Sleep Recording with Garmin Devices
Amongst many data types, Garmin devices are also capable to record sleep which can be analysed in Fitrockr.
Garmin’s Sleep Detection analysis uses a combination of factors to recognize and document sleep. These include heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), respiration rate derived from heartbeat data, wrist or body movement captured with an accelerometer, and time of day.
Once you fall asleep, REM, light and deep sleep stages are analytically detected. Restlessness is recorded along with waking moments during the night, particular attention is paid to times when you are awake for longer than 5 minutes at a time. As a result, the structure of your sleep over the course of the night is revealed. You can see important sleep cycles and how various stages contributed to the whole.
Light Sleep (N1, N2)
Light sleep is the first stage of sleep. Eye movements and muscle activity slow during light sleep as your body gets ready for deep sleep.
Deep Sleep (N3)
As you transition to deep sleep, eye and muscle movements stop completely. Your heart rate and breathing slow. At this point, you become difficult to rouse and are disoriented if awakened. It’s generally agreed that deep sleep has a myriad of health benefits. For example, it helps aid muscle recovery.
Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep
REM sleep is considered the final stage of a sleep cycle. Dreams are common during REM sleep. REM sleep stages tend to start short and grow longer throughout the night. The REM sleep stage is believed to be when your brain has a chance to process and make sense of data. It may even be linked to how you learn new skills.
Awake
In general, it’s best for sleep to be continuous through the night, with few to no stretches of awake time.
Garmin Sleep Analysis can also include a Sleep Score and accompanying insights. These additions are only available with compatible Garmin watches that support advanced sleep tracking. This includes the Venu® 2 series, the fēnix® 6 and fēnix® 6 solar series, the Descent™ MK2 series, the tactix® Delta series, Enduro™, Forerunner® 745, the Forerunner® 945 series and the MARQ® series of tool watches.
Important Information and Restrictions
Recording sleep accurately is a challenging and complex technical endaveour. To overcome some of the challenges, Garmin devices require a sleep timeframe to be configured in the Fitrockr or Garmin user profile; for instance 10pm-6am.
During this sleep timeframe, Garmin devices will switch into sleep monitoring mode to capture sleep that falls into the timeframe.
Sleep and naps outside of the specified sleep timeframe will be inaccurately or not recorded at all.
A workaround of setting the sleep timeframe to 24hrs does not work as it will confuse the Garmin device sleep monitoring logic.
Sleep timeframe can be configured for each user in the Fitrockr Admin & Research Center or by the users themselves. Depending on project set up, it is either done in the Fitrockr Hub app or the Garmin Connect app.
If you need more information on sleep recording restrictions with Garmin devices, please reach out to us or to your Garmin B2B contact.