The Secret to a Good Night's Sleep

Sleep Debt: Your Body Wants Its Money Back!

Introduction

Are you tired of tossing and turning at night, only to wake up feeling exhausted and unproductive?

Imagine waking up refreshed, energized, and ready to conquer the day ahead.

In this week's newsletter, we unlock the secret to a good night's sleep using data.

What is Sleep Debt?

Hours you need - Hours you slept = Sleep debt/Sleep credit

When you have gotten less sleep than what you should have you feel groggy and tired all day.

For me, If I sleep only 6 hours while my sweet spot is 8 hours then I am in 2 hour of sleep debt.

Now I use an Apple Watch to track my sleep data.

No you don’t really need an apple watch but any fitness tracker these days calculate your sleep data.

Now every night I make sure to wear my watch.

Now during the night I have to do absolutely nothing and the watch looks at the heart rates, hand movement, respiratory and probably other things to calculate the 4 stages of my sleep.

Understanding the Sleep Stages?

1. Awake- During the night there are periodical times where we wake up. Those are the orange bars.

2. REM- This is where all of those scary dreams happen. This stage plays a key role in memory and refreshing your brain.

3. Core- This is where the muscle activity lowers and body temperature drops which is usually the bulk of the time we are asleep. It is also referred as light sleep in some places.

4. Deep- This is where the body repairs itself and releases the essential hormones. This happens more in the first half of the night. It is the stage where it is the hardest to wake up from because you are so relaxed.

Only 2 metrics we care about:

1. Total Hours Asleep

   This is so that I can look at the number and see oh a day ago I slept 9 hours and 2 minutes and last night I slept only 6 hours and 46 minutes.

   This means I only have a sleep debt of 12 minutes today which is not horrible. Tonight I can go to bed 12 minutes early to catch up to that.

2. Deep Sleep

   I workout everyday where I lift heavy weights, run and bike long distances. When you are taxing your body it needs to repair itself.

   Now I look at deep sleep and try to maximize it as much. If you sleep for 8 hours a night then your deep sleep can be anywhere from 62 to 110 minutes.

   

   There are not a ton of things you can do to maximize deep sleep here are things that have worked for me:

   1. Optimal room temperature at 68°F or 20°C.

   2. Comfortable memory foam pillows that take the shape of my head.

   3. A bed comforters which is like a thick piece of foam on top of my bed to make it more comfortable.

   4. Deep black curtains so any light or noise coming from the outside gets blocked.

   5. Drinking less water before bed so I don’t have to wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

   6. No caffeine 6 hours before going to bed which is 5PM for me.

   Doing these things have really helped me maximize my deep sleep so I know I have recovered and had a great night’s sleep.

My theory is if I optimize for deep sleep then the other stages will also improve because they are a stepping stones to getting better deep sleep.

I hope my experience helps you get a good nights sleep using data. Feel free to email or DM me, would love to hear your experience with it.

Take care and have an excellent weekend!