What was it you were going to do? What did you need? Why did you open the app? Argh!! it’s so frustrating when this happens.

But everyone experiences brain fog moments like that. Brain fogginess can be a result of stress, low blood sugar levels, anxiety, poor nutrition, or hormonal changes—like those experienced during pregnancy and menopause. Yet, the most probable cause is poor sleep. 

We all want to sleep well, but so many of us don’t get enough hours and rarely wake up refreshed. Again, there are so many reasons why that might be—a snoring partner, babies and young children waking in the middle of the night, the wrong room temperature, a lumpy bed and, importantly, the wrong level of light.

To improve your sleep, first become more aware of what your sleep is really like—rather than a hazy guess. The best way to do this is to record your sleep (electronically or manually) for a couple of weeks so you can analyse it and see if there are tell-tale patterns. Recording your sleep in a diary can, surprisingly, be more helpful than a smart watch—but more on that later. if you are in a hurry, click here to download your free sleep diary.

MONITORING YOUR SLEEP

Smartwatches are increasingly popular, and most of them provide sleep analysis. But how accurate are they? Regarding measuring your sleep time, watches and under-the-mattress analysers are increasingly accurate, although some don’t record times of lying awake, which leads to over-estimating sleep time. To determine the sleep stages, smartwatches rely on inactivity levels and essentially use guesstimates as to what stage of sleep you are in. Smartwatches have evolved and no doubt they will become better in the future, but they still produce mixed results for sleep stages, perform worse on disrupted nights, and don’t yet compare to the accuracy of polysomnography tests which are done in a sleep clinic.

Back in January this year, on two consecutive days, I captured the readings from my Withings Analyser—a mat that lies underneath my mattress vs my newly purchased Garmin Swim Watch To see both days, you can view the PDF here.

The time spent asleep was accurate, but as you can see, the sleep stages were wildly different on both days with only Withings showing the time I got up to go to the loo! Which one is the most accurate? Withings Sleep Analyser is widely recognised as one of the more accurate sleep trackers on the market. As well as the sleep stages, Withings Analyser records snoring times, as well as potential periods of sleep apnea. Reviewing several articles that compared popular smartwatches for sleep analysis, Garmin often ranks poorly. So, these results might simply be down to comparing a good with a not-so-great tracker.

UNDERSTANDING MORE ABOUT SLEEP

Sleep has a mysterious quality because during the 6–10 hours we sleep every night, we only have a vague idea of what is happening. We know we dream—even if we don’t remember having them. We also know that without sleep for more than 24 hours, life becomes a nightmare as we can no longer function properly. 

Studies show that even a small level of sleep deprivation can lead to brain fog, grouchiness, and an imbalance of hunger hormones, which can lead to weight gain. Frequent poor sleep, whether that is from insommina or broken sleep, can lead to serious health issues, including an impaired immune system, an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, and hypertension (raised blood pressure). Getting good sleep isn’t just desirable; it is important to our long-term health.

The process of going to sleep and waking up is regulated by the hormones melatonin and cortisol. These oscillate with one another. At around 4 pm each day, melatonin levels begin to rise while cortisol levels slowly drop. By night time, our melatonin levels are higher, making us feel increasingly sleepy. Then, as we then fall asleep, our core body temperature drops. At around 4 am, cortisol levels start to rise, while melatonin decreases. This hormonal switch causes our body temperature to rise, lightening sleep and aiding the waking-up process.

The sleep hormones, along with hundreds of other body functions, are controlled by our master body clock—also known as our circadian rhythms. Our body clock releases melatonin and cortisol according to the levels of light and darkness. Because today, we can switch on a light with the flip of a switch, it is easy for our body to get out of synch with natural daylight and night. We don’t notice just how much our body clock controls our sleeping pattern until it is majorly disrupted—like experiencing Jet Lag. After a long-haul flight to a different time zone, it takes several days for our body clock to catch-up with the new hours of day and night.

SOME QUICK TIPS

To work more with your body’s natural sleep rhythm, try some or all of the following:

• In the summer, use black-out blinds, thick curtains or shutters to make your bedroom as dark as possible.
• In the winter, use a dawn-simulating light to wake up when it is still dark outside. This is a gentler way than using your mobile phone or alarm to shock you awake. I love my Lumi Body Clock Glow. I’ve used Lumie’s dawn lights for more than 15 years.
• Make your bedroom cooler than other parts of your home. 
• As much as possible, go to bed and get up at the same time every day. This regularity also helps the body clock to do its work.

MONITOR YOUR SLEEP FOR TWO WEEKS

Although smartwatches record your sleep, and you can flick through daily and weekly results via a mobile phone app, they rarely give you a way of seeing the entire pattern of your sleep over a long period. In this way, a manually recorded Sleep Diary is invaluable. With a written sleep diary you will see a clear picture of your sleep and the emotions experienced on that day.

Download your copy of my Sleep Diary and print two copies. Keep these beside your bed and for the next two weeks. Then, every morning and every night, just before you snuggle down and when you wake up, take 2 minutes to enter your observations. At the end of two weeks, analyse what you have recorded. Are there any noticeable patterns of when your sleep was better or worse? What can you try as an experiment to make things better? Print two more copies and record what differences occur with your new sleeping habit experiment. 

Let me know how you get on 😊.