Sleep

dewd2

This isn't directly related to running but I started thinking more about it when I started wearing my new Garmin Forerunner. The Forerunner has a feature to track your sleep. Just to try it out one night I decided to wear it to bed. I have been tracking my sleep ever since.

Sleep is not something I thought much about before. Now since I have this watch, I am activity trying to get to bed at a decent time. It is amazing how a device can make you focus on something that you didn't consider focusing on before.

Has anyone else had this happen to them? MPF makes me conscious of the food I eat. My running apps (and now my Garmin) make me stick to my training. And now this new watch is making me sleep better.

MobyCarp

Sleep is the most under-rated part of a training program. I started tracking it when I got a Fitbit Flex. I liked tracking it so much that when the Fitbit died, I replaced it with a Garmin Vivofit 2. (I couldn't justify the cost of a Garmin 920xt when my Garmin 620 still works perfectly well.) The Vivofit tracks sleep a bit differently than the Fitibit did, but it does give me a consistent picture to work from.

There is a very strong correlation between getting enough sleep and my training performance. There is a noticeable correlation between enough sleep and recovery from muscle soreness. Motivation is much, much easier to maintain with enough sleep. Strength training to support my running habit is easier when I get enough sleep.

The shorthand way to describe this is, if I don't get enough sleep the wheels tend to fall off.

And yes, the one thing I can do to get enough sleep is get to bed earlier than I would if I weren't paying attention. Most of the time, sleeping late to get sufficient sleep is not an option for me. I have a goal of getting to bed by 10:30 PM at least 6 days a week; but I do better if I'm always in bed before 10.

One other thing I've noticed is that when I am getting enough sleep, there will occasionally be nights that my body soaks up more sleep than usual. This is typically telling me that I need the sleep either because I'm sick, or I'm recovering from injury, or I trained hard enough that my muscles need more repair time.

RunRachelleRun

Interesting. Which Forerunner do you have? Does this mean you wear it all the time? I have the Garmin Forerunner 310xt and it doesn't have anything like that. I only wear it for working out.

I am and have always been a poor sleeper, so I am the same as Moby and try to get to bed by ten o'clock. On nights when I stay up, I can't seem to sleep in, even when it is an option. I wake up between four and five o'clock naturally. I don't always get out of bed at this time, but I am awake.

I just got the FitBit Charge HR a month ago and haven't paid too much attention to its sleep feature as it doesn't seem to be very accurate for me. I was once awake for hours in the middle of the night and it didn't recognize this. I will have to switch it to the more sensitive setting and take closer notice to see if it correlates to energy levels the next day. But tell me more about your Garmin please? I will have to put it on my gadget wish list.

dewd2

I got the newest Garmin - The Forerunner 630. I'm not sure if the other new ones (230 & 235) have the sleep tracking or not.

I hope to use all this new information I am tracking to improve my running/fitness in 2016.

RunRachelleRun

Thanks, I'll have to do some research.

For sure. I love data. Whenever I feel like I'm not improving, I just have to look at the data from a few months ago. Seeing the difference motivates me to continue.

MobyCarp

RunRachelleRun wrote: »

Interesting. Which Forerunner do you have? Does this mean you wear it all the time? I have the Garmin Forerunner 310xt and it doesn't have anything like that. I only wear it for working out.

I am and have always been a poor sleeper, so I am the same as Moby and try to get to bed by ten o'clock. On nights when I stay up, I can't seem to sleep in, even when it is an option. I wake up between four and five o'clock naturally. I don't always get out of bed at this time, but I am awake.

I just got the FitBit Charge HR a month ago and haven't paid too much attention to its sleep feature as it doesn't seem to be very accurate for me. I was once awake for hours in the middle of the night and it didn't recognize this. I will have to switch it to the more sensitive setting and take closer notice to see if it correlates to energy levels the next day. But tell me more about your Garmin please? I will have to put it on my gadget wish list.

Garmin started integrating fitness tracker functions - step tracking and sleep tracking are what I care about - into the new models with the 920xt. I don't know if they put it in the lower-end 230 & 235, but now I know it's also in the 630. It's not in the previous generation, the 620.

Yes, you have to wear the tracker at night to get sleep tracking. It's not really tracking sleep; it's tracking motion and interpreting the data to say whether you are asleep or not. And the Garmin system (at least for the Vivofit) shows total sleep as the time from when I start the tracker to when I turn it off. I look at the details, which show deep sleep, light sleep, and awake time. I add the deep sleep and light sleep to get the number I care about, that I wish would show as total sleep automatically. FWIW, the Garmin Vivofit 2 shows less awake time than the Fitbit Flex did. I needed to adjust to what Garmin is measuring instead of what Fitbit measured, which means my goal changes from 7 hours to 7.5 hours of sleep per night. That was a manageable adjustment. Why not get another Flex? I was underwhelmed by the Flex's engineering and lack of durability and decided to go with Garmin when the Flex stopped taking a charge.

One of the things I've learned from using a sleep tracker is to like back down and go back to sleep after I wake naturally more than 20 minutes before the alarm would go off. If I've really got enough sleep, I won't be able to go back to sleep; but frequently I can. When the alarm goes off, I get up. If I need to sleep later on a day off, I need to turn the alarm off before I go to bed. This is a marked change in how things feel from the pre-tracker days when I always wanted to use the snooze button.

RunRachelleRun

Thanks for all the information. Darn, I was thinking of upgrading to the 920xt, but since mine is still working fine I just decided to get the FitBit instead. I didn't do enough research I'm underwhelmed with the accuracy of my FitBit.

I will have to look closer at all the new Garmins. That's very cool that you are finding the sleep tracker so useful. I haven't used an alarm for years, but after what you said, perhaps it would help me to try and go back to sleep until the time I select. I feel so awake, but perhaps I could sleep if I tried a little harder.

dewd2

I find that the 630 doesn't always get it right. It is pretty good at knowing when I fall asleep but not so good in the morning. I often stay in bed for 20 minutes reading e-mails and news and the 630 thinks I'm still sleeping. Not a huge deal since I can fix it later.

kristinegift

I used a fitness tracker for a while that tracked sleep, but I toss and turn so much that it wasn't especially precise. But I am pretty adamant about getting a solid 7-8.5 hours of sleep per night when training. I can get by on a bit less between training cycles, but there's an unspoken "quite as possible after 10 pm" rule in my apartment when I'm marathon training. Sleep is crucial for training and recovery, and I can always tell when I don't get enough. It's something that's easy to neglect, but is one of the most important elements!

lemurcat12

My Fitbit tracked sleep. I think it wasn't that great due to the tossing and turning thing, but it definitely made me more conscious of when I went to bed and got up and whether I had been up a lot during the night, and I focused much harder on getting enough (not always successfully, but it became a bigger priority). I have noticed that I let that fall away since I stopped using it (it broke, I didn't really have a need to replace it), and my sleep's been pretty bad much of the time. I'm finally acknowledging how much that affects me, including really noticeable differences in runs. Sadly, my idea of good sleep is still at least 6 hours, but I'm going to keep working on it.

TomZot

FWIW...

I have sleep apnea and use a CPAP machine. I can track more details of my sleep than I ever knew existed.

It's amazing how much sleep quality affects training, performance, and weight loss.

MobyCarp nailed it.

MobyCarp wrote: »

Sleep is the most under-rated part of a training program. I started tracking it when I got a Fitbit Flex. I liked tracking it so much that when the Fitbit died, I replaced it with a Garmin Vivofit 2. (I couldn't justify the cost of a Garmin 920xt when my Garmin 620 still works perfectly well.) The Vivofit tracks sleep a bit differently than the Fitibit did, but it does give me a consistent picture to work from.

There is a very strong correlation between getting enough sleep and my training performance. There is a noticeable correlation between enough sleep and recovery from muscle soreness. Motivation is much, much easier to maintain with enough sleep. Strength training to support my running habit is easier when I get enough sleep.

The shorthand way to describe this is, if I don't get enough sleep the wheels tend to fall off.

And yes, the one thing I can do to get enough sleep is get to bed earlier than I would if I weren't paying attention. Most of the time, sleeping late to get sufficient sleep is not an option for me. I have a goal of getting to bed by 10:30 PM at least 6 days a week; but I do better if I'm always in bed before 10.

One other thing I've noticed is that when I am getting enough sleep, there will occasionally be nights that my body soaks up more sleep than usual. This is typically telling me that I need the sleep either because I'm sick, or I'm recovering from injury, or I trained hard enough that my muscles need more repair time.

yoplait311

I have a Garmin 920xt and find the sleep tracker amazingly accurate. IMO, the 920xt is the best sport tracker/fitness watch ever. I'm a huge data geek and the simplicity of the watch is like magic. It just works - and syncs with my bike power meters, HRM, tracks laps in the pool, steps, calories with MFP - everything. I highly recommend.

jacksonpt

MobyCarp wrote: »

Sleep is the most under-rated part of a training program.

Couldn't agree more.

litsy3

I have the 225 which tracks sleep, but I can't use it for that because (a) I sleep with my hand under my pillow, under my head and it's too bulky, and (b) I sleep like a galloping pony. But in general, I think I know if I've had enough or not!

blazincajun

This is the funniest thing I've heard today - like sleep running I guess.

litsy3 wrote: »

...(b) I sleep like a galloping pony. But in general, I think I know if I've had enough or not!

I like my Garmin 225 and kind of discovered the sleep tracker and step counter by accident and was just using it for the HRM and running. Nice watch!

Have a great running day - Andrew