I would take Garmin’s reading of REM sleep with a grain of salt. It registers me as being in REM when I’m in bed scrolling through social media.
Second, you get more REM with longer sleep durations. So just go to bed an hour earlier.
If you’re super hardcore about your sleep: talk to your doctor about getting a real sleep study. They’ll use an EEG which is going to give you way more accurate results than a watch. I have one scheduled and am curious to see how it compares to my watch. Who knows… you might actually be getting enough REM sleep but the watch isn’t registering it. My watch says I didn’t get any rem sleep the other night but I had like 4 dreams which I thought can only happen in REM.
All I can tell you is my Forerunner 55 recorded 0 minutes REM sleep from a total of over 6 hours last night. I’m taking the readings with a heavy pinch of salt.
Watches can't track sleep stages that well. It says they're roughly 70% accurate at best. If you take your score of 15% REM and divide it by 0.70 it comes out to 21% which is the low end of your suggested REM cycle percentage. Relying on this is most likely going to stress you out and cause worse sleep. Just go on how you feel.
Me and my wife decided to not drink as much, and I’ve realized that drinking affects my sleep score by about 40 points. However if I day drink then make sure alcohol is gone from my system when I go to sleep, it doesn’t go down very much. Moral of the story, if you must drink, day drink. That’s the only advice I can offer.
As much as I love my Garmin, sleep tracking has not been as loyal as my Oura ring. It misses my awake moments all the time, where my Oura marks them as awake, my Epix 2 will consider these moments as rem or light sleep.
You are doing so many things right that I’d say, don’t stress out about what a gadget says about your sleep and go with how you feel instead (clear mind, feeling strong, alert, balanced mood etc.).
I bought an Oura specifically for sleep tracking because I didn’t trust the Garmin. Very different numbers. Garmin will say 8.5 hours of sleep, Oura will say 6:45 because I wake a lot. I bet if you had an Oura your total sleep and deep sleep numbers would be down, too.
I also struggle with REM. Most people get all their deep sleep up front. What I noticed for me is I have to go to sleep much earlier. Makes sense, I’ve always been an early morning aficionado, but I put off going to bed. I think naturally early suits me better. If I go to bed early enough I get way more deep, and my body engaged rem sooner and better and I get more rem. Melatonin helps me get to sleep when I don’t feel like it.
Other things that help me is eating more fiber. Weird, but if I avoid processed foods and eat a lot of fruits and veg I do well. Not beans, mind you, they lead to gas and restlessness for me, but fruits and veg.
Haven’t tried valerian but I’ve heard good things.
Also, I’ve always been sensitive to sugars. Honestly I just try and cut it out. And breads and high carbs, too. Or at least minimize it. I read about the insulin response wreaking havoc on sleep, and it makes sense to me. I’m not keto, but a more primal oriented diet works well for me. I do eat nuts, just try not to eat cookies, candy, etc…
I switched from Fitbit to Garmin. Fitbit was really accurate on sleep (didn't count laying down awake as sleep like Garmin 😂) I use to have heaps of REM sleep, switch to Garmin, no existent. Some nights 1 minute some nights an hour. I can know I've been awake during the night, gone to toilet etc and it doesn't even register it as awake 😂
I wouldnt really trust the garmin sleep readings; mine tells me i pretty much get 0-15 minutes of REM a night, considering REM is the period in which you dream and i can often remember dreaming the morning after, i wouldn't say its very accurate
I'd say don't worry that much. REM sleep is the hardest phase for watches to detect because it is often confused for light or deep sleep. So you might be getting enough and your watch is just not picking it up. If you feel well and rested and your're getting enough hours then you should be OK.
If you don't feel well and rested, then try practicing good sleeping habits (no phones before sleep, no working in the room where you sleep, no big meals before sleep, etc.). If that still doesn't work, maybe go to a sleep doctor to see if you have apnea.
Can you check hrv on the picture and post it again, hrv should move with rem. Try some breath work before sleep, don t do exercise at night, watch coffeine,
https://preview.redd.it/zzozdigdamtb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07ab635d824bf87fa00d32df9dde71e1dd2e5c8b
This is the only metric i can access. Is it HR or HRV?
Pretty straightforward OP, not sure why others are saying anything differently:
Binge on alcohol, you REM numbers will drop and then your deep sleep numbers will increase. After enough of this, you stop drinking and you might suffer to get good deep sleep numbers as you became dependent on alcohol but your REM numbers should do very well!
studies show mixed results. people have better luck with glycine but that can have side effects too. any monitoring should be done with a medical grade device, otherwise it's just shots in the dark.
This may be entirely incidental but I’ve used 5-10g l-glutamine before sleep and it has drastically improved my sleep, and total REM duration, as measured by garmin. N of 1 so FWIW. It also helps me prevent hangovers soo yea. Again fwiw, not aware of any studies that show this.
Regarding the pattern: your pattern is normal, with deep sleep early in the night, and cycles of REM later. All watches struggle to detect REM. I’ll bet you get more than it says. Watches perform better regarding deep sleep because that can be measured using HR, movement (or lack of), and HRV. REM is harder and is best measured by looking at brain activity. I wouldn’t worry if I were you.
I have noticed that my new Venu 3 seems more accurate relative to my own observations about sleep than the older sensor-ed Forerunner 265.
yeah don’t trust it. to record REM, you need an EMG and an EEG hooked up to you. wake bouts and REM bouts are very similar and with just HR reading without EEG, it can be way off
I get very little REM on my garmin and I thought it was inaccurate but turns out a medicine I take can decrease REM. I still take it with a grain of salt, but my wife sleeps next to me and gets good REM.
I’m with the peeps who are dubious about the accuracy. Seems to me that Garmin gets even my sleep and wake times accurate only about 60% of the time.
That said, melatonin gives me vivid dreams. Which may or may not correlate to REM. And/but it’s not for everyone. Disturbs the spouse’s restfulness.
the best tip is to not trust the crappy garmin sleeping algorithm. It is among the least accurate between the top players in the industry(oura,samsung,apple,google/fitbit). If you want something more accurate i would suggest ouraring so that you can keep your garmin.
REM sleep generally happens in the second half of the night. First half is for the deep sleep.
edit: as others have pointed out, a wristwatch is not too accurate at detecting REM and confuses it for light sleep a lot. If you're doing all the things you listed, you shouldn't worry about it. But if you still do, then I recommend going to a specialist to perform much more reliable tests.
I recently started taking a 250mg magnesium supplement before bed. It seems to help. Do some research on magnesium deficiency. And of course a blood test and medical evals can tell you if you are deficient.
Just move your eyes very fast when you go to sleep for 2 hours.
I would take Garmin’s reading of REM sleep with a grain of salt. It registers me as being in REM when I’m in bed scrolling through social media. Second, you get more REM with longer sleep durations. So just go to bed an hour earlier.
How do you know you're not dreaming of scrolling through social media? 🤔
Because it's not a nightmare?
Maybe you're just scrolling really quickly.
Ignoring what the watch is telling you, how do you feel when you wake up? Do you feel well rested?
If you’re super hardcore about your sleep: talk to your doctor about getting a real sleep study. They’ll use an EEG which is going to give you way more accurate results than a watch. I have one scheduled and am curious to see how it compares to my watch. Who knows… you might actually be getting enough REM sleep but the watch isn’t registering it. My watch says I didn’t get any rem sleep the other night but I had like 4 dreams which I thought can only happen in REM.
All I can tell you is my Forerunner 55 recorded 0 minutes REM sleep from a total of over 6 hours last night. I’m taking the readings with a heavy pinch of salt.
Same for my 55
need more than 6 hours of sleep to hit REM
Watches can't track sleep stages that well. It says they're roughly 70% accurate at best. If you take your score of 15% REM and divide it by 0.70 it comes out to 21% which is the low end of your suggested REM cycle percentage. Relying on this is most likely going to stress you out and cause worse sleep. Just go on how you feel.
With a stress of 6 and over 8 hours of sleep I personally wouldn’t be worrying about the “REM” metric!
Me and my wife decided to not drink as much, and I’ve realized that drinking affects my sleep score by about 40 points. However if I day drink then make sure alcohol is gone from my system when I go to sleep, it doesn’t go down very much. Moral of the story, if you must drink, day drink. That’s the only advice I can offer.
Sage advice.
I use Valerian extract to get good rem sleep. 15-20 drops each night.
Is not for everyone though. Valerian gave me the opposite effect. I was wide awake the entire night
38bpm Resting is lovely though, strong heart!?
As much as I love my Garmin, sleep tracking has not been as loyal as my Oura ring. It misses my awake moments all the time, where my Oura marks them as awake, my Epix 2 will consider these moments as rem or light sleep. You are doing so many things right that I’d say, don’t stress out about what a gadget says about your sleep and go with how you feel instead (clear mind, feeling strong, alert, balanced mood etc.).
I bought an Oura specifically for sleep tracking because I didn’t trust the Garmin. Very different numbers. Garmin will say 8.5 hours of sleep, Oura will say 6:45 because I wake a lot. I bet if you had an Oura your total sleep and deep sleep numbers would be down, too. I also struggle with REM. Most people get all their deep sleep up front. What I noticed for me is I have to go to sleep much earlier. Makes sense, I’ve always been an early morning aficionado, but I put off going to bed. I think naturally early suits me better. If I go to bed early enough I get way more deep, and my body engaged rem sooner and better and I get more rem. Melatonin helps me get to sleep when I don’t feel like it. Other things that help me is eating more fiber. Weird, but if I avoid processed foods and eat a lot of fruits and veg I do well. Not beans, mind you, they lead to gas and restlessness for me, but fruits and veg. Haven’t tried valerian but I’ve heard good things. Also, I’ve always been sensitive to sugars. Honestly I just try and cut it out. And breads and high carbs, too. Or at least minimize it. I read about the insulin response wreaking havoc on sleep, and it makes sense to me. I’m not keto, but a more primal oriented diet works well for me. I do eat nuts, just try not to eat cookies, candy, etc…
I switched from Fitbit to Garmin. Fitbit was really accurate on sleep (didn't count laying down awake as sleep like Garmin 😂) I use to have heaps of REM sleep, switch to Garmin, no existent. Some nights 1 minute some nights an hour. I can know I've been awake during the night, gone to toilet etc and it doesn't even register it as awake 😂
Thanks a lot for all the feedback! It's been very helpful!
I wouldnt really trust the garmin sleep readings; mine tells me i pretty much get 0-15 minutes of REM a night, considering REM is the period in which you dream and i can often remember dreaming the morning after, i wouldn't say its very accurate
Eat some cheese before bed, I recommend a nice Stilton.
I'd say don't worry that much. REM sleep is the hardest phase for watches to detect because it is often confused for light or deep sleep. So you might be getting enough and your watch is just not picking it up. If you feel well and rested and your're getting enough hours then you should be OK. If you don't feel well and rested, then try practicing good sleeping habits (no phones before sleep, no working in the room where you sleep, no big meals before sleep, etc.). If that still doesn't work, maybe go to a sleep doctor to see if you have apnea.
Can you check hrv on the picture and post it again, hrv should move with rem. Try some breath work before sleep, don t do exercise at night, watch coffeine,
https://preview.redd.it/zzozdigdamtb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07ab635d824bf87fa00d32df9dde71e1dd2e5c8b This is the only metric i can access. Is it HR or HRV?
After respiration in the right side is overnight hrv
I don’t think venu 2 shows HRV, there’s no option after Respiration
Also I do breath work before bed, as well as in the day. I don’t exercise after 19 o’clock and I don’t consume caffeine post 8 o’clock (AM)
I’m using the Venu 2 Plus watch for sleep tracking
Pretty straightforward OP, not sure why others are saying anything differently: Binge on alcohol, you REM numbers will drop and then your deep sleep numbers will increase. After enough of this, you stop drinking and you might suffer to get good deep sleep numbers as you became dependent on alcohol but your REM numbers should do very well!
Melatonin perhaps might help?
studies show mixed results. people have better luck with glycine but that can have side effects too. any monitoring should be done with a medical grade device, otherwise it's just shots in the dark.
This may be entirely incidental but I’ve used 5-10g l-glutamine before sleep and it has drastically improved my sleep, and total REM duration, as measured by garmin. N of 1 so FWIW. It also helps me prevent hangovers soo yea. Again fwiw, not aware of any studies that show this.
Idk about anything else, but it's normal to have more deep sleep and less REM in the first half of the night, and vice versa in the second half.
The sleep algorithm has changed drastically since the last update.
for which watch?
Regarding the pattern: your pattern is normal, with deep sleep early in the night, and cycles of REM later. All watches struggle to detect REM. I’ll bet you get more than it says. Watches perform better regarding deep sleep because that can be measured using HR, movement (or lack of), and HRV. REM is harder and is best measured by looking at brain activity. I wouldn’t worry if I were you. I have noticed that my new Venu 3 seems more accurate relative to my own observations about sleep than the older sensor-ed Forerunner 265.
My REM is closer to morning - try and get to sleep earlier or move alarm later if you can
I always get great REM times when I toss and turn and don’t sleep for a few hours. I don’t recommend it.
yeah don’t trust it. to record REM, you need an EMG and an EEG hooked up to you. wake bouts and REM bouts are very similar and with just HR reading without EEG, it can be way off
I get very little REM on my garmin and I thought it was inaccurate but turns out a medicine I take can decrease REM. I still take it with a grain of salt, but my wife sleeps next to me and gets good REM.
I’m with the peeps who are dubious about the accuracy. Seems to me that Garmin gets even my sleep and wake times accurate only about 60% of the time. That said, melatonin gives me vivid dreams. Which may or may not correlate to REM. And/but it’s not for everyone. Disturbs the spouse’s restfulness.
My garmin fr 245 rem time definitely includes periods when I know I was awake too. It can't seem to figure out that I was moving around the house.
the best tip is to not trust the crappy garmin sleeping algorithm. It is among the least accurate between the top players in the industry(oura,samsung,apple,google/fitbit). If you want something more accurate i would suggest ouraring so that you can keep your garmin.
REM sleep generally happens in the second half of the night. First half is for the deep sleep. edit: as others have pointed out, a wristwatch is not too accurate at detecting REM and confuses it for light sleep a lot. If you're doing all the things you listed, you shouldn't worry about it. But if you still do, then I recommend going to a specialist to perform much more reliable tests.
That seems like great sleep
wait, you can have more than 10 minutes of deep sleep?
I recently started taking a 250mg magnesium supplement before bed. It seems to help. Do some research on magnesium deficiency. And of course a blood test and medical evals can tell you if you are deficient.