SLEEPSounder - Putting it all together

Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

When it comes to your sleep, answer these four questions:

1. Do I have trouble falling asleep?
2. Do I have trouble staying asleep?
3. Do I feel rested when I awake?
4. Do I fall asleep easily during the day (when I shouldn’t)?

If your answers are yes to 1 and 2 and no to 3 and 4 - you do not have a sleep issue.

You may be able to improve your sleep quality by falling the recommendations in 'How to Improve Your Sleep'…but feel fortunate and turn your efforts to one of the other pillars.

You will notice that none of the questions here talk of time asleep or amount of deep sleep, REM, or any of the sleep scores you can derive from the variety of sleep trackers.

If you sleep soundly and full of energy, you do not need to track your sleep.

Even if you track your sleep - your answer to these questions is more important than any metric derived from a sleep tracker.

If your answers are not optimal, you will want to improve your sleep habits while assessing yourself for sleep apnea or other sleep disorders.

Use the Wellness Garage Sleep Checklist to assess your Sleep Hygiene and screen yourself for Sleep Apnea.

Using a sleep tracker in this context can be very helpful to understand what actions you are taking that help or hinder your ability to sleep.

Finally, work with a Lifestyle Medicine physician or health coach to improve your sleep habits while addressing other practices that can improve sleep - especially exercise and stress tolerance.