Years ago, I remember someone saying that devices that measured health were going to become huge and a mandatory part of many people’s lives. It was in relation to blogging and market size, but at the time, there were not a lot of tools for measuring health stats. He was right. There are many devices we can use to keep track of our health now, including our sleep.
Never would I have thought that I would be using a tool to measure how I sleep, but I’m doing that, and it’s gotten to the point that I NEED to measure how I sleep or I feel like I’m missing out.
I Use A Fitbit Blaze To Keep Track Of My Sleep
I love sleep. I think it is a time of restoration and a time to live out fantasies and gain insights through our dreams. I usually get giddy when it’s bedtime.
I also love keeping track of how I sleep. Over the years, I’ve rarely forgotten to wear my Fitbit to bed. Although, sometimes it dies on me just before bed or just after I fall asleep, and I don’t get to track my sleep. I can honestly say that it feels like I’m missing out when that happens. I’m so used to seeing how I slept, that I hate knowing I will never be able to see how I slept that night. It feels like a waste.
As you can see in the following chart from Fitbit’s sleep stats, the last year of data shows that I’m pretty consistent with how much sleep I get.
I find that I’m sleeping more since the time change. I guess my body feels like it’s staying up later so it needs to compensate by sleeping more.
Speaking of the time change…
I Was Up For Over Two Hours During The Fall Back Time Change
According to my Fitbit, I was awake for over two hours on the night of fall’s time change. It looks like I was totally awake for just over an hour straight.
I don’t remember being awake. As far as I was concerned that morning, I had a good sleep.
I’ve never had that happen to me before and I’m convinced I was either sleepwalking… or I was abducted by aliens. I don’t see any other possibilities.
It looks like from around 12-1 I was just wide awake. But I know that I wasn’t. I would remember being wide awake for an hour.
At first, I thought it was because of the time change, but when I looked back to 2020’s fall time change, I didn’t have any periods of being wide awake during the night for hours, as you can see in the following screenshot.
In fact, even during the 2018 time change, I didn’t have an hour gap. (I didn’t have my Fitbit on during the 2019 fall time change!)
What the heck?
That’s been the only time I’ve been shocked by my sleep stats. I just can’t figure that one out.
Otherwise, I’ve used my Fitbit sleep stats to gauge many things throughout the years, including how long I was up watching the meteor show, how long my dog was up and sick during the night (as I was up with him), and what times of the month I seem to need that extra sleep no matter what.
I Just Have The Basic Tracking For Fitbit
My Fitbit tracks the amount of time I spend in various sleep cycles, as well as when I go to bed and when I wake up. But, Fitbit has deeper tracking skills.
For instance, with the Fitbit Sense, you can track noise as you sleep, such as snoring, which helps you get a sense of your overall noise throughout the night.
I have the old Fitbit Blaze (I don’t think they make them anymore), and it doesn’t hear a thing. I’m not sure how much I want to know that there are noises in the room at night anyway.
I once had a boyfriend use a recorder in my parent’s living room (which I know is haunted) while we slept. That recorder picked up so many noises. It sounded like there was a TV on, but there wasn’t. There was no one else in the house and my parents live in a quiet neighborhood. That freaked me out and I haven’t used a recorder to listen for noises again.
In short, I think the noise aspect would freak me out, but I love the rest of the stats with Fitbit.
