Inconsistent sleep. Alternating good sleep one night followed by bad the next, over and over. Ideas?

[drewdig]

I generally don't get the recommend 6-8 hours of rest. I typically wake up 2 to 3 times during the course of a night. And my sleep is inconsistent. Good sleep one night followed by bad the next, over and over (here's what it looks like). https://andrewdigenova.com/sleep/sleep.jpg. As you can see by the graph, I seem to get one good night's sleep followed bad the next. If I get a good night's sleep on a Saturday night, I can pretty much count on Sunday night's sleep being bad. Looks like a kind of saw tooth pattern on the Fitbit graph. It drives me nuts. I'd really like to know why the alternating pattern. There must be a reason, right?

I have pretty good sleep hygiene. Cutting down on LED light. Pretty consistent sleep start times and pre-bed routine. I get in a lot of walking daily. From 10K to 18K steps. I get solid exercise during the weekends playing tennis and jogging. That seems to help some with my sleep a bit. But there is no direct one to one correlation between intense workouts and good sleep. My eating habits are very good. Lots of green vegetables, healthy bowls, green smoothies and green juices.

Anyone have ideas why my sleep looks the way it does? Anyone else experience this pattern?

[drewdig]

One more thing. In a comprehensive lab test, my doctor tells me I am deficient in melatonin. I also suspect cortisol might play a role too. Not sure.

[Dominique]

First, a technical remark: you don’t need to upload your images to an external website, you can use the Photos icon in the toolbar (when preparing a new message) to include images directly inside your post, as I’m doing here:

Secondly, the graph you posted merely showed the length of each night (hours slept) compared to your sleep goal (which appears to be 6.5 hours). It doesn’t tell much about the actual quality of your sleep.

Has your account switched to sleep scores? Mine did a week ago, and I like the extra information it provides. It basically gives you a maximum of 50 points for time asleep, 25 points for deep and REM and 25 points for "restoration". In other words, you can see the areas where you are lacking.