Restless: how bad is it?

[Revvr]

I tried my new Fitbit last night to track my sleep and here are the results:

Desktop:

Mobile:

As you can see, I have 90% sleep efficiency and slept for over 7 hours. These numbers I expected.

However, there are a bunch of periods when I'm "awake" (according to the desktop version) or "restless" (according to the mobile version).

I remember being awake as shown by the mobile version because I actually got out of bed. I don't remember the other, restless, moments.

My questions are:

1. How bad is it to be restless? "Restless" is a pretty bad word if we're talking about sleep.
2. Should I be concerned about having so many restless moments?
3. What exactly are these restless moments?
4. What does normal, healthy, sleep look like in one of these graphs?
5. Why does the desktop version label restlessness as awake? 
6.  Why does the mobile version make the distinction between restless and awake?

Any insight about these items is greatly appreciated!

[Martine1975]

Hi there

I have a sleepingdisorder. 90% efficiency is not okay. But you should not go over 1 night, but a longer period. 

How about your heartrate? Does it slow down like it should?

I am very curious for the answers to your other questions. 

[Revvr]

I will keep an eye on it for more nights and see how this develops.

The heart seems ok, about 66 bpm resting rate. Where could I find the HR per hour or while sleeping?

[Grumpy1]

Those look my my results too---restless 26-29 times per night....I do NOT wake up feeling refreshed & have no energy during the day.  On a "good" nights' sleep for me (less than restless 14X) I see a period or 2 where I sleep well for 1 1/2 to 2 hours uninterrupted- when this happens I wake up feeling energetic and ready to take on the day......I have been reading about sleep cycles and they are about 90 min. long with the most benefit (to restorative health) comes in the last 10 mins of that cycle, so this explains why the 1 1/2- 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep makes me feel more energetic.......you are not alone!!!

[Kay_Nein]

I'm sorry none of us seem to have all the answers for you, but we all seem to have the same questions.  I've only had my Fitbit for less than a week and it's been very eye-opening (no pun intended).   I knew I was a restless sleeper - I have back and carpal tunnel problems that cause me to move alot.  But, I was really surprised to see how often I am restless.  My worst night was Friday with 22 occurances.  My best night was last night with only 9.  I had a very busy day Sunday and also took a few advil before I went to bed, so I'm sure that had alot to do with it.  I woke up very groggy, but knew that I'd had a good night's rest.  

[Revvr]

No need to be sorry, I'm just having trouble interpreting these numbers. I'm surprised FitBit doesn't offer a glossary of key terms of some sort.

This is my weekly summary. It would be good to have something to compare to in order to know what needs to improve.

• What is the target sleep efficiency?
• How many times per night to people who sleep healthy are awakened?
• What spacing do pink bars have on a healthy sleeper's graph?

Without these parameters, we have to be sleep specialists to correctly interpret this data.

Fitbit, where are you?

[smhermione]

The restlessness of sleep for a fitbit is measured by movement. The reasoning is that if you are moving around a lot during sleep that you are probably in the lighter levels of sleep instead of REM sleep where for the most part your body isn't moving. If I notice that I have a lot of movement I try to think back on my caffeine consumption, using electronic devices before bed, stress, etc to see what might be causing me to move around during sleep.

[LadyLinda]

i was pretty shocked on mine saying i got ten times restless.. O_o

[Ray94903]

Is REM sleep synonymous with not moving? Can't you be in deep REM sleep and be dreaming and be moving about, but it's still deep beneficial REM sleep?

[HRTess]

I would recommend that you talk with a doctor at a sleep lab about your Fitbit results. 

After not feeling rested for a long time, and waking up a lot, I decided to get a sleep lab done. Dicovered I have sleep apnea which makes me stop breathing as many as 100 times per hour. Pretty scary! I am using a CPAP machine now which helps some. 

Interestingly enough, my restlessness happens in the beginning and middle of sleep cycles and it's not until the wee hours of the morning, about 2 hours before I have to wake up for work, that I get the more restorative sleep. 

However, I wonder how much of this restlessnes has to do with my 2 cats who enjoy sleeping on and near me? 🙂 

Spoiler

[Quothage]

This has been a useful thread - i've had my tracking on for about 10 days and rarely sleep for longer than an hour at a time before becoming restless (maybe twice in total in 10 days). I had a feeling I've had a sleep disorder for sometime before getting the fitbit, I think this confirms it. Like someone else said I'm typically tired.

Although I've had my device on sensitive, on my non-dom side as settings say. I'm going to have to see what it says on normal, but I'm not expecting (and kind of hoping) not to see a dramatic difference.

[mb55555]

I use fitbit flex to track my sleep only. I reacted badly to a prescription medication 18 months ago, completely destroyed my sleep. I use the flex to monitor my sleep and see if various medications I am working on with my PCP helps or not.

I use two flex's one on my wrist and one taped to my waist... below is what my sleep looks like now. 37 year old otherwise perfectly healthy male.

My actual sleep is somewhere between the two... but the restlessness probably doesn't help with sleep quality.

[RonicaD]

Completely agree with you! After seeing my sleeping stats I was kind of taken aback but wanted to figure out if there was something medical preventing me from sleeping well. I found this app called Mobile Sleep Doc (http://www.mobilesleepdoc.com/) that works with the Fitbit and helped me (kind of) figure out how to sleep better. The next step is going to the doctor but I feel like at least now I have more information to present which is always great! Fingers crossed for figuring it all out!

[Rowmoseley]

Very interesting discussion.  Have had a Fitbit Charger HR for 3 weeks now and find and restless between 20 and 30 times most nights with the time anything up to an hour.  Never get more than about an hour's uninterrupted sleep.

2 years ago suddenly realised my memory had gone AWOL - basically just couldn't access sections of it even when people tried to jog it as we all do naturally in conversation when some-one says they can't remember that meeting or that match or whatever.  Still believe it was due to poor sleep - had jetlag for several weeks after spending December and January in Texas (over 10 hours sunshine nearlt every day) and returning to UK, max 8 hours, rarely sunshine.

have read you need at least 1.5 hours before get stage 3 sleep which is when the brain sorts out your memories.

Richard

[bluepinecones]

No idea what should be normal but comparied to my results, yours are excellent.  I tend to be in the 70% range with several awake periods and usually 15 to 20 restless only sleeping average of 4 hours per night

[Rowmoseley]

But do you have  memory problems?

[Raviv]

For comparison's sake, this is a good night.  Mind you, not all of them are like this, but it is pretty typical for me.

[Rowmoseley]

That looks brilliant - wish I could get such long periods of non restless sleep - I'm sure that would help my memory.

[Raviv]

For me, it's a combination of a few things:

400mg of magnesium right before bed (sounds like "woo" but it's science, trust me)

Easy on the carbs for dinner and after so my blood sugar doesn't do a nosedive in the middle of the night and wake me up

Keeping the bedroom really, really dark

Being active during the day so I'm tired at night

Trying to keep the drama to a minimum so I don't wake up and stress over it, and marginalizing any family and friends that insist on dragging it into my life

[Ray94903]

Great advice. I didn't realize that carbs at night dud that to you. Thx


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