Good Sleep, Bad Sleep

I'm a pretty good sleeper. A flip side to that is that I apparently need a lot of sleep, compared to some people. Actually, need is probably the wrong word, both for me and what I'm assuming about other people. I get a lot of sleep compared to many other other people, and that generally works for me.

I'm also clearly and totally a morning person. I run out of energy in the afternoon and evening, and I have to make sure I use my mornings well, because the later it gets, the less likely it is I'll do something hard or worthwhile or challenging.

I've been tracking my sleep in an automated way for about 10 years now. In that time, I'm learned two actually practical things that I might have realized without the gadgets, but the report from the gadgets made it very clear. The first lesson, right after I started wearing the tracker, was that I'm never going to get eight hours of sleep, or even seven hours, if I only spend six hours in bed. I had in my mind that I go to bed at 10 pm, and I found out I was starting to get ready for bed at 10, but actually getting in bed sometime after 11.  Since then, I've prioritized going to bed early, and so my sleep has gotten longer.  The second big insight is that I often wake up and have to pee in the middle of the night, and I would toss and turn for up to an hour before struggling out of bed briefly, only to fall into a deep, sound sleep right after getting back to bed. So now, when I wake up with the urge, I try to remember to act on it quickly (but waking up in the middle of the night doesn't lend itself to rational thinking so there is limited success on that front).

As trackers have gotten more sophisticated, the detail they give on the sleep has gotten more sophisticated. My current Fitbit Blaze tracks my heartrate round the clock as well as motion, so now it purports to show deep, light, and REM sleep, as well as awake and sleep times. It also shows how my sleep stacks up against other folks in my general demographic, women of roughly my age. So when I say I'm usually a good sleeper, I am speaking from an informed position.

This week was interesting from seeing how stress (see previous post on new job) has affected my sleep.  Here are graphics from each night this week:

Monday night (labelled for Tues morning) - this is good sleep. Quickly into deep sleep, and a solid long uninterrupted period at that. Plenty of REM sleep, and scattered as is typical, with more later towards dawn. I was juiced and energized by the work challenges to come.

Tuesday night - grasping the reality of the challenges led to rumination and concern. Deep sleep happened, but only towards morning, a very unusual pattern.

Wednesday night started out showing how very exhausted I was from the poor sleep the night before. Deep deep sleep. But then awake around 3 am and not really back to worthwhile sleep. I did turn on the phone to do a guided meditation when I couldn't otherwise calm my mind, but it's not clear it paid off in more actual sleep.

Thursday night. Really really tired after two not so restful nights. There is some deep sleep and some REM, but in an unusual pattern and some long wakefulness in the reaches of the night.

This may be about as good as it gets, consolidated deep and REM sleep, in appropriate times of the night, few periods of wakefulness. Spoiler - I medicated myself - a benedryl because I was going nuts with itchy skin from the cold weather. I woke at about my normal wake time (a good sign) and rolled over and dreamed for about an hour. 

I'm going to let today be a low energy day, but with plenty of sunlight exposure, and I hope for another good night of sleep.