7 ms·
Study uses wearables to show that physical activity lengthens REM latency
- jeffbee 3y agoI tried wearing my Garmin to bed for a while, but the information just wasn't that interesting. I can see where science gets value out of a population study but for the N=1 population consisting of yourself, I just wasn't seeing the point.
- creaghpatr 3y agoI enjoyed getting the metrics (not sure how accurate they were) but my garmin is so clunky it's impossible to sleep in. Great for everything else.
- jeffbee 3y agoI wear the women's model of the smallest one they make for this exact reason. Most of the watches Garmin is making are just ridiculously big.
- phildenhoff 3y agoOn the contrary, I’ve been wearing my Apple Watch nearly 24 hours a day for a few years and find the sleep info extremely useful. Really, the primary benefit I get is twofold: 1. I know approximately how long I slept for and remind myself of that all day via a widget. A short sleep is common for me, but I end up feeling foggy. Being reminded that it’s OK, I had a poor sleep, helps ease my mind. 2. I see approximately when I fell asleep and when I woke up. I end up having to add extra time if I sleep past my alarm, but seeing that I didn’t really fall asleep until late into the night helps me manage the pattern of late nights. Both of those are easily covered by even semi-diligently tracking your sleep on paper, but having my watch do it for me is what I like!
- ScoobleDoodle 3y ago> I end up having to add extra time if I sleep past my alarm I find this one a painful design decision on the Apple team's part. The end time of the normal desired sleep schedule does not mean the literal end of sleep every day. I wish they wouldn't clip the data at the end of the sleep schedule. Maybe it's because they're using heuristics and so all the data is guesstimates?
- ra7 3y agoI find the Autosleep app to be much more accurate than the Watch's native sleep tracking.
- tillcarlos 3y agoI have been using Autosleep now with an apple watch 6 - for 3 years daily. The learnings and the gamification are huge for me. I got my deep sleep up from 1.5h to consistently over 2h. Learnings: - early to bed makes more deep sleep. Huge difference from 10pm or 12am - magnesium doesn’t help at all - sauna before does help, but hard to do daily - deep sleep less than 1.5h makes for an awful day with angry mood - cold room: biggest lever. Haven’t pulled the trigger on an 8sleep yet. But that wouldn’t be my next thing if sleep wouldn’t be so great. - also, as weird as it sounds: having something exciting to work on improves sleep by a lot. YMMV
- manwe150 3y agoFrom Apple Watch, I learned I get 11 minutes of deep sleep last night, and generally average well under half an hour (for a full 8 hour typical). I can fall asleep easily, but apparently not very well. Yours sounds great.
- wiredfool 3y agoMine was absolute crap at sleep detection. Typically it would report that I fell asleep before I went to bed, or I was asleep longer than I was in bed. Heart rate detection and so on was generally fine through the night, as was Hrv. I sort of wonder if the actual sleep detection is done on the phone, and if the phone is not nearby, it just fails. (My phone doesn’t go to the bedroom. Makes it far easier to actually sleep) (Also, Watch is dead now, and didn’t replace it, so I might be misremembering the exact bits, but the results were generally paradoxical)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- _qua 3y agoI used to be someone who might have a single beer with dinner a few nights per week. When I got a Garmin and saw what it did to my stress levels and sleep, I essentially stopped drinking at all except for rare social situations. In addition to improving the numbers, I noticed a qualitative improvement in my sleep, energy levels, and exercise recovery.
- esel2k 3y agoWhat are measurements for stress levels? Are they accurate enough?
- p_j_w 3y agoI may be wrong, but I think it's just heart rate and heart rate variability.
- occz 3y agoI find that I can pretty consistently see an increase in resting heart rate by several beats per minute the day after drinking, an elevated skin temperature and a reduction in Deep- and REM-sleep. Particularly heavy drinking will manifest itself as a large drop in heart rate variability.
- nradov 3y agoGarmin wearable devices display a proprietary stress metric from their Firstbeat Analytics subsidiary. This is basically just heart rate variability (HRV) normalized to the user's baseline. https://www.firstbeatanalytics.com/en/features/all-day-stress-recovery/ https://www.firstbeatanalytics.com/en/features/all-day-stres... As for accuracy, compared to what? Any definition of "stress" is inherently somewhat arbitrary and subjective. There seems to be a decent correlation to how I'm feeling. But the metric isn't really actionable for most people.
- jurassicfoxy 3y agoWhether the measurements are accurate enough is not clear, but they are certainly precise enough. I (and all my friends) can easily see huge differences in HRV on nights of drinking, it's pretty amazing.
- DefineOutside 3y agoI find my Apple Watch information useful. I don't remember when I fell asleep but my apple watch does. This keeps me honest about going to be too late. Additionally, when I first got it, I found that I was only getting 40 minutes of deep sleep which is why I was always somewhat tired. After adding magnesium to my diet I am getting around 70 minutes of deep sleep. I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint this without the data. The apple watch is the best sleep tracker [1] so your data might be too noisy to find results. [1] https://youtu.be/LPqtfC70QTU?si=6tTayfNCkcJwDayW&t=12m30s https://youtu.be/LPqtfC70QTU?si=6tTayfNCkcJwDayW&t=12m30s
- greymalik 3y agoDoes Watch accurately capture when you fell asleep, as opposed to when you lay down and stopped moving?
- DefineOutside 3y agoNot that well. You have to extrapolate from when the first first deep sleep occurs in comparison to other nights.
- aaronrobinson 3y agoIt is interesting but I find Garmin data completely unreliable. For example, it claims I’m awake for 2-3 times each night for 30 minutes or more, it claims I’m asleep when I know I was on Tik Tok because I couldn’t sleep.
- pedalpete 3y agoI had the same experience when I first started sleep tracking before beginning our start-up https://affectablesleep.com https://affectablesleep.com. My oura would tell me I didn't get enough deep sleep, or REM sleep, and I was like - so what? What do I do with that information? We're using auditory stimulation to increase the efficiency of deep sleep during the night. The data after a night of sleep is less valuable than the real-time intervention.
- genewitch 3y agowhat do you think of binaural beats (cool edit pro did them the best, you could even use arbitrary audio) for helping with sleep? I know it's probably a big ask to wear headphones prior to sleep but when i was younger i used binaural beats for a few years to try hacking my brain a bit. When it "clicks" the sensation is pretty noticeable and intense. I described the default "noise" binaural beats "activating" like the sound of a helicopter circling around you, but quietly and quickly.
- pedalpete 3y agoThe only research I've seen says that binaural are no more effective then monarual across the population. But also, our stimulation isn't music, it's sound. It is 50ms timed near the peak of a slow-wave, so completely different mechanisms. When people ask what it sounds like, my response is "if I gave you a pill, you wouldn't ask what it tastes like". So I'm not the person to ask about binaural beats.
- dsalzman 3y agoThis is one of the great “no shit” type studies. Good to validate basic and ancient wisdom I guess.
- phildenhoff 3y agoFirst you validate the no shit, and then you can ask why!
- hattmall 3y agolol, the why is also no shit too though in this case.... because you are tired.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- abdullahkhalids 3y agoSome sequence of studies are not meant to validate that an effect exists, but to quantify the size of the effect. And the size of the effect under varying circumstances.
- shawnz 3y agoWhat? Exercise decreasing the proportion of sleep spent in the REM phase is "basic and ancient wisdom"? Exercise improving sleep quality, sure, but this study is saying something much more specific than that
- 0xcde4c3db 3y agoFrom this study I don't think it's even clear why or under what conditions higher REM latency is better, or that increasing it in an individual can necessarily be considered an improvement. (I also don't think that's what the study was for; I think they were mostly trying to validate the methods against established results.)
- dsalzman 3y ago“65 participants (Mage = 21.40, SD = 3.21, N = 42 females) with an average of 35.20 (SD = 27.01) days of observation per participant.”
- oldpersonintx 3y ago[dead]
- kingrazor 3y agoThis doesn't surprise me. A personal anecdote: a couple of years ago I traveled to Japan for the first time. During my time there, I walked much, much more than I usually do. As a result, I was physically exhausted at the end of each day, and had some of the best sleep I've had in years.
- fkkffdddd 3y agoIf you’re missing that now - perhaps a great opportunity.
- adversaryIdiot 3y agoyes lets leave our 9-5 to walk instead
- AgentOrange1234 3y agoYou joke(?) but I have had tons of success in asking people if they’d like to go on walking meetings with me, both virtual and in person. I have sometimes clocked 20k steps at work!
- Brajeshwar 3y agoWell, "Walk/Talk" is one of the most effective method. If the parties are abled, a walk/talk will give enough time even for non-walkers to talk and bring up topics/points. If they get tired, then the talk had extended beyond its need. I tend to have a few keywords to organize my calendar entries with the likes "TBD: foobar", "Plan: LoremIpsum", and one of them is "Walk/Talk: Awesome Person".
- kqr 3y ago> one of the most effective method. ...well, for you, maybe. I'm of the kind that gets very easily distracted when walking outside. Also it's harder to take notes.
- busymom0 3y agoPersonal anecdote: when strength training, I find that I have the best sleeps on the night and second night after I do a session of heavy farmer walks/carries. They are one of the most exhausting exercises for me and great sleep is a good reward.
- alwayslikethis 3y agoWrist watches can't really detect sleep stages. That requires at least an EEG to do reliably. The best they can do is maybe distinguish between sleeping vs awake. The only consumer device with an EEG is the Zeo, unfortunately they went bankrupt and people are unable to distinguish the flukes from the real ones. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25991187/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25991187/
- cassianoleal 3y agoThere was the Dreem 2 as well but they have also ended production.
- magicalhippo 3y agoHeh my SO just showed me her Garmin-something tracker log the other day, and it showed her having an hour of deep sleep when she'd been lying on the couch watching TV. It's also showing various sleep stages whens he knows she's been awake, trying to sleep.
- chimeracoder 3y ago> It's also showing various sleep stages whens he knows she's been awake, trying to sleep. To be fair, people actually aren't that great at detecting when they (or others) are really sleeping. Especially for one's self, it's common to believe that you spent more of the night tossing and turning than you really did, when in reality you actually got some light sleep sprinkled in those periods. That said, consumer-grade wearable devices are demonstrably not great at this either.
- drewg123 3y agoI love Garmin watches for many reasons, but their sleep tracking is horrible. Even my ancient MS Band did a better job than my Garmin Fenix 6
- jurassicfoxy 3y agoIt's pretty awful. Though they seem to be capable of detecting terrible sleep, at least. Gotta love a 40 sleep score night.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoIIRC, the qualitative (or proven quantitative) connection between exercise and improved sleep is most pronounced with morning exercise (HIIT/weight lifting).
- kapp_in_life 3y agoThis is interesting to me, do you know any articles about this? I feel when I put off exercise until later in the evening(after 7pm) that I often get poorer quality sleep, but I'd be surprised if working out at 6am vs. lunchtime would make that much a difference.
- xarope 3y agoI used to have to work out late at night (like 8-10pm), and found that 30+ mins of low intensity cardio and a long period of relaxed stretching after the workout helped.
- nine_zeros 3y agoAnecdotally, ever since I started wearing the whoop, I have been very cognizant of my sleep and recovery. My sleep quality has improved merely by following their recommendations. A great burden lifted tbh.
- sandspar 3y agoMy health watch both adds to and decreases my mental burden. I am healthier. But I often think of the person who said, "My Garmin has made me less fun." My health watch has increased the amount of time I spend feeling guilt.
- twobitshifter 3y agoREM latency is good because? I find I feel more rested with more REM cycles which generally means REM starts earlier.
- burning_hamster 3y ago> I find I feel more rested with more REM cycles which generally means REM starts earlier. This is probably the case because your NREM / slow-wave sleep need was low to begin with. If you go to bed relatively rested, it's easy to be fully rested when you wake up. REM is typically delayed when you are exhausted.