Sleep tracking is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, looking at sleep scores every morning to see how well I slept and whether I beat my previous night’s score has become a bit of a game. On the other hand, a bad score in the morning can make me very grumpy.
I’ve been tracking my sleep for years, and while I did have the occasional night back in the day lying awake at 2am worrying about what my sleep score would look like in the morning, I now have a much better relationship with sleep tracking data.
The sleep tracking trap
The biggest problem with sleep tracking is treating the number you achieve every morning as gospel. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very easy trap to fall into, and we’ve all been there desperately hoping for a decent score before we’ve barely opened our eyes, but it’s important to remember that sleep trackers aren’t clinically precise; they are estimates.
You only need to compare sleep-tracking data across a couple of devices to learn that it varies dramatically between them. The duration of sleep is usually similar, but the classification of sleep stages differs considerably.
Apple Watch tracks less deep sleep than Oura and EightSleep, for example, while Ultrahuman is more generous with REM sleep. The point? Don’t put blind trust in the data presented to you unless you are hooked up to a machine in a sleep clinic.
How I use sleep tracking
Instead, I use sleep tracking data to learn from it and try to make better choices. It doesn’t always work – sometimes that extra glass of wine is just too tempting, but I now know that my resting heart rate will be higher for that night as a result, and I have learned to accept that.
I know that if I go to bed before midnight, even 30 minutes before, my sleep score will be much higher, and I know that consistency is key in terms of bedtime and wake-up time.
Ignore single scores
I ignore single bad scores and focus on weekly and monthly patterns instead. We all have a bad night’s sleep now and then, whether we had a late night, a sick child or a stressful day. It’s an inevitability. One bad score isn’t the end of the world, but a month of low scores could mean it’s time to look a little deeper and consider what is causing those lower scores.
A mirror, not a judge
I use sleep tracking data to identify correlations between how I have slept and what I have done during the week or month. I mentioned alcohol, which always increases my resting heart rate and lowers my heart rate variability, but I have also learned not to work past 9pm or have caffeine past 3pm. Both affect my sleep latency (how quickly I fall asleep), which in turn impacts my scores. A sleep tracker will tell you what, but it’s your lifestyle that will tell you why.
Set boundaries
Sleep tracking requires some boundaries, and those aren’t just taking the scores with a little pinch of salt. If I wake up and don’t feel like I slept well, I delay checking my sleep scores until later in the day. It’s tempting to have your feelings confirmed with data, but it can be detrimental, too. As I said, I get grumpy.
I also generally avoid looking at my scores if I am travelling, feel stressed, or have had a particularly late night that involved eating late or drinking. Just because you track your sleep doesn’t mean you always have to engage with the data.
A tool, not the goal
Sleep tracking works for me because I choose when I want the data and when I am going to ignore it. It can take time to learn correlations between your sleep scores and your lifestyle choices, and as I said, it can be tempting to reassure yourself when you don’t feel 100 per cent that there’s a scientific reason why.
It should be a tool, though, and not the end goal. A sleep tracker will not make you sleep better, but a consistent bedtime and wake time, a cool dark room, and considering turning down things like that second glass of wine or beer can make big differences. So, focus on the patterns and learn from them rather than pinning everything on your morning score is my top advice.
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