What a Bad Night’s Sleep Looks Like on Oura
I’ve been in South Africa for the last few months (it was only meant to be a few weeks) and last week I was finally allowed to fly back to Vienna. Before flying out from Cape Town we spent the night in a hotel in one of my favourite places, Sea Point on the Atlantic seaboard. The hotel was great, I can’t complain about anything in particular but I had a terrible night’s sleep and my Oura stats the next morning didn’t surprise me:
There were a few things I did, or didn’t do, that all contributed to my lack of restful sleep. The first thing was my comfort. The pillows were puffy and soft, not what I’m used to. I didn’t feel uncomfortable when I went to bed but maybe the change from my usual pillow was enough for my body to feel like something was off. If you have a specific pillow, weighted blanked, or anything that affects your sleeping comfort, let me know what works for you!
Another thing I’ve discussed in a previous post is room temperate. It’s usually better to sleep in a cool room and I especially battle with heat. I had the air conditioner on but I had it set too low because I woke up in the middle of the night freezing. I tried to regulate the temperature by putting it in sleep mode, but again I must have done something wrong while half asleep because I woke up some time later boiling hot! Note to self: figure out how air conditioner remotes work.
Besides what was going on in my room, there were some things going on in my body as well. Firstly, I ate a late dinner because of my travel time. I like to stop eating 2–3 hours before bed, on this occasion it was about an hour or less before I went to sleep. Also, I ate Pasta! I know when I eat it I will wake up the next morning with something that feels like a “carb-hangover”. Obviously no pasta dinner is complete without a glass of red wine, so I had one of those too!
All of these things played their part in my night of not-so-restful sleep. In the end I still got over 7 hours so my sleep score was 80. My readiness score, however, was waaay down at 63. You can see my Resting Heart Rate was quite high (for me) at 56bpm which was probably the pasta and wine. My recovery index was dismal!
Luckily I didn’t need to be incredibly productive that day because I was travelling. I love having this information because it helps me be nicer to myself… I have things I can do to ensure I get a good night’s sleep when I need it, and I also know when I should take it easy and not over exert myself. I think the future of healthcare will become more like this, where each individual is able to take more care with their own health.
If you have a story about sleep and what works or doesn’t work for you, please share it with us in All About Sleep! I love hearing people’s unique experiences and understanding more about this amazing thing called sleep!
Hope you are feeling ready today!
Pete
