the issue called insomnia and why it is such a timely topic in today’s society. A quote from a 2015 study called Insomnia Disorder defines it the following way:

Insomnia disorder affects a large proportion of the population on a situational, recurrent or chronic basis and is among the most common complaints in medical practice. The disorder is predominantly characterized by dissatisfaction with sleep duration or quality and difficulties initiating or maintaining sleep, along with substantial distress and impairments of daytime functioning.

Depending on the frequency and duration of the issue, it can be categorized as acute insomnia that usually lasts from 1 night to a few weeks, or as chronic insomnia when it happens at least 3 nights a week for 3 months or more.

My data is not looking hot after catching only 4 hours of sleep on the plane.

Insomnia is not just eating up your daily quality of life through fatigue, but decreasing your longevity and exposing you to a variety of serious health conditions

Acute insomnia and sleep deprivation have an immediate impact on your quality of life. Some of the most common consequences according to Healthline include:

Memory loss
Trouble with thinking and concentration
Mood swings
Increased accident risk
Weakened immunity
Increased blood pressure
Increased diabetes risk
Weight gain
Lowered sex drive
Increased risk of heart disease
Poor balance

Chronic insomnia poses even bigger threats to your wellbeing. According to research [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] common consequences of chronic insomnia include various long-term health issues such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, as well as mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide. Compared to good sleepers persons with insomnia score lower on measures such as emotional role, mental health, and vitality. They also have lower scores on the Medical Outcomes Study Cognitive Scale and higher rates of absenteeism from work and lower productivity.

At this point, we can say with certainty that insomnia is common. We know it has some serious consequences. We know it isn’t pleasant for the subject.

Add today’s tracker technology to the mix recording every minute of your sleep and you have even a bigger problem in your hands?!? Not necessarily. If I were you and was suffering from acute or chronic insomnia I wouldn’t throw in the towel and sell your Fitbit, Apple Watch or Oura ring on Craig’s List too quickly.

Insomnia and I go a long way back. To ancient times where trackers were just a wild dream and only seen in sci-fi movies.

I have a long history of sleeping disorders and have tried everything from medication to mindfulness to exercise and therapy to tackle it. Part of it could be explained by genetics – my mum has made a point to remind me often that I was a poor sleeper even as a baby. But the situation definitely got worse over the teenage years when there was lots of turbulence in the family and I practically lost the ability to fall asleep like a normal person for a long, long time. Therapy didn’t help, exercise didn’t make much of a difference back then, and the only thing that really worked temporarily was pills. Ultimately, massive changes in both my life and surroundings were required for me to conquer insomnia (not for good but at least temporarily) – I’ll dig into that process later in a separate post.

Back in the days, there were no sleep trackers commonly available for consumers but even without a tracker, I’d know that I wasn’t sleeping properly. In fact, I was painfully aware of how little sleep I was getting because I’d remember looking at my alarm clock at 2 am, 3 am, 4 am and sweating over the fact that I’d need to get up at 6:30 am to get ready for school.

As I didn’t have a tracker I was left wondering whether I got ANY restorative sleep at all, as I was constantly tired and my brain felt foggy throughout the day. #zombiemodemuch ?

Enter Apple Watch and Oura Ring. Mix with a geeky attitude and an obsession for healthy habits. You’ve got yourself a data-driven Sleepless in Singapore.

Currently, I use three sleep trackers at the same time; namely Oura, Fitbit, and Apple Watch. While I luckily do not suffer from chronic insomnia these days, there are times (lasting from weeks to months) when I have massive issues with falling asleep most days of the week and thus end up getting only a few hours of sleep a night. Stress, worries, and all sorts of setbacks in life tend to get under my skin – especially if I’m not super cautious about a set of habits that seem to have a very positive effect on both my ability to fall asleep but also the quality of my sleep – and therefore I dare to say that I’ll highly likely never really conquer insomnia for good. It’s part of me and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life. Instead of whining about it though, I’ve tried to keep a positive can-do attitude and tried to harness today’s tracker technology to support me and help me keep it at bay.

In my case, I can say with full disclosure that even during longer periods of sleeping disorders a sleep tracker hasn’t had any negative impacts on my ability to fall asleep or stay asleep whatsoever. Even if my struggle with sleep continues for weeks or months, it doesn’t stress me to see how good or bad my sleep stats look like – I already know it from the way I feel when I wake up in the morning – and therefore my tracker doesn’t escalate the issue and make my insomnia disorder even worse the next night.

Obviously, we humans are different and some individuals might indeed break a sweat seeing the accumulated sleep stats were only 2 or 3 hours for many nights in a row – especially if chronic insomnia lasts for years instead of months. For those individuals, I’d definitely recommend a good chat with your doctor to figure out the best alternatives to cope with it. I’d still dare to suggest that many of us suffering from less severe forms of insomnia, will know and feel if we’re not sleeping well and recovering properly, with or without a tracker!

Apple Watch and Oura ring in action tracking my everyday life and sleep 24/7.

Why sleep data is so awesome for a nerdy insomniac like myself?

I’ve listed a few discoveries and thoughts about why sleep trackers and access to more detailed sleep data have proven to be a winner for me.

Despite the seemingly low amount of sleep during my periods of insomnia, I’m able to see from the data that the quality of my sleep is pretty decent, sometimes even amazing. I get easily 35-40% of deep sleep and a decent amount of REM sleep as well. This data suggests that I should be quite well recovered despite my (often so) poor sleep, and I am not completely destroying my brain. Based on years of sleep data from different trackers I can see that during periods of insomnia I’m missing out on the light sleep phase which would surely be nice but least critical of the sleep phases.
Sleep tracking has allowed me to pin down the behaviors listed below (even to the level of optimal timing of each behavior or activity) that actually improve the quality and quantity of my sleep. Without the data, I couldn’t compare the different behaviors and habits objectively and would be guessing instead.

What is sleep quality? How much is the right amount of sleep to begin with? Read more on the fundamentals of sleep science here.

Workouts

Looking at my activity and sleep data in parallel, the data indicates it’s beneficial for my sleep to work out most days of the week (moderate/high-intensity type of activities to really exhaust the body). However, digging deeper into the data, I can see that I shouldn’t hit the gym much after 6 pm as that will destroy the quality of my sleep and thus increase the fatigue the next day. Thus, morning, lunch hour, or late afternoon it is!

Meditation and mindfulness

Thanks to tracking, I’ve discovered that mindfulness actually has a massive positive impact on the quality of my sleep and a strong connection to the time required to fall asleep at night. This has probably something to do with stress reduction and stress management throughout the day allowing me to worry and stress less when I head to bed. Having seen this change in my sleep data, I’ve come to the habit of meditating daily and doing a short, calming breathing exercise before going to bed.

Screen time and working late at night

From my sleep data I see clearly that restricting screen time a few hours before bedtime (let it be work, social media, Netflix, or even random scrolling on the internet) has a major impact on the time it takes me to fall asleep. Furthermore, the data reveals that working late in the evening disturbs both my ability to fall asleep but also the quality of my sleep and thus I see myself waking up several times a night after I’ve had a late-night work call or have been working on an important document or replying to urgent emails too late. Therefore, I try to avoid both screen time and working late in the evening even if my job requires me to operate with people located on several continents and time zones.

Alcohol

A definite no-no for Laura! Sleep trackers do a mean job showing what kind of an impact just a single portion of alcohol will have on my quality and quantity of sleep. With that in mind, the debate on whether to have a glass of wine after work or not often ends up in a solid “no” as I’ve truly grown to appreciate a good night’s sleep.

Flying and jet lag

Due to the nature of my job, you can spot me on long-haul flights regularly. I’d say even too regularly thinking about the toll flying takes on your health. As an entrepreneur I fly economy and despite all the prepping, props, and hacks starting from adjusting my circadian rhythm all the way to blocking all the light and noise while trying to sleep on the plane, the quality and quantity of sleep during the flight is atrocious. While I can’t entirely refuse from work travels I’ve tried to make sure I have no evening plans for the first night after an overnight flight to ensure I can hit the hay early and compensate for the few sad hours of bad quality sleep I’ve managed to catch on the plane.

My regular long-haul flight from Singapore to Helsinki with Finnair is smooth yet has a major impact on my sleep quality and quantity.

Choosing a tracker: Oura Ring, Apple Watch, or Fitbit?

As for the trackers, Oura is definitely the most comfortable and low-key sleep tracker I’ve used so far. No screen, no flashing lights, and it’s super quick to sync. What bugs me is the lack of intelligence – even after a year of use, Oura hasn’t learned anything about my sleep patterns or the factors that affect my sleep and thus offers a “one-size-fits-all” recommendation and analysis based on population-level comparisons. Therefore, it keeps nagging about the same things even after a year of use which honestly has become quite dull and uninteresting over time. Also, Oura hasn’t figured out any solution for tracking workouts (you can’t really wear the ring at the gym, especially if you’re lifting weights, and it doesn’t recognize your workouts from your heart rate data like Fitbit does) so essentially it is a sleep tracker and leaves the rest of your activities to the side. However, it provides the best raw sleep data in my opinion along with nice add ons such as heart rate stats, temperature, respiratory rate etc. to partially justify the (steep) price of tracking your sleep. The battery life is promised to be 5 days when you get the ring, yet mine started to drain after 1 day of use after less than 9 months of use. Luckily, this kind of abnormal battery drainage was covered under warranty and thus Oura sent me a new one. Kudos for customer service!

Fitbit takes second place as the tracker itself is a bit clunky to sit nicely on the wrist yet the quality of the sleep tracking is quite decent and the price point is affordable. Through the app, you can see quite detailed analytics about the different phases of your sleep and check your resting heart rate patterns overnight. In addition to sleep tracking, Fitbit is really good at tracking your other activities based on continuous heart rate data patterns and categorizing those activities accordingly. Most models also ping you throughout the day with notifications about incoming messages or similar events (depending on your settings), remind you to stand up and walk every hour, and send you fireworks and buzzes on your wrist whenever you reach your daily step goals. The battery life of Fitbit is insane – mine still lasts for 6 days even after 2 years of use!

The third place in the sleep tracker category goes to Apple Watch which sits super comfortably on the wrist. That said, the big setback with its actual sleep tracking capability is that you need to use a 3rd party app to capture the data. Furthermore, the screen keeps flashing whenever you move around and might thus decrease the quality of your sleep, especially if you’re a light sleeper and do not use a sleeping mask. All the other features with the Apple Watch are amazing though – their workout tracking is next level and it is truly like a computer on your wrist that works seamlessly with your iPhone. The capability to make payments at the corner shop, while navigating through interesting podcasts, when tracking your outdoor walk & heart rate while on your way to the shop is just wonderful and the UX and ease of use are something the other trackers have yet to achieve.

Data doesn’t lie. It empowers you instead.

While insomnia may follow you for the rest of your life, and despite all the sleep hacks and health optimization it will raise its ugly head over and over again, I’d still not to shy away from trackers. “Knowing is half the battle” – the data truly empowers you to make informed decisions about your life and optimize the factors you can to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep. Further, it allows you to experiment with sleep hygiene and hacks, to find out what works for you to keep the pills in the bottle.

Based on my data, the following ones really work for me:

No caffeinated drinks after 1 pm
No alcohol whatsoever
No screen-time (TV, mobile phone) two hours prior to bedtime, night-mode on in the evening
No intense workouts after 6 pm
No meals two hours before bed
Good blinders in the bedroom and ensuring there are zero light sources in the room
Good quality bed and sheets, comfortable pillow
Temperature 20C in the bedroom

Sleep mask, melatonin and earplugs I save for travels, as I haven’t noticed a big difference with those in my everyday life. Despite good routines and some sleeping aids during work trips, my data reveals that both quality and quantity of sleep suffer when I travel, especially when coping with jet lag at the same time. That said, I refuse to stress about it and focus all my energy on helping my body to recover quickly from the sleep deprivation and other stressors related to travel and help it get back to the regular sleeping rhythm.

For more insights about your sleep and your habits that affect your sleep download the Healthzilla: Healthy Habits app through App Store.

For more information about the importance of sleep and tips and recommendations for improving your sleep, read Healthzilla’s sleep article and listen our podcast on sleep.

Sleepless in Singapore: Insomnia, Sleep Quality, and the Sleep Trackers You Need