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I have insomnia. How would sleep tracking help me?

goldmac2006 said:
Here’s one that I saw the YTer use but it requires a subscription but it’s popular… it’s sleep cycle. Watch the review here:


I have the focus modes that mirror my iPhone. Have you gotten an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro yet? If you have these devices, you can also get an iPhone 16 or an Apple Watch Ultra, which also have action buttons.

This is the action button 2.0 shortcut that also comes with the sleep tracking shortcut I got and modified it:

Both Apple Watch Ultra and all iPhone 16 and 15 Pro users can try it out.
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I do have an iPhone 15 Pro Max currently, but I'm not really using the action button -- haven't thought of an action I really want to use it for.

I did try the Ultra, I love the big bright screen but it's too big for my tiny wrists -- I'm size 1 on the solo loop.
 
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Night Spring said:
I do have an iPhone 15 Pro Max currently, but I'm not really using the action button -- haven't thought of an action I really want to use it for.

I did try the Ultra, I love the big bright screen but it's too big for my tiny wrists -- I'm size 1 on the solo loop.
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Wait, when did you upgrade to the iPhone 15 Pro Max? I thought you had an iPhone X and mentioned that you needed to upgrade to use the Apple Watch Series 10. I prefer the Action Button 2.0, or if you’re unsure about its purpose, use it as a silent switch.

Same here. We discussed why the ultra-wide Apple Watch Ultra is great for battery life and large screens, but why they felt like bricks when we tried them on.
 
goldmac2006 said:
Wait, when did you upgrade to the iPhone 15 Pro Max? I thought you had an iPhone X and mentioned that you needed to upgrade to use the Apple Watch Series 10. I prefer the Action Button 2.0, or if you’re unsure about its purpose, use it as a silent switch.

Same here. We discussed why the ultra-wide Apple Watch Ultra is great for battery life and large screens, but why they felt like bricks when we tried them on.
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After I posted that I had the X and needed to upgrade. ;)

Joking aside, I upgraded at the end of November. Got a good deal on a used one on Swappa. It's in perfect condition, I'm very happy with it. I may have mentioned it in passing here and there. But I mostly hang around in the watch and AirPods forum, so I don't mention my phone much unless it's relevant to the watch.

I was very tempted to keep the Ultra even if it did feel like a brick on my wrist, but was talked out of it, lol. I so wish Apple will make a smaller model or switch the regular watch to a flat screen!
 
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Having another screen to stare at is not something an insomniac needs. If anything you should be getting screens out of your life. Use a Timex.
 
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Night Spring said:
After I posted that I had the X and needed to upgrade. ;)

Joking aside, I upgraded at the end of November. Got a good deal on a used one on Swappa. It's in perfect condition, I'm very happy with it. I may have mentioned it in passing here and there. But I mostly hang around in the watch and AirPods forum, so I don't mention my phone much unless it's relevant to the watch.

I was very tempted to keep the Ultra even if it did feel like a brick on my wrist, but was talked out of it, lol. I so wish Apple will make a smaller model or switch the regular watch to a flat screen!
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Sure thing! I recently upgraded to my 15 Pro in a blue tatty. I found a new one on eBay that was a great deal, but it didn’t come with the Apple box. I was totally fine with that, though. I did watch a video from a Japanese YouTuber who’s an Apple fan, this popped up in my feed. He did a really thorough analysis of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 in both colors. He said that the ultra on small wrists can make it look a bit bulky and more like a brick when we wear trail loops or alpine loops. He also mentioned that in terms of bands it might be better suited for wearing leather or link ones for nicer occasions.

Here’s the link to the video. It’s long almost an hour long but it’s still good.
 
The Cockney Rebel said:
I hardly get any sleep.

Maybe a couple of hours, with medication, if I’m lucky.

How would sleep tracking help me?

Also, does it auto recognise sleep, now, and record that?

Thanks in advance.
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The more you connect yourself with persistent-feedback devices, the less you will deep-dive into the sleep you surreptitiously en voice as so-sorely-needed in your Life.

"You need healthy, natural sleep."

"Choose some Valerian root, and get more exercise." ;)

Persisting in a Space of vigilance around the matter creates a reverse-feedback loop, and only adds to your distance from the Goal 🤷‍♂️
 
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Night Spring said:
Hmmm. I have all my devices on silent all the time, and when sleep focus comes on, it just turns on all my devices -- I think there's a setting somewhere to automatically share the focus mode on all devices.

Mapping the action button to a shortcut that turns on sleep focus is an interesting idea, I'd have to think about whether that's useful for my use case. Thanks.
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If you use „if“ commands, maybe even get the „Actions“ app, you can basically map smart automations to it, using time of day, location/network availability, Bluetooth, is device moving, etc.
Maybe that helps with having more than basically just Sleep on your action button.
 
I've got a sleep disorder and I've been wearing some kind of fitness tracker watch for years to help with the sleep issues. It's been a huge benefit for me because knowing how much I've slept recently helps me plan out my next few days with confidence. Having that extra degree of control reduces my sleep anxiety.

How much I slept last night isn't nearly as useful as having a log of how much I've slept in the past week, but sometimes knowing how many hours I logged the previous night *does* help too.

Some probably think that people like me are doing ourselves a disservice by stressing out that we didn't hit our 8 hour goal. That's not the way I view my data. I'm rarely hitting sleep goals on any consistent basis. If I see that I managed to get anywhere near 4 hours of sleep, it reduces my anxiety because I know from the past that I'm able to function adequately like that for a good stretch of days.

And if I'm running way behind even that low baseline? It means that even if I feel fine on that given day, I need to cancel some upcoming meetings and push back some deadlines to give myself room to sleep whenever I can.

I may not be able to control how much sleep I'm going to get, but if provided with the data I need to plan ahead, I have some degree of control over what I'm asking my body to do.
 
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The Cockney Rebel said:
I hardly get any sleep.
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MBKH (I think) had an interview with a doctor a while back. He asked him about all of these health tracking devices. His response was that though they can be helpful in some cases in general he's not a fan. People get obsessed with watching on health data which doesn't relate to their actual health.

I don't think any of my doctors (at a top 10 medical center, Apple centric) actually look at my health data. They may look at the data from specific apps which measure blood pressure and sugar, but not the Apple Health data.

Have you considered having a sleep study done by a sleep clinic? They can be expensive but it is the first step in figuring out why you are having sleep problems.
 
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Night Spring said:
Yeah, if I wake up after the wake-up timer goes off, then fall back asleep, it doesn't track that. I have managed to sleep through the timer without waking up, and in those cases, I find that the sleep tracking sometimes continues until I turn off the timer. It just depends on if I "wake up" and for how long before I fall back asleep.
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All watches are a little iffy in this area though I've found Fitbits to be more accurate at determining when you're actually asleep vs when you're not moving much.

My bigger issue with Apple Watch's sleep tracking is that it's so hard to edit your sleep times when you notice that they're wrong.
 
Hi OP! I had one small crisis a couple of years ago, it lasted a week but it seemed ages. Try to eliminate your anxiety focus. Technology didn't help. Try to meditate, exercise yourself. Valerian root helps before going to bed. All the best!
 
I cant offer any advice, but I definitely understand where you're coming from. Sleep deprivation is a real thing, and hopefully you're not there yet. My annual routine check-up is scheduled next month and the 2nd thing on my list to talk with my doctor about is my sleep. I notice its taking me longer to fall asleep, I dont sleep for more than a couple of hours, and I'm up and wide awake by 3am and cant get back to sleep. Hope everything works out for you and you're able to get some improvement with your sleep!
 
I realise this may not be true for everyone, but personally I've found that any added focus on the amount of sleep I get is the absolute worst for overcoming insomnia. Which rules out sleep tracking. Yes sleep quantity and quality are important. But I've long felt that insomnia can be one of those conditions where the less you know, the better.

I don't even have a bedside clock these days. Just my phone led flat with no night display. Not long ago I stayed overnight with family. There was a ticking clock on the bedside table, a grandfather clock down the hall chiming every half hour, not to mention the noise of early morning industry getting going outside. And then there were the seagulls. I've never craved a harpoon so badly in my life.
 
Grayburn said:
In what way have you found it tracking your sleep wrong out of interest?
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It may be because I have a very low resting heart rate, but it always thinks I'm asleep if I sit still for more than 20 minutes. I was hoping that it would improve over time as it got to know my patterns better, but I still have to edit my sleep logs almost every single day to purge around 2-3 hours of time it thought I was asleep.
 
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I have insomnia. How would obsessing about it with data help me?

It won't.

Exercise regularly, but not after 5pm.
Don't drink caffeine after 12pm.
No TV or electronics one hour before bedtime.
Get tested for depression and bipolar, because it could be a serotonin issue.

I take Trazodone for maintenance insomnia. Works great.
 
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It may help you track sleep quality, but I did prefer garmin in this role.

- Melatonin
- Exercice
- Less than 2 SUs of coffee /day
- Low sugar -> Keto Diet

Those will all have more impact than a gadget, although the gadget might help you understand the problem.

PS: Don't be rude.
 
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Flowstates said:
It may help you track sleep quality, but I did prefer garmin in this role.
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Garmin isn't very good at sleep tracking for anyone with sleep abnormalities. I loved my Forerunner 265, but I had to give it up because no mattter what I did, I just could not get the sleep tracking to even be in the right ballpark. The people who seem to be able to make Garmin work for them seem to be people who can follow predictable schedules and routines.
 
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the Watch will only give you 'data' to possibly understand your habits/situation.

I wanted to get the watch to see 'if I was getting any sleep'. Before the pandemic I was down to 2.5hrs of sleep with long periods of wake during the night. the watch didn't help me sleep more, just understand how I was sleeping. Again, the watch was a tool—not a solution. Im now up to and average 7hr a night (mainly due to dietary habit changes, more daily activity, and other stress relief methods. the watch now helps me confirm 'how im feeling' by seeing the data.

There are many ways to help with insomnia and no silver bullets. Try a combination of any/all of them to find what works for you. Nevertheless, Im very happy using the watch the way I did, it was beneficial. Good luck
 
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smirking said:
Garmin isn't very good at sleep tracking for anyone with sleep abnormalities. I loved my Forerunner 265, but I had to give it up because no mattter what I did, I just could not get the sleep tracking to even be in the right ballpark. The people who seem to be able to make Garmin work for them seem to be people who can follow predictable schedules and routines.
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I agree that the quality of the tracking might be less accurate, but for me ... Considering the battery life of my current iWatch and my unwillingness to budget mental capacity to remain mindful of the charge level ... The Garmin just provided with a more consistent data sampling.
 
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Glad I found this thread. I don't have an apple watch yet, but thinking of getting one this spring and sleep tracking is one of the big things I'd love to do. What I can't seem to find out is whether you NEED a 3rd party app to track sleep properly. Some things I read say you need one to get the data usable into Apple Health app. Is this true? It seems like the way Apple markets this is should do decent sleep tracking out of the box. I'm not looking for bells & whistles, just the basics of sleep times and phases.
 
bhagemann said:
Glad I found this thread. I don't have an apple watch yet, but thinking of getting one this spring and sleep tracking is one of the big things I'd love to do. What I can't seem to find out is whether you NEED a 3rd party app to track sleep properly. Some things I read say you need one to get the data usable into Apple Health app. Is this true? It seems like the way Apple markets this is should do decent sleep tracking out of the box. I'm not looking for bells & whistles, just the basics of sleep times and phases.
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I think you are seeing outdated info. It used to be that you needed 3rd party apps to do sleep tracking, but Apple has gradually added native sleep tracking functions, to the point that the native system has now almost completely caught up to 3rd party apps. So as of now, you don't NEED 3rd party apps to do sleep tracking, but you still find people who prefer 3rd party apps, because they think they are better than native sleep tracking.
 
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