Want to Sleep Better at Night?

Some of us don’t go to sleep early because we’re distracted by other activities before bedtime, and others don’t get enough rest due to their busy schedules. If we’re already compromising on the amount of sleep we get, we should pay even more attention to the quality of our rest time.

According to experts at the National Sleep Foundation, when it comes to sleep, quality is just as important as quantity. However, the former is more strongly associated with promoting overall health than the latter. And just because you’re in bed by 10pm, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting better sleep than someone who goes to bed an hour later. Some key indicators of good quality sleep include falling asleep in less than 30 minutes, being asleep longer while in bed and not waking up more than once a night.

But if we’re already drowsy and asleep during bedtime, how can we keep track of said factors?

Ahead, we explore what it means to get good sleep and speak with a sleep scientist to understand how sleep tracking can enhance your sleep quality.

When you’re asleep, your body slows down in the best way possible. Your nervous system is less stimulated, and this results in your heart reaching a resting rate, according to Harvard Health Publishing. Your muscles will relax, and you enter the sleep stage known as light sleep.

A healthy sleeping heart rate averages around 60 - 100 bpm. And while heart rate can accelerate and slow down during sleep, high heart rates indicate disturbed sleep. Sufferers of medical and psychological conditions like anxiety tend to experience higher heart rates during sleep.

For individuals who experience these issues, their heart beats are often rapid while they are asleep, with little time between each beat. This is a case of low heart rate variability (HRV), which is the duration measured between two heart beats.

So, if you have a high HRV during sleep, it means that your body is in a relaxed state. By tracking your sleeping heart rate, along with other factors like breathing rate and how easily you fall asleep, you’ll be able to determine how well you’re sleeping and make changes to your lifestyle.

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So, if you’re experiencing high heart rates beyond 100bpm while asleep, review your routine and cut down on high-stress activities that overstimulate your brain. Understand your emotions, especially when you know the causes of your agitation. If you’re met with a frustrating issue at work, take a step back and ask for more time to work on it if you can. For caffeine addicts, opt for a juice that is caffeine-free instead of reaching for your morning coffee.

Other than taking a step back and changing up your day habits, getting into a wind-down routine can help regulate your sleep cycle. We’ve all been there - lying in bed and coming across a news article that piques our interest, leading to us spending the next hour intensely Google-ing for more information. It’s important to not let random activities take control of your sleep time and stick to a schedule that works for you.

Conor Heneghan, a sleep scientist at Google, recommends getting into low-stimulation activities an hour before bedtime. “You’re just trying to lower the mental stimulation,” he explains. It’s important to create an environment that is comfortable enough for you to get into sleep mode; and that means no thrillers or social media browsing that’ll get you all riled up and unable to sleep. 

But the most important (though underrated) way to get good sleep is to stick to a set sleep time. Getting into bed at the same time and waking at the same time lets your body recognise that it’s time to rest and recuperate.

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Get a health tracker that’s comfortable enough to wear all the time. This way, you’ll be able to set a sleep schedule that can also be monitored throughout the night. For instance, Fitbit’s range of fitness watches are equipped with tools like the Sleep Score Breakdown, Bedtime Reminders and Sleep Schedule. These functions will work together and provide sleep insights like your sleep activity (REM, breathing rate, etc.) and your mood-sleep correlation.

We’ve covered important points on how you can ensure the quality of your sleep. But to complete the full sleep cycle, you must get up on the right side of the bed.

Do you recall waking up feeling like you just got hit by a bus? And sometimes, you may even wake up in a really bad mood. The infamous “wake-up temper” is in fact, scientifically related to the quality of a night’s sleep. When one is woken up from a stage of deep sleep or Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage, you are disrupted from completing one full sleep cycle. The REM stage is where your brain is more active, and you can have more intense dreams. Getting up at this stage results in feelings of tiredness, and sometimes depression, due to sleep inertia (which is the feeling of grogginess you get when you wake up). Because at this point, there are high levels of melatonin (a chemical that causes sleepiness), in your body.

Typically, there are four stages in a sleep cycle:

So, a good night’s sleep often means that your body has gone through the four stages for more than four times. And the best state to wake up from is Stage 1, when sleep is the lightest.

TIP: Other than having a good wind down routine, waking up when your body is in light sleep mode will reduce sleep inertia. To do so, get a fitness watch that can track your sleep stages. For a more advanced reading, some trackers and watches use a combination of data (restlessness, time spent in different stages of sleeping, heart rate and more) to find out when your sleep cycles start and end. For instance, you can even activate the Smart Wake function on your Fitbit to wake you during the optimal stage of sleep.

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