Transcript
I analyzed four years of sleep and activity data from my aura ring and was pretty shocked by the results. You can get some cool info from the graphs on their website, but I went full nerd on the raw data. First, I created a correlation matrix to see which variables were linked. But many of the metrics have a ton of overlap. It's pretty obvious that total sleep time and total bedtime have a strong link, and that the broad sleep score and activity scores are pretty correlated with the variables that they are calculated from. And here's where the plot thickens. I was all set to see this grand story unfold where my workouts and step counts led to me getting a much better night's sleep. But instead, absolutely nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. An active day did not help me fall asleep faster or sleep better, which just goes to show that sometimes our intuitive assumptions are wrong and real science lies in testing our hypotheses. But there were some interesting correlations. Bedtime? but not just for the reasons you'd think. Sure, late nights mean less sleep, but the type of sleep that gets affected is pretty fascinating. With late bedtimes and early wake-ups, my body clung to the deep sleep like a life raft, while throwing my light sleep and REM sleep overboard. And speaking of deep sleep, when that went up, my heart rate variability also went up, or maybe the reverse. And HRV is like a sneak peek into your stress levels and nervous system help, where going up is a good thing. So yet another reason why getting good sleep is important. And physical activity also did help to improve HRV a bit. correlation was how when my body temperature went up, so did my heart rate and my respiratory rate. But HRV went down, and I spent less time moving and more time sleeping and basically was sick. When I got COVID, I could see it in my metrics before I even felt bad. Now, you might be thinking, cool story, bro, but not very useful, so why bother even wearing a tracker? Well, I've got some compelling reasons, which I'll go over next time. And talk about accuracy.
Additional notes
Do you wear a sleep ir activity tracker? Which one, and what have you found most useful about it so far? #science #health #sleep #edutok #ouraring @ouraring