Having made a mess of dietary guidelines they are about to make a new mess

[grumbleweed]

I just read this article about sleep stages on my fitbit app...
This quote at the end stands out...
"...We can do things to help improve the quality of our sleep, but we all have a baseline that determines how much of each sleep stage we’ll get.”
That's something I've noticed...no matter how many...or few...hours I get, the proportion of each sleep stage is consistently the same from night to night. Unless it's been an exceptionally restless and wakeful night...which is rare.

[Gilli]

Interesting GW. By comparison I average 12% awake [15 -27% benchmark for women of my age]; 21% REM [12 -22% benchmark fwoma]; 55% light sleep [40 -60% benchmark fwoma]; and 11% deep sleep [8 - 16% benchmark fwoma].

I always feel much better during the day when the deep sleep has been good and that (together with being restless and awake) seems to vary most and it is never clear to me what undermines it apart from difficult conversations late in the evening with geographically distant family members in other time zones - I rarely sleep well after one of those.

It would be interesting to compare figures with other members here who record their sleep cycles via fitbit or similar.

I loved the idea of the cooling mattress topper but I am neither brave enough nor wealthy enough to order one. My husband is a Yorkshireman through and through - I know which buttons not to push.

[grumbleweed]

Looking at my 30 day average + benchmark, I have 10%/15-27% awake, 18%/12-22% REM, 61%/40-60% light, and 10%/8-16% deep.
Actually, our stats are quite similar. We both have less than average periods of wakefulness. A good thing!
My deep sleep is rarely enough...part of getting older.

[Mamie]

Just checked mine. 18% Awake, 13% Rem, 56% light, 13% deep. I think i’m going to keep a record over the next few weeks and see how it varies. I’ve got holidays coming up so it will be interesting to see how that affects the figures.

[grumbleweed]

I went to bed VERY late...yet got 3x my usual amount of deep sleep. I'm struggling and feel as if I could fall asleep coffee cup in hand.

[Kentsydney]

Yes I agree - no way will I ever trust government guidelines again in fact I’d do the opposite!