My November sleep check-in fell short of my target of 7-hours, so I was hoping to rally stronger in December to close out the year-long experiment. Let’s see how I did for December.
Success!
I managed to hit my target of 10 nights, but only just barely. This is thanks in large part to my time off from work from December 23rd through the end of the year (5/9 nights). One item of note is that I also managed to get 3 nights on the 14th, 16th, and 17th (Thursday, Saturday and Sunday), which is unusual for me.
On the other hand, I still had long stretches of time where poor bed-time habits and a lack of routine caused me to fall short of my target. My lack of intentionality nearly lost me the challenge for another month. This has been a persistent problem with the sleep challenge all through 2017, which suggests a lack of priority in sleep overall (though I’ll leave that reflection for the 2017 Sleep Review).
At the very least, it feels good to close 2017 and kick off 2018 on a positive note.
Happy New Year!
Ryan
A Paramedic's Notebook 
Hey Ryan! What are you using to track your sleep? I like the idea of setting a month-long sleep goal to help set better habits for myself.
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I’m using a Fitbit (an older model, the Charge HR). It’s a more accurate method than writing down when I go to bed/wake up, and it notes when I’m restless in my sleep. I’m not sure if there are better or more cost effective ways of tracking sleep, but I have no complaints so far. The only note of caution I have is if you are trying to maximize sleep, be aware that for the Fitbit there is a difference between the time you are asleep, and the time you actually track. You might literally be asleep from 10pm on the dot until 6am on the dot, but if you are restless during the night, the Fitbit notes it and it counts against your total time asleep. I’ve been burned on a number of occasions where I was asleep for the target time of 7-hours, but my restless times in the night knocked 15-30 minutes off the sleep duration, meaning I didn’t hit my target. It’s really frustrating, but useful to note.
An interested post went up recently about Fitbit’s sleep analytics – https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-fitbits-6-billion-nights-sleep-data-reveals-us-110058417.html?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
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Thank you! Definitely worth considering taking the plunge 🙂
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