#ISleepTo Be Amazing

 

richie-sleeping2

Sleep. It is probably my favorite thing to do. Yeah, kids, wife, family, etc. They are all amazing and awesome to be around but sleep, oh sleep, it is quiet. It is relaxing. It is dreamy, literally.

Sleeping is how I reset and recharge my body as well as my mind. It’s important for everyone to get rest. Unfortunately for some it’s easier than others. My wife and I have had plenty of conversations about how “easy” it is for me to fall asleep, while she may lay restless for hours before finally getting just a fraction of sleep she feels like she could have gotten. Enter sleep monitoring.

SleeptrackerWe could wear a special bracelet or some other wearable device but for us, that just doesn’t work. Personally, I don’t think they are fashionable. I’m happy with my nice beautiful watch and don’t need another gadget that I have to charge on my wrist. Beautyrest to the rescue. Their Sleeptracker monitor was a great solution to a specific need. The Beautyrest Sleeptracker monitor is super simple to setup. Just place the sensors under your mattress where you sleep (in-line with your pillows), plug the wires into the processor, sync up to the app, and you are ready to go. I was very curious how my data would come back. For forever I have always told my wife that it probably takes me about seven minutes to fall asleep. I never measured this so I was excited to learn that after the first night my “Time To Sleep” was six minutes. Six minutes! That’s awesome! After a few more days my “Time To Sleep” has averaged out to 18 minutes. I think I can get that average back down after using the product more.

The other data provided was incredible. Avg heart rate, breathing rate, efficiency, deep, light and REM sleep times, and more. Since I was already confident in how well I sleep I wasn’t surprised to see good percentages with just about everything. What I was surprised to see is that I don’t sleep as much I as I think I should. On a day when my wife let me “sleep-in,” my data was awesome. I need more days like that.

IMG_8494Because I already feel like I sleep pretty good I wasn’t sure how I could use Beautyrest’s Sleeptracker monitor to improve my sleep but then it happened. So when the unit came in the mail and I got it setup it was a work week, so I wasn’t sure about using the Sleep Cycle Alarm feature. I didn’t want to be late. Typically, I have my alarm clock set for 5:30A.M. and 5:50A.M. (just in case). Most of the time I am hitting snooze from 5:30 all the way to 5:50. This has two repercussions; 1) doesn’t make my wife happy and 2) I sometimes wake up groggy, even though I knew I got plenty of sleep I wasn’t sure why. So I started looking at the graphs in the app. I noticed that a lot of times I am in REM sleep right before I wake up. I read that it is best to wake up when you are in light sleep, so I decided to try out the Sleep Cycle Alarm. Instead of setting an alarm to go off at specifically 5:30, you give it a range of say 5:30-6:00, the Sleep Cycle Alarm will work with the senors and determine when you are at your lightest sleep and sound the alarm at that time. If you are not in a light sleep stage by the end of the range then the alarm will sound regardless.

So with this data I was able to use the Sleep Cycle Alarm to start waking me up during my lightest sleep. In turn I have actually been waking up just a little bit earlier than usual but I feel pretty good when I wake up too. Even though I know I can hit snooze, I don’t and I start my day. I feel so much better because of this change.

As I said earlier, sleeping is how I reset and recharge my body as well as my mind. It’s how I become amazing. If I am tired and groggy, I’m not amazing. Beautyrest’s Sleeptracker monitor is proving how getting a little bit of data can make a difference. When at home I can’t be in a bad mood because I didn’t sleep great or having an alarm go off at the wrong time. The same goes for work. Being as amazing as me just doesn’t happen overnight. It takes precision planning and sleep monitoring.  Oh and that photo at the top. That’s me monitoring my sleep. It’s as easy as that. Credit to my wife for taking the photo. I’m glad she highlighted my nose. Look at the size of that thing. Yikes! #ISleepTo be amazing.

I have partnered with Life of Dad and Beautyrest for this campaign, but my opinions are my own.

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Richie

My name is Richie and I am a 40 year old father of two, a daughter and son. I am married to a beautiful woman named Destiny. She is the foundation of our family, and without her, none of this would be possible. During the day I work as a network security administrator for a local school district. At night I can be found illustrating books, working on websites, or creating music, but more than likely though I am spending time with my kids.

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