I’ve spent this past month reflecting on the role that sleep plays in every aspect of my life and why it’s essential to my well-being. The amount and quality of sleep I get each night affects my mood, productivity and more surprisingly, other areas of my wellbeing such as my diet. This isn’t true for just me; sleep widely impacts all humans. Here’s why everyone should care about their sleep.
Read more: Best Mattress
My Sleep Awareness Month reflection
This past Sleep Awareness Month, I made it a priority to be conscious of my rest and my overall health. It was during this reflection that I realized how much I take my sleep for granted, mostly because I haven’t gotten enough of it throughout my life. I missed out on a lot of sleep as a child and an early teenager due to debilitating anxiety that would keep me awake. While sleep comes easily to me now, I still feel like I’m playing catch-up at times.
I’ve also noticed that I use sleep as a coping mechanism. This is probably something that I picked up in college, and this habit has bled into my post-grad life. When I’m stressed and overwhelmed, my first thought is to take a quick nap. While there are worse vices out there, I’ve noticed that my naps can sometimes mess with my sleep at night.
Exploring sleep technology
I didn’t go through a month-long sleep journey without some help. During Sleep Awareness Month, I got to test out some sleep technology, including the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover. The heating and cooling mattress cover tracked my sleep, my sleep quality, my sleep stages, heart rate, heart rate variability, breath rate and sleep latency. In combination with my Garmin Forerunner smartwatch, I compared the sleep data from the mattress pod and concluded some interesting results.
First, I wasn’t getting enough deep sleep. Instead of the recommended 1.5 to 2 hours of deep sleep, I was getting around 45 minutes to an hour. Second, I was waking up a lot during the night. I saw in my data that I was waking up three to four times, which was causing my overall sleep quality to decrease. These wake periods were more than a quick toss or turn; I was waking up and not able to go back to sleep right away.
Thankfully, after my month of testing the Eight Sleep Pod concluded, I noticed that my deep sleep increased, and I was waking up less during the night. I believe that this is due to a few things: I was going to bed and waking up around the same time each day, I was exercising during the day (not too close to bedtime) and I was using my Eight Sleep consistently. The Pod mimics the body’s natural temperature cycle during the night and helps to adjust you to the optimal degrees. As a hot sleeper, some of my wake periods were due to me sweating under my comforter. The Pod cooled me down, and this most likely helped to increase my sleep quality.
Read more: I Was Always Waking Up Tired. I Used Tech and Science to Sleep Better