Hi babs

I'm in a similar position, (56% last night, slept 4 hours 10 mins, woke 13 times) but I knew I had problems anyway. I had a hysterectomy and my ovaries removed over a year ago and my sleep has been awful since - hot flushes don't help lol.

Have you tried all the sleep hygiene tricks? Your bedroom shouldn't have a tv or radio in it, you need to have curtains that will block the light, make sure that the air has at least been circulating in it throughout the day, no stimulating activities before bed etc? I also use lavender oil on my bedding and use relaxation techniques when I go to bed.

I don't know if there is one solution for all re sleep, but hope you can find something that helps. If you do, let me know what it is lol xx

Are you sure you don't have sleep apnea? My mom used to wake often during the night, and her sister in law suggested she do a sleep study. Sure enough, she had to start using a CPAP machine at night. Do you snore? You may want to talk to your doctor about this if you are regularly not getting a good, restful night's sleep.

I don't really pay attention to the sleep efficiency stat because I am always in the mid-high 90s even on nights where fitbit tracked 6 hours of sleep. I guess I don't really know what it means in application to me. When I had it on sensitive my efficiency was pretty low I think in the 70s? I do find I feel pretty good on days where my fitbit tracked "actual sleep" is 8 hours or very close. And sometimes I will not feel well rested and see fitbit thinks I slept for 5 or 6 hours even if I was in bed for 8 or 9. I did learn getting a good 8 hours of rest means being in bed longer than 8 hours for me. It is of course really only tracking how long you are in bed, how often you get up, how much you move, and how much time you spend not moving and how much of that still time is uninterrupted. I don't know what to do about it, i you have might have a serious sleep issue it may be worth discussing with a doctor. If you are just not giving yourself enough time to get enough of the still time, going to bed a little earlier might help (for me anyway, it seems to generally take me a while to settle into sleep and I wasn't giving myself enough time).

I would try setting it on normal, and see if what you get there is closer to reality. I have tried both the sensitive and the normal setting. On normal, I can usually remember waking up or moving around at each point that it says I woke up. On sensitive, it shows waking periods when I knew I didn't wake up. Try both, and pick the one that makes the most sense to you.

It is set to sensitive because after I bought my fitbit, I'd read that the normal setting wasn't sensitive enough. Now I don't know what to set it on! LOL!

I have mine set to normal and have 92-96% efficiency, I know I wake during the night and get up to use the bathroom (diabetic). I need abut 71/2 hours of sleep to feel good the next day.

I've been using my FitBit for three weeks now. I continue to be shocked at my sleep efficiency numbers. I know I wake up for a couple of minutes at a time, turn over and go back to sleep. It happens all the time. I have a hard time getting up in the morning...I'm assuming from interrupted sleep. Here's my stats since getting my fitbit:

Efficiency :Time in Bed : Awakened Times: Time asleep
80% 9h 59m 8x 6h 29m
75% 8h 22m 11x 5h 42m
76% 7h 8m 8x 5h 21m
71% 8h 49m 13x 6h 2 m
75% 8h 22m 10x 5h 34m
88% 7h 33m 4x 6h 6m
79% 7h 12m 7x 5h 14m
75% 8h 1m 9x 5h 19m
78% 5h 48m 7x 4h 7m
86% 7h 57m 10x 6h 25m
80% 7h 11m 6x 5h 14m
93% 5h 45m 2x 4h 53m
89% 8h 48m 6x 7h 43m
85% 7h 21m 6x 6h 2m
72% 7h 20m 11x 5h 18m

My average percentage is 80% and that's with the skewed 93% thrown in from a night with friends and wine. I'm getting on average six-ish hours of interrupted sleep time and toss/turn/wake roughly 8x a night on average. Those stats aren't good.

I knew I woke up during the night but didn't realize I was this restless. I fall asleep within minutes. I've read other fitbit users who have sleep efficiency numbers in the 90th percentile on a regular basis. I think how rested they must feel! So what can I do to achieve this now that the numbers are in front of me? I don't consume coffee late in the day. I don't watch late night TV. I fall asleep quickly. I just can't seem to stay asleep soundly all night. It's frustrating.

Your numbers are amazing compared to mine! My sleep efficiency is usually between 32-37%. :ohwell: The sad thing is that it's accurate. I just don't sleep well and I don't know how to fix it either!

My sleeps a bit strange Im in the 90s of accuracy usually but there was a night I woke 12 times very strange! But it is a good tool I think...I think I do snore sometimes...but mostly I'm getting up to go to the restroom the same time every early am before 6am.

And take my thyroid and back to sleep.

How do we set the fitbit to sensitive I didn't know we could set that function ??

I got my FitBit yesterday, set it up, linked with MFP, and got it charged. I love it so far- it seems to be working great. I was especially excited about the sleep tracker function due to some ongoing problems I have with sleeping through the night. I started wearing a bruxism (clenching/ grinding teeth) mouth guard over a year ago, and was amazed at how much more rested I felt in the mornings. However, the honeymoon period wore off, and while I'm getting better sleep than before, I'm still extremely tired in the mornings on days I go to work. I wore the FitBit for the first time last night while I slept. I set it to sensitive because I felt it might be more accurate. HA! I was in bed for 7 hours 20 minutes (far from ideal, but not too bad), and it said that I only slept for 2 hours 45 minutes, awakening 16 times. Maybe a little TOO sensitive, haha. I was really stressed last night due to some drama with friends, but I definitely think I got more than 3 hours. Gonna put it back on normal and give it another try, and maybe pick up some melatonin for good measure.

It is completely normal to wake several times in the night, not something to be concerned aboout at all

Every 60-100 minutes we go through a cycle of four stages of sleep

Stage 1 is a drowsy, relaxed state between being awake and sleeping - breathing slows, muscles relax, heart rate drops
Stage 2 is slightly deeper sleep - you may feel awake and this means that, on many nights, you may be asleep and not know it
Stage 3 and Stage 4, or Deep Sleep - it is very hard to wake up from Deep Sleep because this is when there is the lowest amount of activity in your body
After Deep Sleep, we go back to Stage 2 for a few minutes, and then enter Dream Sleep - also called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep - which, as its name suggests, is when you dream

In a full sleep cycle, a person goes through all the stages of sleep from one to four, then back down through stages three and two, before entering dream sleep

No matter what you are setting your fitbit on (normal vs sensitive) if you are tired when you get up and are waking up alot then there is an issue. I would suggest try taking melatonin for a couple of weeks 30 minutes before going to bed and see if that helps at all. Melatonin is a natural supplement. And of course if things don't rectify soon go see your doctor.

Good luck!

I don't do this but an option is have sleep in two parts. 4 hours, get up and do some stuff then back to bed for sleep part two.

I have 98% efficiency but only been sleeping 6 to 6.5 hours so wake up a little tired :yawn: and distracted ... this is not the post i was looking for.

Until mine stopped working properly (free replacement is on the way) I was only getting about 3-5 hours of sleep with only 65% or less efficiency and I really think that was pretty accurate. I know I toss and turn all night due to the husband's need for TV and ceiling fan, which both are bothersome to me.

Are you using the sensitive or normal setting for sleep? I find when I use the "sensitive tracker" my sleep efficiency goes down by as much as 20%. Using the "normal tracker" setting seems more akin with reality for me.

I I had the same issue when I used the "sensitive" setting.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be dismissive or rude, but I came across this after doing a Google search for "fitbit" and "sleep efficiency" and I had to laugh out loud.

The original poster is "shocked" that her sleep efficiency is at the percentage it is? I would say that those numbers are a very successful nights sleep.

I've been battling crippling chronic fatigue pretty much my entire life. I can "sleep" (and by that, I mean the time I'm in bed) for 12+ hours and still have terrible brain fog and fatigue. I've been tested for apena and narcolepsy (don't have either) and trying to be in bed for 7 hours or 13 hours makes no difference. The fatigue is such a problem just to function and all of the suggestions of "don't eat or drink caffeine" before bedtime doesn't make a difference. I am on a daily antidepressant which is a stimulant as well as the highest dose of Adderal and neither of those make any difference in how awake and alert or less sleepy I feel during the day. I laugh when people tell me I need to exercise more and that will help because its hard to even have the energy to go about my daily routine and do errands or go to work let alone do any exercise! And when I do try to have a lot of exercise, I literally have to spend an entire day in bed to recouperated.

Its REALLY that bad.

I have been to numerous doctors and none can figure out why I'm so incredibly fatigued all the time. When I found out recently about the FitBit (I am a bit behind on technology), I told a friend and he gave me his old one to use. I am primarily using it for the purposes of monitoring my sleep and since I've been using it and data collecting, I'm trying to narrow it down to figure out what is causing my sleep and fatigue issues.

Want to talk about SHOCKING? Try getting a look at THESE numbers! Now there are times where I wake up for a variety of reasons and I am aware that I did. Or times when I could not get my brain to shut off and I toss and turn for hours. Or times where I am woken up by something and then can't get back to sleep. These are all disturbances that I was going to expect to see. But its the amount of times that apparently I was woken up or had my sleep disturbed that I didn't even RECALL happening that is shocking. No wonder I am a walking zombie for the greater part of my life if I have sleep efficiency this poorly! Who on earth would be able to function well basically being sleep deprived? No wonder I'm not getting a good nights sleep when the longest I am sleeping is an hour (or 90 mins tops) before something distrupts me and I have to start that sleep cycle over and over again? Taking sleep aids like Melatonin don't seem to make a difference. Taking things like Amitryptylin or Ambien sure knock me the hell out, but I can't take them unless I know I can sleep as long as I want the next day to sleep it off because it gives me a "hangover" the next day if I need to wake up and get out of bed before its worn off.

The bottom line: I'm just a ridiculously LIGHT SLEEPER. I'm figuring out the variables of things that I need to change in order to improve my situation but its probably going to have to result in making some pretty drastic changes in order to be able to sleep well. For starters, I am not going to be able to sleep in the same bed as my husband. Yes, he snores but its not really as bad as I've heard some people snore. But its apparently enough that it disrupts me and even ear phones don't help. Getting a new mattress will help. And so its up to the attic, making the room as pitch black and quiet as possible, in a bed with a new mattress, ear phones, a sleep mask and no pets allowed whatsoever. No glare from electronics, no light. Period. And if that doesn't do it, I'm this close to having a sleep coffin made for me.

So yes, I don't want to be dismissive of the original poster but when you compare to these numbers I have obtained from MY sleep, you will easily be able to see why I find her complaint a bit laughable as something to be concerned with. I would be HAPPY if my numbers were like that!

sleep efficiency/times awakened/total hours in bed/total hours cumulative slept

39% 14x 8hrs49mins 3hrs 22mins
61% 25X 15hrs31mins 8 hrs 44 mins
64% 10x 8 hrs 46 mins 5 hrs 31 mins
77% 11x 7 hrs 44 mins 5 hrs 5 mins
53% 15x 8 hrs 18 mins 4 hrs 13mins
57% 12x 7 hrs 6 mins 3 hours 19 mins
36% 18x 9 hrs 17 mins 3 hrs 13 mins
70% 10x 9 hrs 39 mins 6 hrs 41 mins
69% 6x 4 hrs 33 mins 2 hrs 25 mins
79% 6x 5 hrs 30 mins 4 hrs 16 mins
69% 12x 7hrs 33 mins 4 hrs 55 mins
63% 19x 8hrs 47 mins 5 hrs 14 mins
59% 27x 11hrs 40 mins 6 hrs 40 mins
70% 8x 7 hrs 29 mins 4 hrs 54 mins
56% 15x 9 hours 42 mins 5 hrs 8 mins
71% 14x 9hrs 27 mins 6 hrs 29 mins
68% 12x 9 hrs 5 mins 5 hrs 44 mins
61% 13x 8 hrs 43 mins 5 hrs 0 mins
55% 11x 7 hrs 5 mins 3 hours 46 mins
72% 13x 10 hrs 15 mins 7 hrs 7 mins