> Often, it would also contradict how I was internally feeling. I’d wake up feeling rested, see my stats are low, and play a game of chess out of algorithmic rebellion, only to feel my mind up against a barrier and handedly lose.
It would be better to only look at the stats after playing if you want to verify it, this could easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Heavier compound lifts can surely knock me out for 30 minutes to 2 hours. I don't know how in the heck people train in the mornings. But a lot of this is because they are complex cognitive tasks.
Mornings (~6am), I often walk ~40min to my gym, do heavy compound lifts (~1hr total with ~2-3min rest between sets), walk ~40min back, and I tend to feel fine by the time I get back home. It's usually at the end of the day where the fatigue seems to catch up to me.
The biggest thing for me is I don't understand how people can sleep with these watches on, it's so uncomfortable to me personally which is why the different ring technologies appeal to me more. I just wish either Garmin made one or that there was one I didn't have to buy a subscription to use.
When I started wearing a watch, it constantly distracted me and cause minor annoyance all day while I got used to it. At some point it just started blending into the background. Now, when I wear my watch on my other hand, I still have the same problem, but I don't notice my watch normally anymore.
I've slept with my watch for a while (stopped because the battery is crap and I need to charge it every day or it won't last past noon the next day) and I've had the same adjustment period.
I also think some people are just more sensitive to these things. Some sleep with full-on CPAP machines hooked up to their faces like it's nothing, but others can barely stand wearing clothes when they're sleeping. Plus, some watches are more comfortable than others.
> I've slept with my watch for a while (stopped because the battery is crap and I need to charge it every day or it won't last past noon the next day) and I've had the same adjustment period.
I'm guessing this is an Apple Watch? Garmins typically last a week or more.
Not sure why Garmin or any of the exercise tracking watches are being used for sleep tracking. They're infamously bad at it from my experience.
The rings (notably Oura) are much better. I used to wear both and they gave completely different results, with the Oura being far more accurate to how I feel and the timings of going to sleep and waking up. Garmin almost always reckoned I woke up an hour earlier than I did and ended the tracking there.
It's honestly best not to get too involved in tracking sleep. The analysis does more to ruin your mood and give you nocebo effect than it really gives useful information.
I will confess, I do still wear my Garmin to bed because I like the vibration alarm over anything audible.
Surprisingly, I find the Apple Watch significantly more comfortable and less perceptible than any other watch I've worn in the past. My theory is it's the contoured back for the heart rate monitor, etc. But maybe I'm just weird.
I think it depends what kind of smartwatch you choose. It should fit your wrist. The amount of people I've seen with e.g. a Galaxy Ultra watch that stands over their wrist on both sides is staggering to me.
Nylon straps are pretty comfortable. The default strap with the metal buckle would dig in to my wrist, and also it was difficult to have a perfect fit since you had to pick a hole. The nylon strap allows for analogue refinement.
I don't wear one anymore, but I used to put in on an ankle overnight. I would wear a sock on that foot so that I didn't tear it off with my other foot during sleep.
I hear that the performance on Dual n-back is exceptionally sensitive to sleep quality. You might feel totally fine but notice that your cognition has actually tanked in measurable ways.
I really wish Garmin had an official API that can be used by their users instead of the reverse-engineered solutions (although they're very good), but they're at the mercy of Garmin.
Absolutely love this kind of project, combining different data sources to predict/model how you're doing. I also use chess as a proxy for my brain is working!
I didn't believe the stress numbers on my Garmin watch were very meaningful until I started taking Nebivolol (an atypical beta blocker) because there were so many gaps (even when I was sitting) that I didn't feel I could eyeball them or trust averages over time.
Taking that drug, however, it sees far fewer gaps and I show up in the blue "rest" zone most of the time.
I've been watching my heart rate a lot in the last month part because of health concerns and part because of a new stance I am practicing that has a physical component (e.g. adjusted gaits that are energy efficient) and a mental component, being an oceanic reservoir of calm with close mind-body-environment coupling 95% of the time but disconnecting that connection under peak stress -- like I am standing between two people who are screaming at each other and holding a barrier at my chest that I don't let my breathing cross and glance at my watch and my HR is 52 and it is not just the nebivolol talking because when I lose my shit it would be more like 70.
People taught me conventional Pranayama (diaphragmatic breathing) as a kid and it never helped me in "lose my shit" situations involving unstable environments and moral injury, with the intense practice I was doing recently it was clear to me that I was never going to do it better and I started researching emergency techniques for managing sympathetic overload and that one worked for me and now I feel like one of the people in [1] particularly when I show people my HRV web app [2] and demonstrate that I can turn my Mayer oscillation off
I use an Android app called "Sleep", it just works by accelerometer with your phone on the corner of your bed. I've found it's not really good with its automatic rating and suggestions, but the activity graph has an extremely reliable wave pattern on the mornings I am well rested. Like an hour and a half of no movement at all, then an hour of restlessness, which repeats through the night. Usually the hour of restlessness even has the same pattern each time it happens. But any other pattern and I generally feel tired the whole morning.
Originally I got this app for its alarm, it tries to go off in the half hour before the alarm time when you're already partially awake. The sleep tracking was just a bonus.
I find Garmin's sleep tracking "accurate" in that it typically matches how I feel the next day, but that also makes it not terribly useful because I don't really need a gadget to tell me when I feel tired. Mostly I wear the watch to sleep out of inertia and in case I need a flashlight in the middle of the night.
But there have been three aspects of sleep tracking that have been mildly useful:
1. A few times my heart rate variability went haywire and the sleep scores didn't match how I felt, and it turned out I was sick and had not yet noticed any symptoms. Since then it has been mildly useful to have a heads up when I'm probably coming down with something before symptoms show up.
2. You can use their Lifestyle Logging to track how things like caffeine, alcohol, and various nighttime routines affect your sleep. I mean, I haven't discovered anything that's not already common knowledge, but somehow having hard data makes it more compelling. I suppose if I was going to trial any sleep aids then Garmin's correlation would be convenient and save me from having to maintain my own spreadsheet.
3. It alters the suggested workouts if you haven't been sleeping well. Trivial to do manually, but it's a convenient reminder not to overextend.
I track sleep and energy levels with a galaxy watch and there's a strong correlation with how I feel on a given day. Sometimes it surprises me, and day where I wake up thinking I slept well but after an hour or two I'll realize my energy level isn't great, and sure enough I'll check the app and see it's low, with a warning about my sleeping HRV or resting heart rate being away from my norm.
It's not perfect - there are definitely days when it's wrong. But overall I have a target of keeping my sleep and energy scores in the 90s and it's helpful. I think the most important thing is to keep in mind that it's an imperfect measurements but it's still the best one most of us have for now.
There are a number of studies comparing these devices with clinical sleep tracking. Just search for sleep tracking on google scholar. My take is that consumer devices have gotten pretty good at detecting when you are sleeping, but are not really good at detecting your sleep phases
Oura for measuring sleep. Garmin for tracking physical exercise. Oura always reflected the timings and my feeling much closer than Garmin (Enduro), which basically always told me I had bad sleep (started late after my last woken moments and ended an hour early).
My own thought, it's honestly best not to track sleep unless you feel you have an underlying issue. It causes more anxiety than it solves. If you're tired, go to bed earlier, adjust tech use and food consumption before bed.
it's a lot of work, but something you could do is track how you feel (manually or some other way) and do a similar statistical analysis. chess elo was just convenient and aligned for me.
A petty correction to this excellent post: you say "Even a single serving of alcohol disproportionately impares REM sleep", but your source says "Reductions in REM sleep were observed starting at approximately 2 standard drinks".
I hope Garmin sees your passion project and greenlights it for inclusion. You have the right approach to ensuring folks are at their optimal health to grow intellectually as a person.
thank you! i think it's ridiculous how little they invest in their developer ecosystem. i have been thinking about jumping ship to oura or whoop simply because of this.
Yes, likewise! I've bounced off their developer portal several times, and I've colleagues who note they're extraordinarily difficult to integrate with.
I will gladly invest in a more accessible developer ecosystem.
It would be better to only look at the stats after playing if you want to verify it, this could easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Apparently your study is strictly about cardio.
Heavier compound lifts can surely knock me out for 30 minutes to 2 hours. I don't know how in the heck people train in the mornings. But a lot of this is because they are complex cognitive tasks.
I've slept with my watch for a while (stopped because the battery is crap and I need to charge it every day or it won't last past noon the next day) and I've had the same adjustment period.
I also think some people are just more sensitive to these things. Some sleep with full-on CPAP machines hooked up to their faces like it's nothing, but others can barely stand wearing clothes when they're sleeping. Plus, some watches are more comfortable than others.
I'm guessing this is an Apple Watch? Garmins typically last a week or more.
The rings (notably Oura) are much better. I used to wear both and they gave completely different results, with the Oura being far more accurate to how I feel and the timings of going to sleep and waking up. Garmin almost always reckoned I woke up an hour earlier than I did and ended the tracking there.
It's honestly best not to get too involved in tracking sleep. The analysis does more to ruin your mood and give you nocebo effect than it really gives useful information.
I will confess, I do still wear my Garmin to bed because I like the vibration alarm over anything audible.
Smart "bands" tend to be less perceptible.
For me, the Galaxy Watch 7 in 44mm fits perfectly
I have a Garmin Forerunner 165, it is not very big, and not heavy compared to an old style watch made from metal.
Taking that drug, however, it sees far fewer gaps and I show up in the blue "rest" zone most of the time.
I've been watching my heart rate a lot in the last month part because of health concerns and part because of a new stance I am practicing that has a physical component (e.g. adjusted gaits that are energy efficient) and a mental component, being an oceanic reservoir of calm with close mind-body-environment coupling 95% of the time but disconnecting that connection under peak stress -- like I am standing between two people who are screaming at each other and holding a barrier at my chest that I don't let my breathing cross and glance at my watch and my HR is 52 and it is not just the nebivolol talking because when I lose my shit it would be more like 70.
People taught me conventional Pranayama (diaphragmatic breathing) as a kid and it never helped me in "lose my shit" situations involving unstable environments and moral injury, with the intense practice I was doing recently it was clear to me that I was never going to do it better and I started researching emergency techniques for managing sympathetic overload and that one worked for me and now I feel like one of the people in [1] particularly when I show people my HRV web app [2] and demonstrate that I can turn my Mayer oscillation off
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners_Live_in_Vain in the sense of ironclad autonomic control but with full sensory perception
[2] ... soon to be on Github
I know it's tracking real data, but the conclusions feel completely made up.
What are other people's experience -- especially from those who are more bullish about sleep tracking?
Originally I got this app for its alarm, it tries to go off in the half hour before the alarm time when you're already partially awake. The sleep tracking was just a bonus.
But there have been three aspects of sleep tracking that have been mildly useful:
1. A few times my heart rate variability went haywire and the sleep scores didn't match how I felt, and it turned out I was sick and had not yet noticed any symptoms. Since then it has been mildly useful to have a heads up when I'm probably coming down with something before symptoms show up.
2. You can use their Lifestyle Logging to track how things like caffeine, alcohol, and various nighttime routines affect your sleep. I mean, I haven't discovered anything that's not already common knowledge, but somehow having hard data makes it more compelling. I suppose if I was going to trial any sleep aids then Garmin's correlation would be convenient and save me from having to maintain my own spreadsheet.
3. It alters the suggested workouts if you haven't been sleeping well. Trivial to do manually, but it's a convenient reminder not to overextend.
It's not perfect - there are definitely days when it's wrong. But overall I have a target of keeping my sleep and energy scores in the 90s and it's helpful. I think the most important thing is to keep in mind that it's an imperfect measurements but it's still the best one most of us have for now.
Oura for measuring sleep. Garmin for tracking physical exercise. Oura always reflected the timings and my feeling much closer than Garmin (Enduro), which basically always told me I had bad sleep (started late after my last woken moments and ended an hour early).
My own thought, it's honestly best not to track sleep unless you feel you have an underlying issue. It causes more anxiety than it solves. If you're tired, go to bed earlier, adjust tech use and food consumption before bed.
I do have an iOS shortcut that tracks my mood with janky emojis. I use it at least once daily.
I will gladly invest in a more accessible developer ecosystem.