Are you tracking sleep every night?

[YojanaFitbit]

I'd like to hear your experience in regards to sleep tracking. I try to wear my Versa every night, following my sleep schedule. I don't use sensitive sleep settings on my watch since sometimes I move a lot at night and I don't like to see extra restless or awake time in the morning.

Some other night I remove my watch from my wrist before going to bed just to give a rest to my arms. I'd like to hear about your experience on how you're tracking your sleep. Do you track it every single night or do you prefer to track sleep on specific days of the week?

I've been improving my sleep habits since I'm aware of different things that can help me to have a better sleep score. 😊

[GrandmaDGB]

I've been tracking my sleep since getting my fitbit 2.5 years ago.  It seems to work well.  I usually agree when it shows that I've had a lot of deep sleep.  I defintiely feel more rested after those nights.  The thing that puzzles me though is that very frequently I need to edit the time at which I go to bed.  This is because for some reason my device stops recording my heart rate for 30 minutes to an hour after I lie down.  Admittedly, I do have a pretty slow heart rate (sometimes below 40 BPM while I'm resting) but I know my heart doesn't totally stop.  LOL At least I don't think it does.  

[Tara19866]

Sleep 😴 💤 :bed: 😪 I'm so tired of being tired as well I'm not sleeping well @ All ,maybe an hour here and there, I don't get to sleep till the am when it's like 6:30-8:00 🙃 I NEED SLEEP 😩, any suggestions?? 

Thanks 

[Guy_]

Hi @Tara19866 -  There are many recommendations about how to get good sleep.

A good routine helps, such as no sleeps during the day and plenty of exercise with sunshine if possible and good diet, go to bed at the same time, wind down without tv/phone screens before bed, sleep in a comfortable quiet cool dark place. Put your worries away at bedtime, there's always tomorrow. If you have a restless partner try sleeping in another room and see if that helps. Most importantly be happy.

See this article

[halena42]

I completely agree with Guy_. When I take coffee or strong tea at night then I can't sleep.

[weighmedown]

One of my fave feature about Fitbit is sleep tracking!! A1!!!

[YojanaFitbit]

Nice to see that you're digging into the Fitbit Forums @Tara19866, let me give you a warm welcome to our community. 

You came to the right place! We really like to engage this type of topics. Since sleep is an essential function that allows your body and mind to recharge, leaving you refreshed and alert when you wake up. We want to give you some tips that might help you, healthy sleep also helps the body remain healthy and stave off diseases. Without enough sleep, the brain cannot function properly. Being said that, you can improve your sleep by paying attention what is your sleep pattern. Are you having insomnia every night? Are you under a lot of stress? Are you taking medication? 

All this is important, since as soon as you start noticing those small details you will realize you can start makin big changes. Take a look of these blog entries: 5 Ways to Better Manage Anxiety—and Get Better Sleep in the Process and The Night Shift Worker’s Guide to Getting Better Sleep.

See you around!

[alexthecat]

I wear my device on my nondominant wrist during the day. At night, I switch it to my dominant wrist to give my other wrist a break. I leave it set to "nondominant" in the app and loosen the strap one notch at night because that seems more comfortable. 

I get good, reliable sleep data doing this and I've done it for years, with every device I've had. I started out years ago, with an Alta HR. Now I'm using a Sense, so I've had a big range of devices and this routine has always worked well for me. I don't know if it would work for anyone else. 

[2labz]

I deleted the "sleep" card from my dashboard. Seems like since Alpha bought out the company, the sleep tracker is pretty worthless; and it wasn't all that useful before. I've never liked that it was a total black box and that you could have quite similar sleep "patterns" from day to day but get wildly different results. Frankly, I prefer to base my evaluation of "sleep score" based on how refreshed I feel when I rise. 

[Genetix71]

No I do not. Sometimes, I charge my fitbit over night, so thats obvious. Sometimes, it plain bothers me to wear it at night and I take it off sometime during the night. 

Right now I am trying to be more constant to figure out my sleep patterns after having a drink in the evening.

[Runner0621]

@alexthecat what is your reason for not setting it on "dominant" in the app?  

[alexthecat]

@Runner0621 it's only on my dominant wrist at night, when I'm asleep. I haven't found that out makes a difference whether it is set to dominant or nondominant at night, so I don't bother changing it. 

[Runner0621]

Thanks!  I'm glad to know it doesn't make any difference with respect to sleep tracking.

[alexthecat]

@Runner0621 I usually get good, reliable sleep data. I do find that, whenever I start using a new device, it will take a couple of nights to figure out how to wear it at night. I'm not comfortable if it's too tight, but if it's too loose it won't be able to read my heart rate. It can take a while to get that worked out, but then I'm good for a long time. 

[cyphercat]

I first used Fitbit back when it was Charge (version 1) and then Charge 2 when that came out.  After that, I switched to Polar and then Garmin and some other China brands and some European brands.  I have not seen another app like Fitbit's which tracks my weird multiple-sleep-patterns (I tend to wake up at 2am and sleep again at 5am) as almost every other brand treats my first sleep at the ONLY sleep I've during the night.

Now I am back to Charge 4 even though Charge 5 is out.  And the ONLY reason I got it was because of this special ability for the app to track my multiple sleeps at night + naps during the day.  If it doesn't do that, then I am back to Garmin (my favourite, as it tracks my swim the best).

What's this I hear about Fitbit charging premium for people to view their sleep patterns?

[Natastrophe]

Yes, I found that when I didnt, I felt like I'd had poor sleep. The reason I started tracking my sleep, was to help with my recovery from covid pneumonia. After a spell in hospital 4 months ago, I had a very slow recovery. I'm walking regularly now, but not running yet, still to weak and tired. One thing covid affects is sleep. Prior to this illness, i'd go to bed between 1-2am and sleep till about 8am, and managed just fine. I never woke when I slept, other than occasionally if I needed the loo.

These days i'm waking around 3-6 times a night, although it is improving. The fitbit is useful not just for the tracking of sleep, but night time heart rate. You can see when you were in deep sleep, and when you were restless.

My average heart rate is still quite high, it hovers around 67-73, but I did have to recover from a Tachycardia caused by my illness. That, thankfully has now gone.

Generally, when i'm active during the day, my heart rate is 75-95, depending on activity. When I move around, around 90-110. Walking briskly, I'm around 100-120. So getting back to more normal numbers I hope.

[eezeepee]

I've been sleep tracking everyday since I started using my Sense end of December 2021. Prior to that I was using my Wear OS Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle with the app Sleep As Android for about 2.5 years. I think it did well in tracking, although I never saw a comparison with an EEG like I have with the Sense. But my sleep score wasn't very helpful, was on a scale out of 5. Sense sleep tracking, especially with the premium, is definitely more helpful and informative and I think the score correlates well with how I felt about my sleep. I've been averaging low 80s per week which I would say isn't too bad considering we've had a <1 year old baby sleeping in a our room. 🙂

[Lymmeln]

Yes my Charge5 give sleep data  every day

[GeorgyGirl66]

Mine is not correct. It says I was asleep from 3 to 11. That's 7 hours. Why did it only log 4 hrs 40 mins? Restart my device It's charged fully.

s

[eezeepee]

@GeorgyGirl66  Do you have a screenshot of your sleep stage breakdown?