How I Slept

After a good run of quality sleeps, this one was poor due to stressing over the "hospital pass" I got left with clearing my son's former room. Prolonged exercise in the day at my age leads to a painful muscle spasm at night, which requires getting up to stretch it out and water to rehydrate it. It also leads to early waking.

Well that came out of nowhere! By 21:00 I was KNACKERED for no obvious reason. Missus was also tired so lights went out in every sense at 21:05 and I went through to the 06:00 alarm. I must of needed it! The only fly in the ointment was that my dreams were violent and disturbing. I blame this on watching 24 HOURS IN POLICE CUSTODY.

This is a sleep that felt nothing like what was recorded - I remember it as very restless, yet it was recorded as one of my best. I simply do not believe the first segment pre-22:00 as I was definitely awake and watching TV. Despite my misgivings and some questionable data, I probably did at least sleep OK.

Sunday night has previously been too short due to being involved on the laptop, but the last two Sundays have found me too sleepy to be bothered and I have slept much better. This sleep was particularly high quality, and I suspect REM sleep was again under-recorded because I was woken from a dream by the alarm.

About as good as it gets under my current sleep regime, despite losing three meditation opportunities.

A healthy average sleep for me, and one that shows how important it is to have 8 hours sleep opportunity and to stay in bed if you are awake but still sleepy in order to achieve the critical minimum 6 hours sleep. The Fitbit is definitely not picking up on all REM sleep. I was dreaming when awoken by the alarm this morning, though REM isn't indicated.

Considering how late we got to bed after a night out, and being partly kept awake by the cats (they left me alone when I interrupted my sleep to feed them) this is not a bad result under the circumstances - just under the critical minimum and enough to keep me going for the next day.

Though it took me nearly an hour to nod off, when I did it was a particularly high-quality sleep, achieving the critical minimum and with solid blocks of eep and REM sleep. Plenty of exercise during the day (I was clearing my son's former bedroom) and a crafty fap seem to have helped!

Sleep efficiency was actually greater than this as lights out wasn't until 22:05, though I was clearly sleepy before then. As mood has lifted, the balance of Deep/REM has normalized. What I am particularly pleased about is a good run of sleeps since the weekend. Exercise definitely helps in combination with good sleep discipline - especially an hour's "wind down" before bed.

This sleep follows a day when I was somewhat depressed. The subsequent sleep appears unaffected in length, but there is a significant imbalance between deep sleep (high) and dream sleep (low).

According to this I briefly fell deeply asleep around 21:15, but I have no recollection of this! I was on my hour's "wind down" and didn't turn out the light until 22:10. In any case it's a healthy sleep, cycling through all the stages, and though I awoke two hours before the alarm, I achieved the critical minimum.

A completely "out of the blue" quality sleep - I'm normally up late Sunday night but by 20:30 this week, for reasons unknown, I was seriously sleepy. I proceeded to sleep, with the odd interruption, right through to the alarm. I am not consciously in control of my sleep! The right environment however definitely helps.

I was almost spot-on the critical minimum this time, and this was a satisfactory sleep, with all the wakefulness in one block apart from an earlier wee. I have yet to understand what causes the various patterns, other than that I need 8 hours sleep opportunity to achieve the critical minimum 6 hours sleep, and exercise helps me sleep better.

Though this seems somewhat broken, it's actually a quite healthy sleep, with natural cycling between the stages. I have no recollection of any of the awake periods except the wee at four. I suspect that in any case at least some of these awake spikes are actually REM sleep, as the tracker only has my heart rate to go on. Whatever, I feel refreshed after a satisfying healthy sleep.

A sleep that just about scraped the critical minimum, but had lots of healthy cycling between all stages.

After the previous long catchup sleep, this one was back to average. Most of the waking portions I don't remember apart from two toilet calls. REM sleep was notably low. I awoke feeling refreshed.

After all the recent sleep deprivation, by 20:30 last night my enjoyment of the football was curtailed by my brain starting to shut down. Obeying the sleep urge I retired early and had the best night's sleep for some time. Interestingly, though the graph suggests a long epic dream before waking, I have no recollection of dreaming at all.

I would argue that I actually got a little more sleep than this, but nevertheless it was a second disturbed night on the bounce due to the anxiety of wondering whether my son made it to Shanghai. He did, so now hopefully sleep will improve.

A restless night due to exceptional circumstances - in a hotel on my son's last night in Britain!

After yesterday's dodgy results, this reflects a genuine low-quality sleep due to a late-night chat and beer with my son. A pint probably did not help the sleep quality - it was a good evening though!

This sleep's data has two hours of it MISSING. I certainly wasn't wide awake the whole time between 05:00 and 07:00, because I think I'd have got up and in any case I'd have been woken by the alarm. I therefore got more sleep than the nearly 5 hours the tracker recorded. What it DID record shows an average sleep by my standards.

It was another "sleep of three thirds". The restless third in the middle still contributed enough sleep to push me over the Critical Minimum. I was noticably slow to nod off despite an hour's "cool down" in bed. Unusually I had tea in this hour which seems to have caused the delay.

This was the first sleep wearing a better upgraded eyemask. This sleep divides very starkly into two halves. I believe that the eyemask helped keep me in bed in the very broken second half, because between the bouts of consciousness, I got more sleep I would not otherwise have got - the light would have made me get up. In the event, overall this was a satisfactory sleep.

After some unusual sleeps recently, this is a return to a typical pattern. I got to bed later due to watching a movie then was slow to nod off. This reduced sleep opportunity meant that I didn't achieve the critical minimum. However after achieving over 8 hours brain rest in the past 24 hours, I can get away with it.

TOTAL SESSION TIME:  13:50 - 15:50 TOTAL SESSION LENGTH: 2hr 0mins TIME IN TRANCE/SLEEP: Not recorded EFFICIENCY: Not recorded TOTAL BRAIN-REST FOR TODAY: Estimated: 8hrs 30 mins A second occasion within a week where the tracker didn't record my meditation. To be fair to it, it's designed to track SLEEP, not meditation which has a higher heart-rate. Nevertheless it does most times, so there is an inconsistency. Meditation was longer yet lighter today, but I feel better for it.

A very restless middle-third was offset by a prolonged sleep opportunity, enabling me to reach target sleep overnight - a rare event! Most of this was beyond my conscious control - I went to bed early because I felt very tired, and was awake overnight due to the high temperature and "internal physical factors". However, with morning mating off the menu, I set my alarm for later and my eyemask eliminated "morning glare", allowing the final third to be restful.

TOTAL SESSION TIME:  14:24 - 16:02 TOTAL SESSION LENGTH: 1hr 38mins TIME IN TRANCE/SLEEP: 1hr 35mins EFFICIENCY: 97% TOTAL BRAIN-REST FOR TODAY: This meditation, though not a record-breaker in length, was deep and intense and pushed total brain-rest over the critical minimum.

This was an unusual sleep consisting of two thirds quality and one third restless. In the restless third, I felt too awake to sleep but too sleepy to get up. I'm glad I didn't get up because I gained valuable if broken brain-rest.

Well the good news is I achieved the critical minimum over the week, and actually did a little better than this as my tracker didn't record my Sunday meditation.

TOTAL SESSION TIME:  14:30 - 16:20 TOTAL SESSION LENGTH: 1hr 50mins TIME IN TRANCE/SLEEP: Not recorded EFFICIENCY: Not recorded TOTAL BRAIN-REST FOR TODAY: Estimated: 6hrs 30 mins I definitely achieved the critical minimum today!

A sleep very similar to the previous, but because I gave myself less sleep opportunity (extended footie highlights!) I didn't make the critical minimum, and will need the boost of an afternoon meditation.

An unusually-patterned sleep that nevertheless demonstrates clearly how I need 8 hours sleep opportunity to get my critical minimum 6 hours sleep. The "wee at three" is a common regular feature of my sleeps.

An unusually flat sleep in which all the dreams were at the front end a very little deep sleep. I was a little slow to nod off and woke a little earlier, and efficiency was back down to normal, but the most important thing was that I got the critical minimum 6 hours.

TOTAL SESSION TIME:  14:00 - 15:27 TOTAL SESSION LENGTH: 1hr 27mins TIME IN TRANCE/SLEEP: 1hr 24mins EFFICIENCY: 97% TOTAL BRAIN-REST FOR TODAY:   After being unable to meditate on Wednesday (I had the builders in) it was a welcome return today, this being the first session wearing an eyemask. Meditation length was average by my standards, but the efficiency was very impressive. Whether the eyemask continues to deliver these results remain to be seen. Today I easily achieved target brain-rest and was only eight minutes short of the ideal 8 hours.

This was my first sleep using an eyemask, and it was a successful start! I comfortably achieved the critical minimum, was woken by the alarm and sleep quality was high. The periods of wakefulness were short and not remembered apart from the "wee at three". Whether it is solely down to the eyemask will only be proven by time.

Considering how restless last night felt, this sleep was better than expected, only a little short of the critical minimum. Oddly Missus was also (unusually) restless, so much so in her case that she went back downstairs for a while.  However, the restlessness was actually all at the front end - after midnight it turns out that I slept reasonably well, only to be woken again around 05:00 by a raging urine boner, brought on probably by a lack of overnight toilet visits. Due to awaken at 06:00 anyway, I got up. This was a short sleep beyond my conscious control, as I did provide myself an 8-hour sleep window.

TOTAL SESSION TIME:  13:57 - 15:51 TOTAL SESSION LENGTH: 1hr 54mins TIME IN TRANCE/SLEEP: 1hr 26mins EFFICIENCY: 74% TOTAL BRAIN-REST FOR TODAY:   I was really tired and ready for my afternoon session, the first for a few days. The session itself didn't break any records but it did push my total brain-rest up to the dizzy heights of maximum quota - very rare event indeed!

After some short nights, it was back to healthy sleep, despite the usual restless hour. The extra hour afforded by it being a "non-boom-boom" morning proved important in getting enough sleep.