Hello slowtwitch,
For quite a while now, I have noticed that my Garmin sleep data is always quite poor. The sleep score is always low. It will tell me I’ve had only minutes of deep sleep in 8 hours.
I usually don’t pay much attention to this, but recently my sleep scores have been worse. Maybe it’s all in my head, but I feel like as these scores have gotten worse I have noticed I generally am more fatigued.
My question to you all is if any of you have noticed similar findings. More important is if those of you who have noticed similar things have ever sought out advice from a medical professional and had them find an actual problem.
Not asking for medical advice, just curious if garmin’s poor sleep data have led to anyone out there finding anything more than just bad sleep habits.
Garmin generally tells me I received very little deep sleep (an average of 30-40 minutes/night) and that I’ve had very restless sleep, but I’ve always considered myself a deep sleeper. I typically sleep through severe storms, smoke alarms, etc. and usually wake up in the morning having no recollection of anything since I lay down on the pillow and closed my eyes the night before. I can sleep with lights on, and don’t wake up when my boyfriend comes in bed after me or gets out of bed before me, and even his alarm clock doesn’t wake me up (it takes about 5-6 alarm clocks for me to wake up). So, I’ve generally assumed that Garmin’s sleep data is inaccurate.
I agree with the above. I get avg 1h15 deep sleep and 2h30 REM per night with very large night to night deviations without noticeable subjective differences in my sleep quality.
Not sure about Garmin, but I wore the Whoop strap for a few months and really focused on improving my sleep.
I learned a few important things that really changed my habits and helps me sleep better and hence recover better.
You get deep sleep last. You may have to dive into the whole ‘sleep hygiene’ realm to make sure you’re setting yourself up for success, but for me it just meant staying in bed longer. I was in bed 8.5 hours but getting more like 7 hours of sleep, so I started sleeping in an extra hour and my deep sleep and energy levels improved dramatically. Probably the hardest pill to swallow was the very obvious fact that alcohol consumption, even just one drink, jacked my sleep up for at least one night and often had ramifications the next night.
I get either “long and restless” or “short and restless” every night (depending on how long I actually slept). Now, I am very much a restless sleeper, so that doesn’t surprise me.
Typically, it gives me about 1hr of “awake” and has trouble finding the moment where I actually go to sleep. I don’t put much stock into it. For me, body battery is the better indication of whether or not I’ve had a decent sleep.
I do know they changed the body battery metric over the summer, about the same time they put in their sleep metric. I used to get 100% most nights, but now 80-90% is a decent night sleep. (I never get 100% anymore).
I find that my garmin does a decent job of tracking my sleep and aligns pretty well with my subjective scores. I find that for a “excellent” night sleep I need to 1. go to bed early, 2. get lots and relatively even amounts of REM & Deep sleep. For example a few nights ago I had one of the best tracked nights I’ve had in recent memory. 2h 13m of Deep sleep and 2h 11 minutes of REM sleep. total of 9h 12m. Whereas the night before that I drank too much and only got 11m of deep sleep.
I’ve never been to a sleep lab or anything, but I’d say that my sleep data tracks pretty darn good with both my subjective scores and my HRV (which i’ve only been tracking consistently for about 2 months)
Last year I had some concern about the lack of deep sleep my Fenix was indicating (<1hr night). I asked my doctor about it and with my tendency to snore, he thought it would be a good idea to get an at home sleep study. I did that last summer and there was no indication of any problems. I do not believe that the study gets into the granularity that the Garmin is trying to display though. Having looked into it more last year, my understanding is that to get to that level of granularity around the stages you need an inpatient sleep study. Even with the typical low amount of deep sleep, I usually have sleep scores over 90. I shoot to get 7.5hrs of sleep and consider myself to have good sleep hygiene habits.
It does seem that with the latest firmware update the sleep score seems a bit lower and the body battery isn’t recharging as quick.
I do know they changed the body battery metric over the summer, about the same time they put in their sleep metric. I used to get 100% most nights, but now 80-90% is a decent night sleep. (I never get 100% anymore).
I feel like for me the body battery chart is more reliable at capturing when I’m awake/super light sleep than the sleep chart. I’ll get basically flat lines (no increase or decrease) while I’m awake at night, but the sleep chart will vary between REM and light. I don’t move a ton when I’m awake though which may throw off the sleep pattern detection.
Similarly, getting to 100% is much rarer and I only really get it if I’ve had a day where I’m ending the day closer to 40-ish or above.
For sleep metrics, I pay more attention to my stress score. A good night sleep and my score is 4-9. If I slept ok it’s 10-15. If I drank a few beers before bed it’s 15+
I have a nagging suspicion that much if what gets measured with these devices reflects what the technology can do more than what matters for healthy living. I think in a few more cycles, these smart watch will be really good, maybe the newest apple watch is there now, I dunno.
I wear a Garmin to sleep and check my stats every day, but I take it with a grain of salt. I listened to a great episode of That Triathlon Show last summer that talked all about the science of sleep and the industry of wearables.
Basically, you are your own best assessor of sleep each morning. But there could be some good info comparing stats over time on the same device.
Garmin sleep tracking is about as good as their altimeter…and HRM…and Garmin Express. ie. BAD.
But at least the battery life is good and the screen is shit.