Looking for the ultimate sleep tracker? You’re in the right place!
Wearable Sleep Trackers Don’t Work
There’s been a renaissance in sleep tracking in the last handful of years. All sorts of wearable sleep trackers claim to be able to track your sleep, measure sleep quality, identify various sleep stages or help you monitor sleep cycles.
The problem? Well, there are a couple.
First, they don’t actually work. The fact is – even if the sensors were perfect (which they aren’t) – that heart rate, movement and sound measurements aren’t good enough data sources to predict sleep quality.
The only way to REALLY tell the difference between deep sleep, light sleep and awakeness is to head to a certified sleep lab (for more on why that’s true, check out my free summary of Why We Sleep).
And second, they don’t help you sleep better. In fact, for many people, the anxiety and gadget fiddling associated with trying to collect, analyse and optimise inaccurate sleep data can actually WORSEN sleep quality and conditions like insomnia.
There’s even a name for the unhealthy obsession with trying to achieve perfect sleep scores. It’s called orthosomnia.
Sleep Tracking: Back to Basics
So what’s the solution? The answer is to stop obsessing over bad data, sleep cycles and sleep scores and go back to the things we CAN reliably measure and change:
- Subjective sleep satisfaction – How did you feel about last night’s sleep? and
- Proven sleep boosting habits – Are you setting sleep up for success?
Or in other words, the two exact things you’ll find in The Art of Living’s simple, handy 12-steps to better sleep tracker template…
TAoL’s Simple Sleep Tracker
Here’s how it works…
- Each evening, you track what proven healthy sleep habits you did or sleep detractors you avoided;
- Each morning, you track how satisfied you felt with your night of sleep; and
- Over time you will NATURALLY and AUTOMATICALLY learn what helps and what hinders your sleep and change your behaviour accordingly.
It’s as simple as that.
No more waking up feeling super rested only to panic when your sleep tracking app tells you that you only got 2 hours of “good” sleep.
No more waking up feeling super exhausted and thinking there must be something wrong with you because your sleep tracker tells you that you slept like a baby.
YOU Are the Best Sleep Tracker on the Market
The best measure of how good your sleep is is how you feel when you wake up.
The best way to maximise that satisfaction is to set every night up for success.
And the best way to track those two things is simply to check in with YOU.
So if you came here looking for reviews for the perfect sleep tracker or sleep tracking app, don’t waste your time or your money. Don’t collect pointless, inaccurate data. Don’t get sucked into automation bias and make decisions based on empty sleep scores.
Track sleep satisfaction. Track your habits. Then get on with the rest of your day.
Use TAoL’s FREE evidence-backed, 12-step sleep tracking template to wake up happy, rested and productive.
And you’ll have no trouble sleeping long, sleeping deeply and sleeping well!
Download the FREE Sleep Tracker
Use the form below to download TAoL’s free sleep tracker…
And/or visit the free tools page to download the tracker and more free tools to help you live long and prosper.
Hi Arthur,
first of all thanks for this article. I forgot, that not everyone knows how does an accelerometer work and how our sleeptracker with a smartwatch knows when we’re in our deep sleep or REM phase. With such knowledge we can clearly say, that any sleeptracker, even with “the best” smartwatch, won’t be able to tell us if our sleep was good or bad. It can only tell us if it could be REM or maybe we was in deep sleep phase.
TBH I use a sleep app with a wearable. In the app we can add our subjective sleep rate and even write a comment. We can set a “smart alarm” for example on 8:00 with “smart period”: 30 minutes. What does it do? The app will wake you between 7:30-8:00, once you are in light sleep for some time. The scheduled alarm time (8:00) is considered as the last possible wake up time.
I agree, that “collecting” subjective info about sleep satisfaction and learning good habits should help us achieve better sleep.
Have you ever heard about falling asleep “fast” technique? I tried it many times and it works for me (okay… not always ;-)), but everyone has to work out his own techinque. Some time ago I watched some video about this technique. I couldn’t find that video, but here is another one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWGuy4oOQgQ (“How to Fall Asleep Fast (US Military Technique)”)
Thanks for this, Remek! The key words in your first paragraph are “could” and “maybe” since, in reality, motion and audio based sleep trackers do a very poor job at guessing sleep states.
The smart wake up feature is a common one you’ll find on most sleep tracking apps (or at least the 5 or 6 I’ve experimented with).
But again, the same issues apply – they assume (1) that it’s better to wake up during REM, deep (stages 3 & 4) NREM or light (stages 1 & 2) NREM sleep at the end of a night (no convincing evidence for any of these) and (2) that they can guess which of REM or NREM sleep (whatever stage) you are in (which, importantly, they can’t) so 🤷♂️
I have heard good things about the US military sleeping technique! Thanks for sharing that video!