Sleep Cycle

I've been using Sleep Cycle to track my sleep for a few weeks now. For a while my results were awful and inconsistent. One night I'd get 45% sleep quality and the next I'd get 80%. At first it seemed like the best nights were ones when I took melatonin, but that ended up being a quirk.

The enlightening part of the app was the amount of time I spent in bed. Normally I don't even spend a full 8 hours in bed! No wonder I am always tired. Sometimes I go to bed when I get off work on Saturdays and stay in bed for 16 hours because I am so exhausted.

In an effort to change this habit I took a 3 hour nap on Saturday and got up to enjoy the rest of my first day off. I've also rearranged my small house to make a bedroom out of the sunroom.

Cats on the bed.

I made a sleep mask for the days I work, dug up some of the classical music I inherited when my Dad died, stopped taking Benadryl and melatonin, and despite their presence in the above picture, the cats are banned from the sunroom while I sleep.

Sleep Cycle App

Working out consistently, decreasing my caffeine/sugar intake, cutting out sleep meds, napping on Saturdays instead of sleeping all day, having a dedicated bedroom, the sleep mask, calming music, and focusing on being in bed for at least 8 hours has made such a difference.
If you have a smartphone I highly recommend getting an app that tracks your sleep!

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