10 Garmin Smartwatch Features That Work Better if You Wear Your Watch to Sleep

October 31, 2022

Whether or not you notice it or not, loads is going on in your physique whilst you’re sleeping. The connections between your mind cells are reorganizing, your cells are repairing, your vitality ranges are being restored, and molecules reminiscent of hormones and proteins are being launched — all as you cycle via completely different sleep phases.

It is smart, then, that in order for you essentially the most full image of how nicely your physique is working, you’ll need to observe your physiological metrics throughout sleep as nicely. That’s why it’s so necessary that you just put on your Garmin smartwatch to mattress; not solely can you benefit from options reminiscent of sleep rating or the built-in alarm clock, however you’ll additionally see enhancements within the accuracy of different knowledge that require round the clock monitoring to provide a real image of how your physique is functioning.

Let’s stroll via a number of the Garmin smartwatch options (which fluctuate by system) which are impacted by sleep.

OK, so this one is apparent. Garmin smartwatches are good, however they aren’t analyze-your-sleep-quality-from-the-drawer-in-your-nightstand good. You should put on your look ahead to it to have the ability to do its job. And we do suggest that you just take note of your sleep habits over time. Sleep is a vital perform straight linked to bodily and psychological well being, and constantly not getting sufficient of it’s related to hypertension, coronary heart illness, stroke, poor psychological well being and Kind 2 diabetes. Checking your Garmin sleep rating every morning gives you a score of how nicely you slept through the night time based mostly on six various factors, permitting you to make changes reminiscent of an earlier bedtime or much less caffeine all through the day.

Curious to see the place you slot in together with your friends when it comes to sleep stats? We analyzed how nicely Garmin customers sleep — and never surprisingly, high quality sleep led to different constructive metrics.

A characteristic distinctive to Garmin smartwatches, Physique Battery is a real-time take a look at your private vitality sources. Powered by Firstbeat Analytics, your Physique Battery measurement displays your bodily exercise, stress, relaxation and sleep — and the way every impacts your vitality ranges. On a scale of 1–100, your Physique Battery quantity will point out how prepared you might be to sort out a problem at any given level — or how prepared you might be to relaxation. And since high quality sleep is the physique’s most respected time for restoration, you’ll have to put on your look ahead to it to watch simply how efficient that restoration is to your Physique Battery.

Garmin smartwatches present all-day coronary heart monitoring knowledge utilizing the Garmin Elevate coronary heart fee know-how sensor, an optical sensor constructed into the again of your system that detects your coronary heart fee by shining a inexperienced gentle via your pores and skin, which is mirrored by the pink cells in your pores and skin’s blood vessels. There are numerous necessary causes to trace your coronary heart fee, and realizing your resting coronary heart fee (RHR) is considered one of them.

Your RHR is the variety of instances your coronary heart beats per minute (bpm) whereas your physique is in a state of relaxation. Garmin wearables sometimes measure RHR if you are asleep, often not lengthy earlier than you get up. For regular adults, the RHR can fluctuate between 60 and 100 bpm, though Garmin knowledge exhibits that the extra lively an individual is, the decrease their RHR tends to be. A decrease RHR sometimes displays cardiorespiratory health, high quality sleep and low stress — however it’s essential to put on your watch throughout sleep to get essentially the most correct studying. 

HRV is one other significant metric that Garmin know-how makes use of your coronary heart fee to measure. You could not have realized, however your coronary heart doesn’t really beat recurrently — it’s not a metronome. There are various lengths of time between every heartbeat, and whereas these adjustments aren’t sometimes dramatic, they do present important details about your physique. These adjustments in time are regulated by your nervous system, and adjustments in HRV standing can reveal how nicely your physique is responding to emphasize and to leisure. Analyzing these shifts helps to supply the premise for stress monitoring, Physique Battery monitoring and sleep monitoring, however an evaluation takes time. On your watch to provide you an HRV standing, you’ll have to routinely put on it in a single day for at the least 3 weeks. This can set up a baseline HRV standing from which future nights of sleep may be in contrast. Garmin wearables solely measure your HRV standing throughout sleep — so in case you’re not sleeping together with your watch on, you gained’t get the advantages of this characteristic.  

Suitable Garmin smartwatches can act as pulse oximeters, which estimate how a lot oxygen is in your bloodstream at any given time because it travels across the physique in your circulatory system. Whereas Garmin smartwatches will not be meant for medical functions, you possibly can flip in your Pulse Ox perform to measure your oxygenated blood whilst you sleep, supplying you with an concept of how nicely your coronary heart, lungs and blood are working collectively. For those who discover something that appears odd about your Pulse Ox studying, you’ll be capable to direct these issues to a well being care skilled to find out if extra investigation is required. 

The Garmin coaching standing characteristic is a device that lets athletes see how successfully they’re coaching. Suitable Garmin watches absorb a wealth of day by day knowledge, together with your VO2 max, HRV standing and quantity of coaching, to provide you a complete image of your private health along with particular steerage that will help you obtain your objectives. You’ll be proven considered one of 10 standing classes, which vary from peaking to strained — and the extra knowledge, the higher. How nicely your physique reacts to all conditions — together with sleep — is a vital indicator of your general health stage.

The restoration time characteristic on suitable Garmin smartwatches supplies customized insights into how lengthy it would take earlier than your physique has absolutely recovered from the work it’s performed throughout an exercise. Naturally, sleep monitoring knowledge is a vital consideration right here, as sleep is a giant issue into how nicely your physique recovers. An particularly dangerous night time’s sleep will prolong the quantity of really helpful time earlier than your subsequent powerful exercise, whereas some high quality z’s may also help to get you again on observe quicker.

Accessible on choose Garmin GPS watches and biking computer systems, the Day by day Advised Exercises characteristic goals to enhance your health stage in addition to obtain your optimum coaching load by choosing day by day working or biking exercises designed to supply simply the suitable stage of problem. Simply precisely how difficult is difficult sufficient is set by contemplating a number of elements, together with your present coaching load, load focus, restoration time, the profile of just lately carried out exercises and — you guessed it — sleep knowledge. As a result of generally a great (or dangerous) night time’s sleep makes the distinction between what’s appropriately difficult and what’s practically unimaginable.

Even when your coaching standing has began to say no, that doesn’t imply it’s time to begin placing in 110% effort always. Utilizing primarily the earlier night time’s sleep monitoring knowledge and the restoration calls for of any current actions in addition to your acute coaching load, HRV standing, sleep historical past and stress historical past, the Garmin coaching readiness characteristic does precisely what it seems like — it tells you the way prepared your physique is for a troublesome exercise. Pushing your limits earlier than your physique is prepared can hurt you greater than it might allow you to, so getting an correct image of your sleep knowledge may be instrumental in figuring out precisely what sort of exercise will finest fit your wants.

The stamina characteristic on suitable Garmin watches helps to explain your capability for a great efficiency — or a poor one. Measured on a scale of 0–100%, your stamina rating displays how lengthy you possibly can fairly anticipate to maintain going at your present stage of effort. Naturally, the place fatigue resistance comes into play, so does sleep. To calculate your real-time stamina, your watch considers your physiological metrics, together with each current and longer-term exercise historical past and health ranges.

With a Garmin smartwatch, a world of physiological knowledge is at your fingertips — or, extra precisely, in your wrist — so long as you select to put on it. Subsequent time you hit the hay, you should definitely go away your watch on so it might do its job to the very best of its skills. Don’t have a Garmin smartwatch but? It’s OK— we gained’t decide. You possibly can repair that right here to begin studying extra about your habits and the way they affect your physique. As a result of the extra , the higher you possibly can prepare.