Losing Sleep? National Sleep Awareness Week

by Lori Cunningham

This week is known as “National Sleep Awareness Week,” which is the last full week of slumber before we go into daylight savings time this Saturday night.  I’m sure many of you are dreading “springing ahead” and losing an hour of sleep.  I much prefer “falling back” and gaining an hour of sleep myself.

The 2002 National Sleep Foundation (NSF) Sleep in America poll found that 74 percent of American adults are experiencing a sleeping problem a few nights a week or more, 39% get less than seven hours of sleep each weeknight, and more than one in three (37%) are so sleepy during the day that it interferes with daily activities. 1

Are you getting enough hours of sleep each night?  Are you having trouble getting to sleep?  I tend to stay up late, then get up early to prepare my 1st grade daughter for school.  I’m tired when I wake up and practically fall asleep in the afternoon if I dare stop for a minute.  So I don’t.  I just keep  going.  At the end of the night I stop so I can watch our favorite reality shows with my husband  — only to fall asleep soon after in my chair – a tradition in my family.  Needless to say, we have a large backlog of shows in our DVR (but I’m all caught up on The Bachelor!)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommends that all adults get 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, regardless of age.  Hmmm.  that’s not my norm.  On average I get between 5 – 6 1/2 hours of sleep a day.  Okay, so I’m sleepy, but I still am  getting everything done, right?

Wrong.  I have been learning about the importance of sleep.   I learned that “sleep requires both the right mix and amount to be restorative.  Deep sleep and REM sleep are the foundation of restorative, healthful sleep.  Deep sleep naturally occurs more in the early parts of the night.  REM sleep naturally occurs more in the morning.  So if you’re going to bed too late, or getting up too early, you may be compromising sleep quality.” 2  Yikes!

Ahaa!  That explains my wrinkles!  I haven’t been sleeping enough.  Now I know why people say they need their beauty sleep.  It also explains why I always seem to have a cold longer  than anyone else in my household.  It is time to pay more attention to my sleep patterns.

Zeo Personal Sleep Coach

As many of you know, I have been testing out the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach, a gadget I fell in love with at The Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas a couple of months ago. You can check out my first night with the Zeo – Trouble Sleeping?  The Zeo Personal Sleep Coach Can Help.  I have been using the Zeo now for nearly one month.  It seemed fitting to give you my review of the Zeo during this all important Sleep Awareness Week. 

Zeo describes itself as a” new kind of educational tool and motivational program that helps you understand how you are sleeping, reveals habits and behaviors that my be helping or hindering your sleep, and teaches new ways that my help you get a better night’s rest.”  Zeo’s tag line is, “the more you know, the better you sleep.”

As we sleep, we go through three stages of sleep that are important  for our bodies and state of mind3:

1. Light Sleep –  Light sleep accounts for about half of the night and bridges the gap between the other sleep phases
2. REM – REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is a mentally active phase of sleep when our most vivid dreams occur.  This phase of sleep is essential for memory formation and storage, as well as for emotional processing.
3. Deep Sleep – This sleep phase is important for physical and emotional restoration. During deep sleep, the body releases growth hormones for healing and growth, while the immune system strengthens and renews itself.

How the Zeo Works

When you open up the package you get the nice bedside clock, shown above, a black headband (shown on top of the clock above), and a SD card which plugs into the side of the clock.

To begin is simple:

1. set the clock to the correct time
2. ensure the SD card is plugged into the clock
3. charge the headband – the charging station is on top of the Zeo clock
4. after the headband is charged, put it around your forehead using the adjustable bands
5. sleep
6. in the morning, put the headband in the charging station and look at your sleep stats
7. take the SD card and put it into your computer to upload your stats to myzeo.com.  You don’t need to do this everyday, the SD card can hold up to 7 days data
8. On myzeo.com you can evaluate  your sleep history and enter in data about what you did the evening before which may have affected your sleep
9. put the SD card back into the clock and start the process again

Each morning you use the Zeo, you will receive your ZQ score – similar to an IQ.  Your ZQ is  derived from the total amount of sleep you had, the time spent in REM, light, and deep sleep.  Your score decreases dependent upon a lessor amount of sleep, how long you were awake and how many times you woke up during the night.

 Here are my results from the first night of using Zeo compared to March 7th:

As you can see, I have dramatically cut down the time I am awake during the night.  I am also getting more deep sleep.  Of course, each night varies – there are still some nights where I don’t sleep like I should.

The left chart comes from myzeo.com after I uploaded my sleep data.  It depicts my sleep patterns on March 7th.  The red shows you awake time, the green is REM, the gray is light sleep, and the dark green is deep sleep.

The chart on the right also comes from myzeo.com and shows my trend over the past 7 nights.  There is a lot of good useful data you can track online if you’re vigilant about uploading your data.

What I learned using the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach:

o  I get just about all of my deep sleep in the first hour of sleep.  So now I do all I can to protect that hour.  I make sure that I go to bed one hour earlier than my husband so my sleep isn’t disrupted by snoring or his coming to sleep soon after and waking me up.

o  I am not getting enough deep sleep due to the fact that I’m not getting enough sleep at night.  I need to get closer to the 7-9 hours of sleep a night goal.

o  I am a very active REM sleeper – which means I dream a lot throughout the night.  I often remember my dreams in the morning, so I’m not surprised by this.  Compared to others my age though, I spend more time in REM then they do.

o  I used to have trouble falling asleep and waking up at night.  Since starting with Zeo, I have cut this time in half.  Zeo has a personal coach e-mail program for an extra fee, that sends you personalized reports of how to cut down awake time.   The e-mail’s made me aware of how exercise and drinking alcohol close to bed can mess up your sleep patterns.  They also sent me a mp3 of ways to relax before bedtime.  I no longer look at the clock throughout the night when I’m awake.  I used to do that a lot and it would stress me out since I could see that I was missing sleep.

Hey, I’ve still got a long ways to go.  My sleep score average is 71.  The ZQ average for my age is 74 — and I can be an over achiever at times – so I need to get cracking!  But I started at a 69 average, so I’m getting better.

A Mom’s Perspective

It is my hope that you will treat your sleep with higher priority and find ways to obtain better sleep.  Since I have been using the Zeo to focus on my sleep more, I have more patience with my kids and feel more balanced.  I highly recommend the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach if you’re struggling with sleep or could use help in obtaining more restorative sleep. 

The headband is very comfortable and I just love waking up every morning and checking my sleep stats.  One more important thing to add is that the Zeo can be used as a normal alarm clock or you can enable the “smart wake” feature which wakes you up within a certain designated time frame.  It will wake you within this time frame when you are in light sleep – as opposed to REM.  Waking up in light sleep will be easier for you and your body can adjust.  It plays a nice jingle that gradually gets louder.

Take advantage of National Sleep Awareness Week and begin assessing your sleep now.  For more ideas on how to get a good night’s sleep, visit the Zeo Sleep Center.  The Zeo Personal Sleep Coach retails for $279 and can be purchased online at myzeo.com. 

If anyone decides to get one, please let me know.  We can compare our stats and help each other.  And to all I wish you a good night’s sleep!

1  http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/how-sleep-works/let-sleep-work-you

2  http://myzeo.com

3  http://www.myzeo.com/pages/66_the_power_of_deep_and_rem.cfm