Good quality sleep is so important to your overall health, but getting the proper amount can be difficult for some people. Practicing good sleep hygiene and taking specific supplements can help you get a good night's sleep. Going through all the sleep stages is vital to your health.
Using A Sleep Tracker
Using a sleep tracker can be monumental in uncovering if you’re dealing with sleep issues, allowing you to work towards improving them. While there are many sleep trackers on the market, each of them have certain benefits and drawbacks, making it important to research them before jumping to buy one. What works for your friend may not work as well for you, and vice versa.
There are four sleep stages that should occur nightly, and the body cycles through them at different points. Those stages are slow wave sleep (SWS), rapid eye movement (REM), light, and awake. Each of the stages serves a different purpose to the body’s recovery. Light sleep allows your body to transition to a deeper sleep cycle, slow wave sleep is the deep restorative stage where you body can focus on restoring cellular, skeletal, and muscular systems, and REM sleep is the mentally restorative stage where your body consolidates learning and memory.
WHOOP
Many people think that getting 8 hours of sleep is good enough, but how much sleep your body actually needs is individual to your body. For some people that haven’t been getting good quality sleep, or those that have had a strenuous day, they may find that eight hours of sleep just isn’t enough. The WHOOP tracker can determine your baseline sleep needs based on your profile and sleep trends. It helps take the guesswork out of knowing exactly how much you need. It can track everything you need to know about your sleep including sleep disturbances, cycles, stages, and more.
Many people’s nights aren’t undisturbed. Whether we share a bed with someone, have a rough night of sleep, or have a baby, rest doesn’t always go undisturbed. When you track how many wake events you have each night, it can be eye-opening in more ways than one. Some people periodically wake up throughout the night. Whoop can track your sleep efficiency and respiratory rate to give you personalized sleep suggestions. You can even set goals so a sleep coach can help you adjust your sleep on days you need to be at your peak performance. The sleep tracker can also determine how many hours of sleep you received compared to what is actually needed to see if you’re trending in the correct direction.
Oura Ring
Touted as the “world’s best sleep tracker”, it not only tracks sleep, but also measures heart rate and heart rate variability, two important markers of overall health. This tracker is worn as a ring on the finger, and it says the finger is the most accurate source of heart rate data. The Oura Ring has a long battery life, up to seven days, and charges to full capacity within 20-80 minutes. You can track your temperature, recovery, sleep, activity, stress, heart rate, and more with this sleep tracker. The design is comfortable, ultra-lightweight, and water-resistant, so it works well on every occasion.
Unlike some of the other wearable sleep tracking devices, the Oura Ring takes into consideration your heart rate, body temperature, and heart rate variability to determine how long you spend in each sleep cycle, your quality of sleep, and more. Once the ring learns about your sleep, it delivers personalized guidance based on nights when you had your best sleep.
Biostrap Active Set
The Biostrap Active Set is a personalized health monitoring set that measures, analyzes, and provides insight on various factors, including: sleep quality, recovery, nocturnal biometrics, and can track accurate real-time heart rate and heart rate variability. Your sleep quality is factored by combining all your sleep metrics into a score that ranges from 0-100. Your recovery is a representation of your ability to deal with stress on a given day. Nocturnal biometrics include oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, heart rate, and heart rate variability. During exercise, you can real-time trac both your heart rate and heart rate variability data with the heart rate monitor.
Sleepon Go2sleep Tracker
The Sleepon Go2sleep Tracker is an advanced sleep tracker that measures heart rate, blood oxygen (SpO2), and heart rate variability. It is worn as a ring sensor, is compact and sleek. The level of oxygen in your blood is tracked all night long in every second you spend in sleep. You can check real-time data with fluctuation of heart rate, perfusion index, and blood oxygen. The heart rate variability measurement is considered one of the best objective metrics for measuring physical fitness and can determine your body’s readiness to perform. It’s a measure of your body’s autonomic nervous system, and can play a large part in determining your body’s resilience to stress.
The Sleepon Go2Sleep tracker has vibrotactile feedback, and if your blood oxygen level and heart rate are abnormal during sleep, it can alert you to prevent dangers. The tracker also has an airplane mode option to track data without uploading, which can be helpful to those who want to avoid EMF exposure. There is also a ring finding option that can locate the ring if it is unable to be found.
Rise Science Sleep Tracker
Rise Science Sleep Tracker is touted as “the only sleep app that works all day”. Starting on the first day, Rise will pull historical data from your phone to determine your sleep debt, sleep need, and optimal time for you to go to sleep. The app is a gentle alarm clock, sleep tracker, and a science-backed guide to help you get a good night’s sleep. It can help you determine the best time to do everything from when you should stop drinking coffee to when you should start your bedtime routine, all based on your unique biology. It can also help to predict your energy cycle for the day and help you maximize it.
Kokoon Nightbuds
Kokoon Nightbuds are unique in the fact that they are headphones or earbuds that you wear while you’re sleeping. With a few simple steps, you can be on your way to a better night’s sleep. After you get a pair of Nightbuds or Relax headphones, you complete your online sleep profile and then download the MyKokoon app. You then pair your headphones directly to the app and then pick your sleep audio from the library or your own creation. As you drift off to sleep, the audio will fade and then colored noise is introduced to mask out disturbances. The Kokooon Nightbuds are an excellent option for people that don’t want to wear something on their wrist as they sleep, and they can also help you get to sleep faster and sleep more deeply with the sounds that play throughout the night.
Withings Sleep
Withings Sleep is a sleep tracking mat that offers sleep cycle analysis, snore detection, and heart rate tracking. Once you set it up, and sync to the Health Mate app, you’re ready to go. It can also integrate IFTTT scenarios such as turning up your thermostat when you wake up, and also dim lights when you go to bed. This sleep tracker is unique because there is nothing you have to wear-simply place the sleep tracking mat on your mattress, and fall asleep. The data is uploaded automatically, and you’ve got no responsibilities other than sleep. For someone that doesn’t want to be bothered wearing any devices on their body, the Withings Sleep Mat is a wonderful option.
Amazfit Bip U Pro
The Amazfit Bip U Pro is a smartwatch that you wear on your wrist. It has many functions, such as blood-oxygen level measurements, over 60 sport modes, is water-resistant, has 24/7 heart rate monitoring, sleep quality tracking, a high-precision GPS, PAI health assessment system, and built-in Alexa system. With over 60 sport modes, it can track your activity while you run outdoors, on a treadmill, walk, bike ride outdoors or indoors, do yoga, play cricket, basketball, baseball, table tennis, badminton, fish, or swim.
What’s the Best Sleep Tracker?
Determining the best sleep tracker unique to the individual, and their preferences and needs. Whether you want a wearable device, a sleep tracking mat, or earbuds that fit in your ears, there are options available to fit any wants. The best sleep tracker is one that you will use and are able to easily use. Purchasing an affordable sleep tracking device is a good idea to start with, and if you change your mind, you can always try something else. Whether you’re a professional athlete, work out occasionally, or just want something to track your sleep only, there is a sleep tracking device that will work for you!