New Sleep Tracker

Sleep has not gone well, at least my perception of it.  Changed from fixed times to let your body tell you what to do.  Neither of them quite right, but generally I felt better with fixed times once performed faithfully over a few weeks.  Tried to revive my old sleep App still on the phone.  They wanted money.  Not worth money, so Uninstall.  Lots of apps to replace it.  First one wanted a promise of money after seven days.  Uninstalled quickly.  Next one let me see what their device calculates for free.  Put it next to my pillow.  Wife put it on shelf behind the bed, not realizing it was left on the bed intentionally.  Straightened that out.  Second night, recorded only one minute then shut off.  Finally, last night I got data.  The electronic assessment exceeded my internal assessment.  Sleep time was about where I hoped it would be.  Wake time underestimated.  I do not know how the App calculates the deep and light sleep levels, but I did better on the deep side than usual.  I assume they calculate REM by absence of movement.  They gave mine under 1% though I recall active dreaming, even a little of its content, not at all lurid but worthy of interpretation, near the completion of last night's sleep.  It was probably more than 1%, though with the phone closer to me but still a second person in bed, true lack of motion with the phone settled on the shared mattress may be hard to detect.

Too soon to make an assessment of the App and whether it will contribute to improved sleep.  I got up just a little past my arbitrary target time.  I felt poorly for sure, achy, a little stiff, a tad unsteady but not dangerously so.  With no vigor, I filled my obligation of dental hygiene, then started to perk up.

The purpose of sleep is to enable peak function the following day.  I've been functioning reasonably well, past my prime, not sure what optimal in my Medicare years really is.  Have been able to exercise with consistency on my morning schedule, do my eight-minute stretch program in the late afternoon, usually not grudgingly.  And most days my mind has remained adequately agile.  So sleep must be OK for its end purpose.  It's intermediate purpose of having me feel my best still has elements for a sleep tracker to identify, or perhaps a sleep lab.