Sleep can be easily overlooked as part of a healthy lifestyle for seniors and can be difficult to change bad habits like reading or watching TV-video feeds when we should be sleeping.
These charts show the 4 stages of sleep each night and there are charts for our 30-day average and how we compare to others in our age and gender group.
What Are The 4 Stages Of Sleep Cycles?
The sleep charts break down the sleep cycles into 4 stages.
- Awake Time This is pretty self-explanatory when you wake up at night.
- REM Rapid Eye Movements or dream time. During REM you’re regurgitating daily activities and emotions. Also at this time, you synthesizing protein at the cellular level.
- Light Sleep takes up more than 50% of the night. It’s when your body processes memories, and emotions and you regulate your metabolism.
- Deep Sleep The brain goes offline. Your muscles are very relaxed, you’re not dreaming and your body secretes growth hormone, which is associated with cellular fixing & repair and rebuilding your immune system.
What is the Normal Sleep Pattern?
The average person using Fitbit gets about 6 hours and 30+ minutes of sleep. And about 55 minutes is spent in the Awake cycle.
Most users get a sleep score between 72 and 83 which is not too bad. A good sleep score would be between 80 to 90 and if you have a score over 90 then consider yourself as excellent.
How do you find the sleep charts on your phone app?
This is very simple.
After opening the Fitbit app scroll down to you see a purple circle with a moon and a Z. You will see the number of hours you slept last night and your sleep score. Open it.
- The first chart is your Sleep Score for the week and just below in dark blue will be your weekly average per night and the average score for the week.
- Scroll to the right are the Hours Slept for the week.
- Scroll again to the right is your Sleep Schedule. This shows the pattern of when you start sleeping wake up and finish sleeping according to times set in the Sleep Hours And Goals.
- Hours In Sleep Stages is the next chart. This shows the total time in stages for the week. by touching the chart a full page will pop up with an option to see a monthly view.
- By touching the chart below the weekly average you will see the sleep stages and below that are the most important sleep shart being your 30-day averages and benchmarks to others in your age group.
How do you set Fitbit Sleep Hours and Goals?
This is very simple
- Open your Fitbit phone app
- Tap your photo in the upper left corner
- Scroll down to Goals and tap on Sleep
- By taping on Time Asleep Goal you can set the hours and minutes for your new goal.
- By setting the times for Bedtime and Wake Up Time helps set consistent stability so your body knows when to relax and sleep.
Sleep Score
The Sleep Score gives a quick picture of the quality of sleep, based on time awake, sleep stages, and heart rate.
The Sleep score is an overview, measuring mostly the time sleeping compared to awake time, deep & REM, and heart rate & restlessness.
Fitbit rates the scores as
- 100 – 90 Excellent
- 89 to 80 Good
- 79 to 60 Fair
- Less than 60 Poor
As you can see down below is a weekly average for your Sleep Score and an average of time sleep time.
What if you are reading a book in bed? I am not sure what that looks like or how it registers in the sleep stages yet.
Hours Slept
This gives a quick view of time sleeping during the week and by looking below you can see a weekly average. There is also a monthly chart available.
I have set my hourly sleep goal at 7 hours per night, hence the white horizontal line.
Monthly Sleep Charts
Sleep Stages For October 2021
Having a lot of dreams so I’m surprised REM is so low. I do want to bring down my awake time.
Sleep Hours
The stars represent more than 7 hours of sleep that day. 13, I think that’s a record.
Goals & Actions
- Have more stared nights
- Bring down Awake Time.
- Be more consistent at going to bed at the same time
- Have adrenals and cortisol work smoothly
Sleep Stages For September 2021
This compares the 4 stages of sleep to men in my age roup. I’m below average for awake time and would like to increase deep sleep this is when the body repairs itslef.
Blood Oxygen Fluctuations At Night
I just found this chart in the Sleep section of the Fitbit App.
It shows the fluctuations in oxygen use while sleeping.
Measured while sleeping, this chart shows the fluctuation of your blood oxygen saturation. Fitbit says if you see frequent high readings you may want to talk to your doctor.
Sleep Stages For January 2021
15 days, I think this is a record for days over 7 hours
Increased REM or dream and Awake stages.
Fitbit Sleep Stages For December 2020
These Sleep stage comparisons show a well below average for awake time.
This Fitbit chart for sleep hours shows 13 days over 7 hours of sleep for the month of December 2020.
Having 14 days over 7 hours of sleep is a new monthly record. However, I am not increasing my REM sleep cycle.
I may be having trouble managing caffeine, yeah maybe too much coffee and tea.
I have been really bad about setup evening routines which are wreaking havoc on how I wake up and I assume sleep as well.
Goals for February will include an evening routine to close the day, prepare for tomorrow, and relax for a good night’s sleep.
Fitbit Sleep Stages For September
I would have thought the REM or dream states would have increased more and it looks like deep sleep went down (too much coffee).
Dreams have increased and my sleep scores have gone down.
My average sleep score is down from last month, REM is up by 2 percentage points and deep sleep is down by 2% points. Hopefully bringing down the amount of caffeine will help bring this score up.
Goals: Hopefully cutting down on caffeine and sticking to a bedtime routine will decrease the Awake Time and increase REM or dream stages.
Fitbit Sleep Stages For August 2020
Here is a comparison of my 30-day average compared to the benchmark of men my age including times for being awake, REM or dream, Light and Deep sleep.
Starting a class on Dream Yoga so expect to see REM or sleep stage increase and hopefully wake states will decrease as well.
Sleep Charts for July 2020
Awake time is below average and light sleep is on the high end compared to others in my age range.
Thursday I included some matcha tea in the diet and brought my scores down.
My sleep time over the last year has improved and my sleep score overall has increased too.
Sleep Goals in August will include setting up a prep time before bed and some chai tea in the afternoon and early evening. Get a sleep score over 80.
Sleep Charts for April 2020
These Fitbit charts compare a nights sleep to a 30-day average and compare it to others in the same age and gender group for awake time, REM or dream, light and deep sleep stages.
My scores have not changed that much. Charts are showing I’m getting more sleep much less awake time than the average person my age and more REM or dream stage with more dreams.
Sleep Charts Hourly and Stages for July 2019
Hourly Sleep Chart
At the beginning of the month I was traveling and towards the end started visiting coffee shops to get a little work in early in the morning.
Goals For August
Cut down on the coffee, set up a nightly routine including exercise, meditation, and turning out the lights at 10:30.
There is some New research studying the correlation between sleep, health, and the balance of hormones. Initial studies show that we tend to wake up with high levels of cortisol and insulin. So this may be not a good time to start the day with carbs like a bagel, but maybe some quick exercise and protein & healthy fats for breakfast may be a faster way to balance.
My awake time is still below normal and think that’s a good thing. However, the REM or dream time is way too low. I think that has to do with too much caffeine.
Sleep Charts for May
These charts are: 1 My monthly average compared 2, other men my age.- Awake time is on the low end and I think that’s good.
- REM is low. and would like it to increase.
- Light Sleep is high.
- Deep Sleep is high and wonder if it’s because I’m active or if something is amiss. Do I need more protein?
Overall, I’ll cut down on caffeine and make sure there is at least 1 meditation practice every day.
Fitbit Exercise & Activity Chart Comparisions
Healthy Weight Loss Chart
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