I’m tracking my sleep currently with an UP 3 and am looking for suggestions and tips to improve on the amount of deep sleep I’m getting.
Right now I’m at an average of 9.5% deep sleep over the past month, 16.8% REM and 73.7% light sleep. I wake up an average of 5.4 times per night. (And I never have to go to the bathroom at night ) Seems I’m getting way to little deep sleep.
As a comparison I looked up my older data from couple of years ago when I had the Up24; I would clock between 40 and 50% deep sleep. Even if I take into account that REM sleep probably would have been measured as deep sleep with the UP24, I’m getting much less deep sleep right now.
Things I’m doing to improve sleep (without effect I must say);
shower before bed
make sure I’m relaxed and not thinking or stressing out about stuff
eating relatively healthy (quick testing shows no effect of sugar or ‘bad food’ on sleep)
limiting coffee and no caffeine after 4 PM (although testing shows I don’t seem to be sensitive to caffeine
no alcohol
I exercise twice a week (which is quite exhausting for me at the moment) but don’t see a change in sleep pattern based on that
Any tips suggestions for other stuff you found to work for you and I could try out?
In addition to what you’ve listed, the only intervention that seemed to have worked for me was blackout curtains (or otherwise making the room as dark as possible). It appears that light hitting your skin anywhere (not just your eyes) can reset your sleep cycle.
I’ve also tried, without any effect, melatonin, both in regular form (3mg pills), and immediate + sustained release (10mg), and transdermal magnesium oil (which one somewhat famous sleep coach swears by - see my summary of his video).
For comparison, here’s my deep sleep situation for the past week, measured with the Emfit QS:
If there’s a correlation between deep sleep and how I function the next day, it beats me. On Sunday, I was groggy the whole day, despite a sleep score of 90 and 17% deep sleep. The day before I was sharp, motivated and alert, despite a sleep score of only 70, and 12% deep sleep. Today I’ve been doing well, with 16% deep sleep. No exercise since ~10 days ago due to an injury.
Have to say that after 6 years of QS, I still haven’t figured out this sleep thing… my best hypothesis is that there’s an action-at-a-distance mechanism at play, in that I pay for a suboptimal night not necessarily the day after, but two or three days after. Or other factors (good luck controlling for them) play a much more important role. It’s been 20+ years since I remember waking up fresh, alert, and “ready to take on the world!!1”, as claimed in various sleep improvement programs I’ve seen. Maybe I need to try going vegan for a month.
Interruptions can prevent you from going into or staying in deep sleep.
-have you had a sleep study done?
-have you measured your snoring/breathing to see if there are problems (possible apnea)?
-have you measured your heart rate during sleep (possible bradycardia)?
-have you measured body position during sleep for clues to why you are waking up?
-any experimentation with bedroom temperature?
-bedding material?
I also considered the blue light effect at night disrupting melatonin production (I have not measured this effect). I have found that color change LED lighting that mimics incandescent when dimmed to be more soothing than regular dimmable white LEDs. Sylvania sold a Sunset Effect LED that dims to orange with no blue light. I use these in my bedroom. Philips has something similar, but doesn’t appear to go as far into the orange. My iPhone also drops the blue at night and I believe there are apps for the Mac to do the same. You can try Blue Light Blocking Goggles to see if there is an effect on your sleep patterns (I didn’t see much, but it wasn’t a rigorous test).
There are also medical approaches to tuning sleep architecture (eg low dose doxepin) but a possible link to dementia takes it off the table.
Bottom line - going from 15% deep sleep to 40% deep sleep (measured with my Zeo) did not result in a miraculous improvement on how I felt the next day.
I’ve got chronic headache/migraine and fatigue and the mornings are not always easy. I’m looking into things that might have influence on these chronic distresses and noticed the numbers for my sleeping seem ‘off’.
Yes I do measure my heart rate at night since a short while now and see nothing that stands out to me. (I’ve just got some cardiac exams and they seem to indicate everything is fine in that department )
(seems to vary between 60 and 80 with some spikes to 90/100, average is somewhere between 60 and 75 for the whole night. (and average rMSSD between 25 and 55)
I’m alternating between my home and girlfriend’s home, so have some comparison in that sense with light and sound (my room is darker and dead quiet) and bedding. So far I can’t find any correlation between the location I sleep and the sleep pattern.
And Dan, I do think the effects will be long term rather than immediate differences, unless you aren’t sleeping at all for instance
The one correlation I do find is the negative one between sleep time and headache and migraine; I always thought to little sleep would be a trigger, but it turns out it’s to much sleep (anything over 9 hours is bad news) for me… (even though this is complicated as well, since once I have a migraine I do need to sleep for a long time so the correlation is tricky)
As for other factors;
I don’t think the waking up is the problem, but rather the consequence of much light sleep (assumption). I do see that even when I wake up only once or twice I still don’t get enough deep and REM sleep.
Room temperature is cool/cold as I always have a room open, even if it’s freezing out
I don’t snore unless I have a cold
As for the light; I hardly have the lights on in my bedroom as I make sure I’m only in bed when I really want to go to sleep iPhone and computer screens have the light colored indeed already in the evening to get rid of the blue light. Haven’t really measured this effect, but it’s more pleasing to my eyes so that’s already reason enough to do it
One more thing worth mentioning is that I did quit low dose amitriptyline that I was taking for the daily headache, as we suspected this had a nasty effect on heart rate (elevated and some ‘weird’ behaviour). I hoped to see an effect on sleep as well, but so far I didn’t see a change based on that…
Thanks all for the ideas and input! I’ll keep monitoring and reporting back
You might want to look at this, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B3OCVGI. Read the book. Perhaps a bit long and rambling, but makes very good points and integrates a lot of disparate information. Tell me what you think. Marc
Also look at your life for stressors - relationships, work, family, free time. Try to eliminate or look at them in a new way. For example stress at work is largely a function of how you look at it and much less a function of how much you really have to do.
thanks for the tip, I’ll check it out!
Currently following a program with a revalidation center and reading up on a Dutch book on chronic pain and fatigue. Premise basically is that it’s your subconscious/neural system that’s out of balance and continuously in alert mode and firing warnings. Key to ‘calm it down’ again
One of the things I’ve always approached ‘wrong’ is the amount of things you can handle each day (don’t know the right English term for it); to me I’ve looked at this at a day by day basis, all my life. But they teach me this doesn’t differ that much on a per day basis (on the short term) and I need to try and keep a consistent schedule that’s based on a bad day. Things I can do then I need to do on good days as well, and not (much) more. Predictability is key to rewire the subconscious and calm it down so to speak.
And you are right; re-evaluating how I do things in general (all of the things… ) and have a less ‘either on or off’ approach
‘subconscious/neural system that’s out of balance and continuously in alert mode and firing warnings.’ - I look at it a bit different. The brain has very few ways to tell you that something in wrong - pain, fatigue. temp, perhaps sleep. Stress and lifestyle over time can create persistent stress. The body - ANS more specifically - becomes less responsive and a small input can’t be no longer adjusted for. A small child goes from screaming to sleep in just a few minutes. As adults we lose this capability. Chronic pain patients have a depreciated ANS, which can be measured with Baroreceptor sensitivity.
I agree. The key thing is though that the body/subconscious adapted this way without any ‘physiological’ reason. At least that seems to be the premise; nearly all tissue/physiological damage can be repaired and healed in 6 months. Anything persisting pain beyond that doesn’t have a physiological reason anymore but a system that’s out of balance. And indeed this can/will be due to stress in general.
From my point of view any mental change is reflected in mostly plastic structural changes in the brain. Everything has a physiological reason. Furthermore they are supported by reward structures, learning, memory, genetic predisposition, environment, and a lot of other factors. Pain, as an example, brain patterns become persistent and are hard to change. Usually because it took a long time to put them there in the first place.
I guess we basically agree; the key is to structurally ‘unlearn’ or maybe more accurate; ‘rewire’ the pain/reward structures based on (predictable) behaviour
Along the lines of the chronic fatigue discussion, is there anything that would make you suspect hypothyroidism? I didn’t have obvious signs of it, but thyroid-supportive changes dramatically improved my low-quality sleep.
They may not sound connected, but I think the availability of thyroid hormone may improve things that get in the way of deep sleep (supporting glycogen storage to keep adrenaline release moderate, possibly supporting “correct” cortisol rhythms).
Good point. I must say I’m not 100% sure at the moment, but I think it is tested in my latest blood test and everything was ok. Still need to request the exact numbers though. Good reminder, will give the doc a call tomorrow to get those
I found that improving my deep sleep made a big improvement in waking up feeling rested. I went from about 30% deep sleep to about 70% (with average sleep time remaining about 8 hours). I felt like a new person.
The things that seemed to help me:
Dimmer/warming lighting (including TV and devices) in the evening.
No violent shows in the evening.
No work or complex mental tasks in the evening.
Regular cardio exercise (but not in the evening). I walk as my only real exercise lately and it seems to be enough.
Meditation (learning and practicing techniques to quiet the mind is a big help).
The usual suggestions of dark, cool, quiet bedroom.
No caffeine after noon. No more than one alcoholic drink per day.
Also, diet is important. I avoid energizing foods in the evening, and try to eat those for breakfast/lunch, e.g., especially tuna/salmon/beef and spicy foods.
Salad and a little cheese in the evening, and mostly vegetables with a good amount of healthy fat seems better for sleep. Try to eat a good meal within about 3-4 hours of going to bed so you aren’t hungry during the night. @Dan by any chance are you vegetarian, or the opposite, eating too much meat? I found that I must eat a little meat every day to feel energetic for the current day as well as the next day. My basic rule of thumb is to eat a little energizing meat for breakfast or lunch and a little chicken (or similar animal protein) for dinner, although quinoa seems to be equivalent.
That is quite astonishing. How did you measure sleep phases?
I’ve tried various diets at different times: gluten-free, slow carb, Whole 30, ketogenic, and most recently, a bodybuilding diet with 2700 cal, 170g protein, ~300g carbs and 90g fat. I couldn’t say I noticed an obvious sleep quality change with any of the diets, but there were various other factors at play (e.g. commuting 4 hours a day during the Whole 30 trial, or sleeping only 5-6 hours during the ketogenic diet). “Feeling like a new person” never happened.
My sleep hygiene includes the cool, quiet (33db NRR earplugs), dark (blackout curtains) bedroom and f.lux or equivalent on all devices. I tried for several months exercising during the afternoon (weightlifting), without noticeable effect on sleep. Looking back at about half a year of QS Emfit data, my deep sleep percentage has been around 15%.
@chrisvdberge Did you try any supplements / drinks etc?
I have never tried any sleep drugs myself, but since I started to drink a combination of 2 spoons of apple cider vinegar & 1 spoon of honey mixed in a cup of warm water half an hour before sleep, it’s quality has improved a lot. I supplement Magnesium and Krill oil next to it.
@dnurzynski I didn’t yet, so good suggestion. Not a fan of supplements (only taking vit D), so would be interested in any ‘normal food/drink’ suggestions
One food-based thing you could try would be gelatin or scallops. There’s a couple studies out there on glycine and sleep quality, and I think I notice subjective benefits from a couple grams before bed.
) Seems I’m getting way to little deep sleep.
