In a of over 1.5 million nights of sleep through the ’20/’21 Holiday season, we see the impact on our sleep patterns, including more snoring and higher heart rates. The sleep cycle repeats every 90 to 110 minutes and as sleep progresses, REM cycles increase in length.The Holidays: Expect More Snoring & Higher Heart Rates! 20-25 per cent of our sleep should be REM sleep. Our eyes are closed but dart rapidly from side to side, and our limbs can become paralysed to stop us acting out our dreams.

REM: The final stage is when dreams occur, as your brain processes and stores long term memories. For healthy adults, 15-20 per cent of your sleep should be a deep sleep. This is the time when your body grows and repairs itself and boosts immune function. Stages 3 and 4: You move into deeper sleep that’s harder to wake from. Stage 2: Your brain waves, eye movement and heart rate begin to slow. Stage 1: Hopefully only lasting a few minutes, the first stage of sleep is light and easy to wake from. Your sleep tracking app will break these stages down for you and make it easy to identify problem areas for helping you reach a world of better sleep.ĭuring a typical night, you cycle through these stages of sleep… Your time asleep can be broken down into a cycle consisting of light, deep and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, and for you to fully feel rested you should cycle through these stages at least a few times per night. What does a good night's sleep really look like? Non-wearable smart mattresses can even adjust your body temperature based on your sleep history to give you the best chance of a good night’s rest and a quality sleep. The best sleep trackers can also offer help if you struggle to fall asleep, with headphones available to block out distractions and relax a chaotic mind. We’re also big fans of sleep-based alarms, that wake the wearer up at the optimum time of their sleep cycle, to help you hit the ground running each day. How this data is then used makes a big difference, with some apps offering deep-dive analytics as well as a Sleep Score that, like hitting your 10,000 steps, helps to gamify good sleep. Brands like Whoop, Fitbit and Apple are also using blood oxygen data that can help identify sleep disorders including sleep apnea, a potentially dangerous condition where breathing stops and starts while you're asleep. It’s the most important sensor in any sleep tracker.īut how long you sleep doesn’t always determine the quality, which is why many factors are used to build an accurate picture of your sleep, including temperature, breathing disturbances, body movement via accelerometers and even ambient noise. Less sophisticated fitness trackers have tended to use wrist movement to monitor sleep – stop sniggering at the back – but now the vast majority your use heart rate instead to calculate when you fall asleep, the type of sleep you’re having and how long you stay asleep. What features should I look for in a sleep tracker? Developed with sleep physicians, it's capable of tracking your sleep cycles to provide a sleep score, along with the ability to detect snoring and sleep apnea.

Best mattress sleep tracker: Withings Sleep Analyzer (£119) Rather not wear anything at all? Withings' under-mattress tracker is for you.An ideal choice for people who'd rather not strap obvious bits of tech to their wrist and/or head. Best minimal sleep tracker: Oura Gen 3 ($299) Made from lightweight titanium, the Oura is a cleverly designed smart ring that's capable of measuring your heart rate and sleep quality, in addition to activity and fitness tracking.These include heart rate and temperature monitoring, sleep quality measurements and even automatic snoring detection which could be used to pinpoint disturbances throughout the night. Best overall sleep tracker: Fitbit Sense (£189) Offering plenty of bang for your buck, the Sense is a superb standalone smartwatch that happens to also pack in a robust set of sleep tracking features.But first, this is what to look out for… What's the best sleep tracker? It’s also worth remembering that not everyone wants to wear tech in bed, so we’ve gathered together the best alternatives that can track your sleep from under the mattress. The ubiquity of gadgets like wearables means that millions of us already own a sleep tracker, capable of calculating all sorts of metrics, but they’re not all made equal.

The best sleep trackers can help by breaking down sleep data with metrics and tracking features like heart rate variability, letting you take back control for a proper night’s sleep. Whether you kip, slumber, snooze or snore, a good night’s sleep is vital to your health and happiness.

Sleep monitor tracker