9 votes

How the Apple Watch tracks sleep—and why

1 comment

  1. Saigot
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    I can very much understand why apple would take this position, but REM sleep tracking has made my life significantly better. I get really really bad migraines, at their worst I would have a bad...

    "You can't really coach yourself to have more or less REM stages," he says. "We felt like that wasn't the best way Apple could add value here on sleep. We focused on the transition to the bed, which we think is way more actionable, and will result in people getting a better night's sleep, which then has secondary effects of perhaps your REM stages sorting themselves."

    I can very much understand why apple would take this position, but REM sleep tracking has made my life significantly better.

    I get really really bad migraines, at their worst I would have a bad one once a month (no chance I can do anything, I can barely stand). They are triggered when I sleep poorly a few nights in a row and then experience a lot of stress. Using a REM tracker (this one: first with just my phones tracker, then 2 smart watches) and keeping track of my stress (spreadsheet with a 1-10 rating) I was able to find a pattern and predict my migraines about 80% of the time. With just a spreadsheet rating my stress and sleep quality I was completely unable to find a pattern at all. With this information I've been able to find and avoid a bunch of bad patterns and my migraines are down to once every couple months (5 months without a migraine right now)

    Obviously this is just one anecdote, but I at least have been able to significantly improve those REM cycles.

    5 votes