Fitbit Flex – Sleepy Time

Posted: Thu 20 February, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Insomnia, Project 42, Reviews(ish), Sleep - or lack thereof, Technology | Leave a comment »

Carrying on from yesterday’s post, I’m writing a bit about how I’m doing with the Fitbit Flex, a wristband pedometer and sleep monitor. Today it’s more about the sleep monitoring that the Flex does.

As with the pedometer side, the sleep monitoring can be a useful tool, but it’s not something to rely on absolutely.

The sleep monitoring is activated manually (which is usually OK, but could be a pain in the ass on occasion) and also needs to be manually deactivated – which is more of a pig, because if you forget, it screws the figures. It would be nice to have some automatic deactivation in there, although I suspect that the variables for it are pretty wobbly.

Based – I assume – on movement during the night, the Flex can report on “Sleep”, “Disturbed Sleep” and “Awake”. “Sleep” is – again, I assume – when the sleeper is motionless, as REM sleep paralyses the body. (which is why most people don’t sleepwalk, or do anything else physical that they’re dreaming about) “Disturbed Sleep” is when the sleeper is moving about. I’ve no idea how it discerns “Awake” though – it pegs my awake-in-bed time as ‘disturbed sleep’- so I assume that “Awake” means “Registered as sleeping, but actually walking around”.   As such, the categories are a bit rough, but at least provide an illustration of sleep quality – or lack thereof.

One thing I do find affects me though is actually looking at the results. (Which is a bit meta and ‘chaos theory’, but bear with me)  It’s one thing to feel like you’ve had a bad night, but it’s another one entirely to know it with the readings from the Flex. And yes, I could ‘leave it’ til later, but damn it, I’m interested.  However, it does make me feel more tired, more justified in being tired, with that knowledge of “Oh yeah, but I had a crap night”.  Seeing the information makes me aware of that crap night, and does affect how I feel during the day.   (Similar to how reading a horoscope first thing can sometimes subconsciously direct you towards doing the things ‘predicted’)

It is interesting though. It’s proven that I usually actually get by on 3.5-4 hours sleep per night most of the time, and that it’s really only when I’m on sub-three-hours that I feel shockingly bad. I have good nights (rare), bad nights (common) and very bad nights (thankfully not quite as common as I’d thought)

I’ll keep on using the Flex for this – as I’ve said, it’s a useful indicator, if nothing else. Whether I continue to be aware of the timings or not, bearing in mind how much that knowledge affects me, remains to be seen.

Monitoring Sleep

Posted: Thu 9 January, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2013/14, Domestic, Dreaming, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Insomnia, Project 42, Sleep - or lack thereof, Technology | Leave a comment »

Over the years, I’ve kind of got used to sleeping really badly – although I’d still like to know the causes, and whether it really is as bad as I think/feel it is.

The reason I’m not sure is because – as I think I’ve said before – according to partners, sometimes I’ll have slept through the night, but woken up and been convinced I’ve had a bad night. Yes, I apparently manage to dream that I’m waking up and having a bad night. And yes, that is really really fucked-up, however you look at it.

Anyway, as part of the whole ‘weighing less’ part of this year, I was also wanting to monitor (or at least better monitor) my activity, steps-per-day and the like. So I’ve ended up ordering a FitBit Flex which should let me keep an eye on all of that at once.  It’ll also integrate with a couple of other apps on the phone etc., which will make for some interesting reading over time.  The only downside is that I’d have liked one that also allows me to check/monitor heart-rate (and really, why can’t you get a wearable wristband device that’ll do that? It can’t be that difficult, surely?) but there just isn’t anything like that around at the moment.   The closest would be the Pulse from Withings – but that doesn’t do the integration stuff, and doesn’t keep track of heartbeat in the way that I wanted.

I’m not relying on it, or assuming it’ll be the thing that changes everything for me – but it should at least answer some questions, particularly about how I sleep. And that at least will be interesting, and make it worth what I’ve paid. Anything else is a bonus, really.

Micro-sleeps

Posted: Thu 9 January, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Commuting, Driving, News, People, Sleep - or lack thereof | Leave a comment »

If you ever wanted to be really scared by a statistic, try this one from this story from the BBC about ‘micro-sleeps’…

Of 1,000 drivers it interviewed, 45% of men admitted to micro-sleeping while driving, as did 22% of women.

A micro-sleep is an episode of light sleep lasting five to 10 seconds. The brain goes to sleep involuntarily and it is more likely to happen in a monotonous situation. People wake suddenly, often with a sharp jerk of the head.

I know I’ve driven behind people before that I’m sure were doing this – but maybe it’s more prevalent than I thought. Jesus.

Back to Work

Posted: Mon 30 December, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Insomnia, Sleep - or lack thereof, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Today I’m back in the office. I’ve had the Christmas week off, and do feel (generally) better for it, although a lot of the time taken has been involved in doing other work and so on. But such is life.

I’ve caught up on some sleep – being able to sleep for what inevitably turn out to be my core hours is always a good thing.

I don’t know why it is, but my core hours for sleep (as I’m sure I’ve said before) are 7am to 9am. With usual work, I don’t get to have that sleep at all, and this year most of my weekends have also involved getting up rather than taking those couple of hours.  This last week though, I’ve been sleeping through (pretty noteworthy in itself) and I do feel measurably better for it.

I don’t know why I sleep best in those two hours. General wisdom is that sleep is deepest at around 3am, but that’s usually one of my more disturbed periods of sleep. But those two hours, if I can get those then it’s a real difference to my mindset.

Tired

Posted: Mon 11 November, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Insomnia, Sleep - or lack thereof, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

For whatever reason, today I am Tired.  It’s almost certainly linked to what must’ve been a crap night’s sleep, although I don’t particularly remember being disturbed/awake/not-sleeping. But I am Tired all the same.

I really don’t like days like this – and they’re not helped by the whole greyness of the day outside – as I find it really hard to get started, and/or to get anything relevant done at all. Most frustrating.

Still, it’s been a good weekend, which makes things better. I got a load of domestic twuntery done on the Saturday – shopping, laundry, all the usual guff – and saw Gravity at the cinema. (well worth it, if you wanted to know) Sunday involved seeing the parents, and a bloody good lunch at the Three Crowns in Askett, which I’d recommend (although it’s awesomely busy, due to being consistently bloody good, by all accounts) and finished off by coming home to the smell of an excellent slow-cooked chilli I did for meals this week.

Hopefully I’ll perk up a bit post-lunch, but so far the signs are not positive for that to happen…

A Warm Resting Place

Posted: Wed 6 November, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Sleep - or lack thereof | Leave a comment »

Over the last couple of weeks, the Bengal cat has been very strange – even by her standards. For the first time in three years, she’s been sleeping on my bed – without attacking my feet.

I don’t mind (too much) in general – it’s probably a good sign that the autistic little twatbag is feeling quite settled and trusting. Or alternatively that she’s not feeling settled, but trusts me enough to use me for comfort.

Mind you, last night she spent most of it sleeping on me as if I were a tree-branch. Very cat, very Bengal, and not at all comfortable for the two-legs. But of course that’s not important in cat-world, it’s about finding a warm resting place that doesn’t move too much.

She’s also been sitting on me more during the evening, and if not fully asleep then enough that she’s comfortable and relaxed. (By “not fully asleep” I mean that if I move too much, she’ll either open her eyes and glare at me, or get off in a huff)

Regardless, it’s quite weird and noteworthy. I’ve always been aware that Bengals can be quite a handful to live with – and she’s shown that on *many* occasions – but also that once they’ve decided that the two-legs is “OK”, things relax a bit.  I’m not counting my chickens just yet – we’ve had too many ups and downs over the years for me to do that – but right now I’m pretty sure she’s feeling settled though – and it’s only taken 18 months in the new house to get to this point.

Midweek

Posted: Fri 18 October, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Old(er), Gigs, Insomnia, London, Sleep - or lack thereof, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

This week and next, I’m out at fairly large events held mid-week. In London.  I must be mad.

This week was, of course, the Neil Gaiman event at CHW in London, which resulted in me getting home at about half-midnight(ish) having opted for getting the train back to Milton Keynes and then driving the final bit, rather than driving and parking in Central London.

Next week will be seeing Peter Gabriel at the O2, which I’m really looking forward to. I suspect I’ll be getting home at about the same time, although this time I’ll be driving it instead of relying on public transport.

On the downside, I find that nights like that take it out of me now for the following night as well. I’m not sure if it’s a sign of getting older, or just that I’m out of practice – either way, my sleep/insomnia on the Wednesday night after the Gaiman event was even worse than usual, despite being more knackered.

Although with this kind of thing, it’s also making me even more pleased that I’m not doing that commute into Cambridge any more!

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →