You may have read my previous post on Sleep Deprivation, which highlighted the scary effects that long term sleep deprivation can have on your health. Obviously there are many causes such as long working hours, being a new parent or stress which can affect your sleep. For me it has always been anxiety. I can be absolutely fine for the 2 hours before bed, but as soon as I get to bed I start thinking about tasks I have to do, things I forgot to do and how I forgot to buy milk earlier in the day. I kid you not, my brain starts listing the most ridiculous things. I will then find myself two hours later  still awake and finding myself reaching for a strong coffee when I wake up at 6am!

There are many sleep trackers on the market and I decided to do something about my sleep deprivation by trying out the S+ by ResMed . What I initially loved about this sleep tracker is that it is non-contact, you simply place it on your bedside table and sync it to your smartphone or tablet. So if you’re someone who doesn’t like the watch-style sleep trackers then this is a good alternative. It’s also a very clean and simple design which fits any bedroom interior. Set-up is really quick and easy and after the initial set up I decided to have a quick nap to check that everything was working properly.

So how does it work?

Well firstly, once you are ready to sleep you are taken to the pre-sleep page.

You then spend about a minute answering the questions above, the results in which work together with your sleep chart to give you your sleep analysis the next morning.

If, like me you suffer from an overactive mind you can use the mind clear option to jot down your thoughts, lists for the next day or anything that is making you anxious, or you can record it via a voice memo. There is also a sleep alarm where you can choose your time window and this ensures that you are woken during a light sleep rather than a deep sleep, I think this will particularly beneficial for the upcoming darker mornings.

My favourite section of the pre-sleep is the Relax to Sleep which lets you choose from a variety of sounds to help you fall asleep. I have found that the sounds help to de-clutter my mind, and the Ocean sound was by far the most effective for me.

Sleep Analysis

It’s very exciting when you look at your first sleep analysis. I tend to go to bed no later than 10pm and wake up at 6am. So in my mind I couldn’t understand why I was always so tired in the morning when I had slept for 8 hours! However on analysing my sleep chart and analysis it showed me that my sleep environment wasn’t ideal, my room was far too warm. And I was taking a while to fall asleep and then only actually having about 5 to 6 hours of actual sleep, due to at least 2 sleep disturbances a night. Obviously if your sleep environment isn’t right, you’re going to be waking up every few hours because you are too warm or to cold.

As you can see my first sleep score and analysis was pretty terrible to say the least. 4 hours sleep is not going to make anyone productive. Over the course of 7-10 days my sleep really improved. I probably had about 2 not so great sleeps but I have been seen a huge improvement over the weeks and I have found that the pre-sleep routine of jotting down my thoughts before sleep and the relax to sleep has really helped my overall sleep and put a rest to my anxiety at night. The sleep alarm has ensured that I wake up whilst in a light sleep so I feel less groggy in the morning and ready to the face the day.

At £129.95 I think this is a great investment for your health.

Feel free to comment below if you would like anything else explained in more detail.

Latoya x

*Item sent to me by S+byResMed, but as always opinions are my own.