Sleep is an essential component for good health and well-being. The National Sleep Foundation suggest that adults need around 7 to 9 hours sleep per night. Teenagers and active individuals (such as athletes) require a little bit more, around 8 to 10 hours.
Sportspeople go to great lengths to improve their performance, spending considerable time, effort, and money on several technical, physical, and psychological strategies. However, strategies aimed at improving something as basic as sleep are often overlooked.
There are a number of devices currently available (at varying costs) that are designed to track your sleeping habits and improve your sleep. The following is a list of some of the gadgets available, but by no means is it an exhaustive list.
FITBIT
is an activity tracker with loads of features, which includes the tracking and recording of your sleeping habits. You wear the Fitbit as a wristband at night, and the inbuilt heart rate and motion detectors are used to measure how long you sleep and the time you spend in each sleep phase.
WHOOP
is a wearable waterproof wrist monitor that tracks your heart rate, heart rate variability, and sleep - including quantity, quality, efficiency, and how long you stay in each sleep cycle. What is additionally clever about the Whoop device is that it also measures your strain, i.e. the cardiovascular load you have put on your body. Therefore, it can give you a recovery score between 0 - 100 on how ready your body is to perform. This is great information as it will help you avoid training overload.
PHILLIPS SMARTSLEEP
is a headband that you wear at night. In addition to tracking your sleep, it also has a number of features designed to help improve your sleep. E.g. it will play sound to help you get to sleep quicker and during the night to enhance the quality of your deep sleep. The device will also wake you up (a smart alarm) at an optimal time. I.e., when you are sleeping the lightest as opposed to being woken up when in deep sleep. The SmartSleep device will provide you with a score out of 100 that reflects the quality of your sleep.
SLEEP & WAKE UP LIGHT
is a light that you place beside your bed and it changes the lighting in your room to simulate a natural environment that helps you fall asleep and wake up naturally. Waking up abruptly can increase your blood pressure and stress levels, which can be avoided when gradually waking up to natural light The device also has breathing exercises which link to changes in light intensity to help you relax and unwind, in preparation for sleep.
SOMNOX SLEEP ROBOT
is a ‘smart’ pillow for you to cuddle or spoon in bed. Currently, it doesn’t provide any sleep tracking but as it is technology designed to improve your sleep it is included in this list. The device moves up and down to simulate a breathing pace that will help you sleep. When you cuddle the pillow your breathing will become synchronised with it, helping you relax and making it easier for you to sleep. Somnox will also play soothing sounds to help you fall asleep quicker.
EIGHT SLEEP BED
is a sensor smart technology layer that fits over any mattress and includes three layers of premium foam, that turn your bed turning it into a ‘smart’ bed. Eight sleep will provide nightly data on your sleeping habits, coaching you on how to improve your sleep, bed warming, and a smart alarm (which wakes you up at an optimal time each morning). You receive a score out of 100 on how well you slept. The company also do a Smart Pod offering which includes a bed.
SLEEPING APPS
such as Sleepcycle monitor your sleep patterns via a phone or iPad. You place your phone or iPad on or next to your bed at night, and it will track your movement to and provide reports on your sleeping habits. The cost of the apps are mostly between £0-10.
MANUAL RECORDING
is a free method to analyse your sleeping habits, and make changes where required. For each day you record some simple observations, e.g., when you went to bed, when you got up, total time you slept, and the number of times you woke you.
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