[...] The SRI researchers studied 41 healthy adolescents and young adults (average age 17). Sleep data were recorded using the Oura ring and standard PSG on a single laboratory overnight. Metrics were compared using Bland-Altman plots and epoch-by-epoch analysis.
The ring accurately detected "light" and "deep" sleep in 65% and 51% of the sleep epochs, respectively. It also accurately detected 61% of REM sleep epochs, with an overall overestimation of PSG REM sleep (by about 17 min). When the ring misclassified PSG REM sleep, the algorithm usually classified the epoch as "light sleep" (76%).
These data suggest that the Oura Ring is virtually useless in telling you if you are in REM sleep versus deep or light sleep. [...]
Matthew Walker, probably the best known sleep scientist, has been critical of Oura and pretty much all the sleep trackers for sleep phase data. Unsurprisingly, it's difficult to guess at brain EM wave patterns from a band on the finger, wrist, etc.
I'm 6 months on Oura, and I don't think it's actually that consistent, i.e. I don't think you can say "Oura shows 50% more deep sleep today, so even if the base mumber is wrong, I must have gotten 50% more deep sleep". I wear a fitbit to cross validate each night, and the readings on both often contradict each other seemingly arbitrarily, night to night.
Overall I've found they're great for tracking overall sleep time (HRV, heart rate, temp too) but I don't read too much into the actual sleep phase data. (Day-to-day self asessment of cognitive performance is probably the best proxy.)
I care if my scale at home is accurate. I don't want to know if my weight is going up or down, I want to know what I currently weigh so I can decide what I need to do about it.
How would you even know if it is consistently inaccurate? The variability in biological signals might be so high day to day that it could be highly correlated but with frequent pathological cases that make the data useless.
I have a cheap Mi Band 2 and I'm impressed with how well it measures when I'm sleeping and when I'm awake. I don't know how good it is to measure deep sleep. I does not pretend to measure REM.
Are there any weareable device that measures it well?
I use an Apple Watch and an app called Pillow and it does a plausible job of guessing when I went to sleep and when I woke up. It also identifies light/deep sleep and REM, but I have no way of telling how accurate. It seems to detect awake periods at night as well as I can remember them.
But ... I kinda assume it's a crapshoot and I use it more as a novelty and an estimate of total sleep than any kind of accurate representation of sleep cycles.
I was using a Fitbit Charge (the one before the just released one). One night I was awake looking at my phone from 1-3am and it said I was asleep. Took it off and put it into a drawer right then.
I've got a Charge 3, the one with the oxygen sensor, and I've also seen it think I was asleep when I wasn't. On the other hand, it seems weirdly reliable at telling if I'm in REM sleep or not. Whenever I wake up directly from what it says was REM sleep I remember my dreams but not otherwise.
I just got the Charge 3 and I must toss and turn like crazy because it sometimes doesn't even register my sleep. I didn't expect it to be the most accurate sleep tracker, so I am not super upset. It still gives me some level of insight into my sleep, which is better than nothing.
Tbh the oura ring has been a game changer for a data nerd like me. I can easily see how some exercise in the day actually impacts my HRV[1] and then the quality of my sleep. Had a heavy night of drinking? Watch what the oura ring reports not just on the same night but even the next night :) Basically if you're thinking of starting your own "protocol" for sleep and would like to A/B test what works and what seems like superfluous ceremony, the oura ring is a cost-effective way to measure the effectiveness of said protocol.
I think the protocol described in the article isn't anything terribly new. Most folks on HN know that blue light actually messes with sleep so if you're planning on using a screen until right before you goto bed it's a great idea to use the blue-light canceling computer glasses. Mindfulness meditation is generally a great practice to calm oneself and be reflective. I don't personally sleep at 8:45pm (rather, 11:45pm) but I do have my meal a few hours before I goto bed. I also don't drink much water closer to bedtime so I'm not rudely awakened in the middle of the night to urinate. I live in a place where the black-out blinds aren't a necessity. I've never messed with deep sound waves.
Of course, some folks will exclaim "Well I don't need a device to give me a report card on how well it thinks I slept!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Does the Apple Watch do sleep tracking out of the box now? I was one of the 5 people who bought a Microsoft Band, and I really enjoyed the sleep tracking features. I still haven't pulled the trigger on an Apple Watch since switching to and iPhone because it (used to?) lack sleep tracking as a feature.
I have both. Dislike wearing Apple Watch in the bed since it turns on randomly and it's bulky. The Oura doesn't feel much larger than a wedding band and it's lighter.
I didn't need one to know that, but I was surprised by how little drinking would change my resting heart rate (even two beers at dinner might keep my heart rate elevated for half of the night) and by how much/how long heavy drinking can affect RHR/HRV - a heavy night might affect RHR for 2-3 days...
I don't think the product is targeted at people questioning the health effects of their heavy drinking, but rather at people questioning the effects of endurance training, long commutes, or other habits that may be inadvertently causing them long-term harm.
Measurements are a great motivator! When I was starting an exercise regime being able to track my progress with a WiFi scale was a huge help. Losing one or two pounds didn’t make a huge visual difference, but damned if I wanted to keep driving that line down.
The Whoop might be great, but I just can't get behind any product that used those obnoxious ads (I saw it on Instagram) that hype the product without telling you what it is. Clickbait advertising doesn't work on me, I guess. I might be interested, if they explained it.
My sleep tracking now consists of putting my APAP on to counteract my sleep apnea, falling asleep within seconds because I'm like Pavlov's sleeping baby dog because of the machine, and then waking up and seeing what the machine says re: how long it has been pushing air in my nose.
It works surprisingly well, actually. If I only got 6.5 hours of APAP last night, then I will pretty reliably go to bed a little earlier tonight.
My takeaway from this is that someone should make a fake CPAP face mask for people who don't need a CPAP that tells you how long you've been wearing it. I'm 100% convinced that the mask itself is what makes me fall asleep so fast. Once the mask is on, my brain knows it's time for sleep and complies. I guess I don't know if that's the same for all APAP/CPAP/Bi-PAP users though.
I'm curious - How do stomach sleepers adjust to these masks? Or does sleep apnea only affect back sleepers? It would be impossible for me to sleep wearing a mask.
There are masks and pillows specifically designed for stomach sleepers. But stomach sleeping is somewhat uncommon, and plenty of people who sleep in more conventional positions can't adapt to sleeping with a CPAP, so you probably just have to find out yourself.
FWIW, I have sleep apnea and I'm a strict side sleeper. I also had a real tough time getting used to sleeping with something attached to my face. Sometimes I still take it off if I'm awake too long during the 2-4am time period, but most nights I sleep through without even noticing. I use a nasal mask, though, I absolutely have not ever been able to tolerate a full face mask.
Definitely doesn't only affect back sleepers. I sleep almost exclusively on my side. There are some very small masks including a type that only has two tiny "pillows" (as I understand they are called) that rest right up on/in your nostrils. Mine basically only covers my nose and has the hose on the top of my head so I can turn from side to side. I'm not sure that would be good enough for a stomach sleeper, but it might. I can see how being a stomach sleeper could make wearing a respiratory mask difficult, for sure.
I was a stomach sleeper before getting a CPAP. In retrospect, I was a stomach sleeper because my body figured out it made breathing easier. Rarely find myself sleeping on my stomach any more.
My original goal was to counteract the darkness of winter, which impacts my mood and productivity. But the thing I like best about it is that the lights dim in the evening, so I actually go to bed at a reasonable hour. Whereas with manual lighting, I can easily leave the lights on while doing something, not notice the hour, and throw off my sleep cycle.
Sleep researchers and doctors claim that your bed itself should be the bell. It will be easiest for you to fall asleep if you don't spend any time in your bed unless you are actively trying to fall asleep. No reading a book before you sleep, no checking your email in the morning, etc.
They prioritize it to the point that, if you are lying in bed trying to sleep at night for more than 20 minutes, you should get up and spend some time relaxing somewhere else.
"Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker is an excellent book for those interested in what science has to say about sleep (disclaimer: it's excessively good for you)
Sleep is very important in all sorts of ways but Professor Walker was throwing everything at the wall in an effort to convince the reader to get better sleep at times. One chapter talking about how people who get less sleep will naturally want to eat more. Another chapter telling how rats with given constant diets and restricted sleep eventually starve to death. I do trust all his citations to be accurate but I'm also sure that if there was some way in which less sleep was good for you he wouldn't mention it.
But it was a very valuable book in terms of explaining just what sleep does for you.
it's good for you as in it will scare the shit out of you and make you pay attention to your sleep. the examples can be a little exaggerated and one has to wonder how anyone that does not get enough sleep is still alive - but yeah. if you haven't already, read the book
My hack is just fall asleep when putting the kids to sleep and wake up whenever I feel like. If I've been pushing hard, sometimes I'll take all 10 hours, other nights I'm up at 4am ready to work.
Hey, someone else who does the same thing as me! Yay! As soon as my wife and I put the kids down, we head to bed ourselves. Then I wakeup whenever, which frequently translates to 4-5am but like you, sometimes lasts until the kiddos wake up.
We're lucky that both of our kids have always been great sleepers, aside from occasional attempts to get up in the middle of the night and come sleep with mom & dad.
I'll share what I do. After being in the Army for a while, and waking up at 430 and going to bed at close to midnight for a long time during the week (there's no real "sleep schedule" overseas though) I've been working on tuning my sleep cycle for the seasons to great success. Over the last year I've been slightly altering my alarm each night based on when sunrise is (plus going to bed earlier/later as the days lengthen/shorten), and it's significantly improved how quickly I fall asleep, how easily I get out of bed in the morning, and how rested I feel. I'm not a huge "fitness tracker" guy (still analog in that regard, with a notebook for workouts instead of some app or a spreadsheet). No idea if there's any science behind any of what I'm doing and frankly I don't care. It works great for me.
Can you add more details on how you handle seasons? This is something I've been wondering about. Do you shorten/lengthen your sleep? Or just shift it to always wake up at sunrise? I think shifting seasons might be one "natural" thing which our biology is not "naturally" attuned to, and a fixed-length day would probably be better (maybe we'll have it in the future on a space colony, by I digress).
I think it's as simple as I sleep more in the winter and less in the summer and about the same between spring and fall. Not anything crazy. It's probably an average of ~7 hours in the summers and 8+ in the winter. I live in a high latitude city and last year I figured I'd just try it, given how much more light we get in the summer. Work is a little hard to accommodate in the winter sometimes, but otherwise I think I'll probably do this for the rest of my life.
Basically I just look up when sunrise is the night before, and move my alarm back 1-2 minutes for it. In the summer I'll go to bed a few minutes later each night until the solstice, then reverse. All I'm doing is chasing the sunrise and sunset (with an offset for sunset).
I use a Samsung smartwatch that came with my Samsung S9 as a package deal.
The sleep tracker has been useful to me in tracking my quantity/quality and average sleep.
I still get to spend a few weeks a year a few times a year assessing human performance.
Sleep is absolutely critical to human physical, mental, emotional, and social performance.
And as the parent of adolescent children who are technology driven, monitoring their "digital nutrition", mixing in other activities, ensuring they are well fed/hydrated, and compelling good sleep hygiene is absolutely essential to their development as adolescents towards adulthood.
It's quite shocking to observe how common it is for both adults and children to be seen suffering from poor sleep hygiene.
Readit News
It's rather skeptical. Choice quote:
[...] The SRI researchers studied 41 healthy adolescents and young adults (average age 17). Sleep data were recorded using the Oura ring and standard PSG on a single laboratory overnight. Metrics were compared using Bland-Altman plots and epoch-by-epoch analysis.
The ring accurately detected "light" and "deep" sleep in 65% and 51% of the sleep epochs, respectively. It also accurately detected 61% of REM sleep epochs, with an overall overestimation of PSG REM sleep (by about 17 min). When the ring misclassified PSG REM sleep, the algorithm usually classified the epoch as "light sleep" (76%).
These data suggest that the Oura Ring is virtually useless in telling you if you are in REM sleep versus deep or light sleep. [...]
I'm 6 months on Oura, and I don't think it's actually that consistent, i.e. I don't think you can say "Oura shows 50% more deep sleep today, so even if the base mumber is wrong, I must have gotten 50% more deep sleep". I wear a fitbit to cross validate each night, and the readings on both often contradict each other seemingly arbitrarily, night to night.
Overall I've found they're great for tracking overall sleep time (HRV, heart rate, temp too) but I don't read too much into the actual sleep phase data. (Day-to-day self asessment of cognitive performance is probably the best proxy.)
How do you do that?
I don't care if my scale at home is perfectly accurate. I care about knowing that my weight is going up/down.
Are there any weareable device that measures it well?
But ... I kinda assume it's a crapshoot and I use it more as a novelty and an estimate of total sleep than any kind of accurate representation of sleep cycles.
I think the protocol described in the article isn't anything terribly new. Most folks on HN know that blue light actually messes with sleep so if you're planning on using a screen until right before you goto bed it's a great idea to use the blue-light canceling computer glasses. Mindfulness meditation is generally a great practice to calm oneself and be reflective. I don't personally sleep at 8:45pm (rather, 11:45pm) but I do have my meal a few hours before I goto bed. I also don't drink much water closer to bedtime so I'm not rudely awakened in the middle of the night to urinate. I live in a place where the black-out blinds aren't a necessity. I've never messed with deep sound waves.
Of course, some folks will exclaim "Well I don't need a device to give me a report card on how well it thinks I slept!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[1] https://ouraring.com/heart-rate-variability-basics/
It works surprisingly well, actually. If I only got 6.5 hours of APAP last night, then I will pretty reliably go to bed a little earlier tonight.
My takeaway from this is that someone should make a fake CPAP face mask for people who don't need a CPAP that tells you how long you've been wearing it. I'm 100% convinced that the mask itself is what makes me fall asleep so fast. Once the mask is on, my brain knows it's time for sleep and complies. I guess I don't know if that's the same for all APAP/CPAP/Bi-PAP users though.
FWIW, I have sleep apnea and I'm a strict side sleeper. I also had a real tough time getting used to sleeping with something attached to my face. Sometimes I still take it off if I'm awake too long during the 2-4am time period, but most nights I sleep through without even noticing. I use a nasal mask, though, I absolutely have not ever been able to tolerate a full face mask.
A while back I built something to mimic a day-night cycle: https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise
My original goal was to counteract the darkness of winter, which impacts my mood and productivity. But the thing I like best about it is that the lights dim in the evening, so I actually go to bed at a reasonable hour. Whereas with manual lighting, I can easily leave the lights on while doing something, not notice the hour, and throw off my sleep cycle.
They prioritize it to the point that, if you are lying in bed trying to sleep at night for more than 20 minutes, you should get up and spend some time relaxing somewhere else.
It's not comfortable, but it's not dangerous.
But it was a very valuable book in terms of explaining just what sleep does for you.
We're lucky that both of our kids have always been great sleepers, aside from occasional attempts to get up in the middle of the night and come sleep with mom & dad.
I'll share what I do. After being in the Army for a while, and waking up at 430 and going to bed at close to midnight for a long time during the week (there's no real "sleep schedule" overseas though) I've been working on tuning my sleep cycle for the seasons to great success. Over the last year I've been slightly altering my alarm each night based on when sunrise is (plus going to bed earlier/later as the days lengthen/shorten), and it's significantly improved how quickly I fall asleep, how easily I get out of bed in the morning, and how rested I feel. I'm not a huge "fitness tracker" guy (still analog in that regard, with a notebook for workouts instead of some app or a spreadsheet). No idea if there's any science behind any of what I'm doing and frankly I don't care. It works great for me.
It's great, but here in the summer, sunrise is at 4:15. It's a tad early to get up. I do feel good in winter though waking up with the sunrise.
I think Apple's bed time is a pretty good tool for this.
Basically I just look up when sunrise is the night before, and move my alarm back 1-2 minutes for it. In the summer I'll go to bed a few minutes later each night until the solstice, then reverse. All I'm doing is chasing the sunrise and sunset (with an offset for sunset).
The sleep tracker has been useful to me in tracking my quantity/quality and average sleep.
I still get to spend a few weeks a year a few times a year assessing human performance.
Sleep is absolutely critical to human physical, mental, emotional, and social performance.
And as the parent of adolescent children who are technology driven, monitoring their "digital nutrition", mixing in other activities, ensuring they are well fed/hydrated, and compelling good sleep hygiene is absolutely essential to their development as adolescents towards adulthood.
It's quite shocking to observe how common it is for both adults and children to be seen suffering from poor sleep hygiene.