Sleep Deprivation and the Jawbone UP
Lately I’ve been feeling really tired. I’m someone who gravitates towards 8 or 9 hours of sleep a night and, while I rarely get that, I thought I was hitting between 7 and 8 hours. I often take a nap in the evenings so I have enough focus to get some work done before bed. I was starting to believe that I must have some sort of serious health problem because I thought I was getting enough sleep, but was still feeling exhausted.
Enter the Jawbone UP. I received one of these bracelets from my relationship with the Verizon Wireless Insider program. It serves as a pedometer, but also tracks the amount of sleep you get each night. The associated app (available for iOS and Android) can even help you track your food/calorie intake, mood, and even your friends’ steps. The bracelet can act as an alarm clock, a stopwatch, and an activity reminder (when you’ve been lounging around too long).
When you go to bed, you can quickly set your Jawbone UP to track your sleep by pressing a button on the device. The information is not as accurate as you’d get in a sleep study, but the Jawbone UP uses your movement to determine how long it takes you to fall asleep, how much deep sleep you get, and how often (and for how long) you are awake. The results were surprising. On nights where I thought I was getting about 7 hours of sleep, I was actually getting 5-6. I know I’ve been waking up a lot, but I didn’t realize how much sleep I lose when that happens.
I’m going to have to work on getting more sleep. I need to get to bed earlier and give myself more time to get the sleep I need. And I need to figure out why I’m waking up so much in the middle of the night. As for being woken up randomly in the morning, I have my kids to thank for that!
The Jawbone UP retails for $129.99 and can be found at Verizon Wireless stores, as well as other retailers like Amazon.com.
Disclosure: I received a Jawbone UP for review purposes. There was no compensation and no promise of a positive review. This post contains an affiliate link.
Christy, I KNOW my sleep is horrible but I didn’t know just how bad it was till I started using the JawBone. According to the tracking, I fall into deep sleep almost immediately, even during nap times, I never sleep more than 5 hours & I feel exhausted and unmotivated.
I’m going to be making some changes in how I approach sleep & sharing my Jawbone Sleep log with my doctor. It might well be that I need a sleep study.
Great post, it’s good to know I’m not alone with the sleep struggles.
I have always joked that the song Who Needs Sleep from Barenaked Ladies is my theme song. All kidding aside, the UP has also been an eye opener for me. I am watching sleep over a few more days to see if there is more of a pattern that develops. I am also waking up all the time and need to see if going to sleep earlier could help.