[glaive123]

This is a great question.

As others said, the data is contaminated. Likely people who are sick sleep a lot more.

That said, I'm one of those people (healthy, I think) who sleeps 9-14 hours every day. My goal every night is to sleep as long as I possibly can. Nights when I only hit 9 hours is usually because I had to get up to go the bathroom.

I have Sleep Apnea but treat it with a CPAP and went from 20 awakenings per HOUR to just 0 to 2 per NIGHT. But the amount I need to sleep hasn't changed for some reason. I definitely feel dramatically more rested after sleep than I used to though.

I started using AutoSleep app with Apple Watch Series 4 and it's been incredibly interesting. It uses your heart rate to automatically track sleep without you touching the app. So far, I vary from 15 minutes to 1 hour of stage 4 deep sleep per night. The average person needs 1.5-2 hours per night so I am not hitting that. My recent 6 day average is 30 minutes. There is barely a relationship between length of sleep and amount of deep sleep. Just this week I had one night with 6 hours and one night with 11 hours, both totaled 15 minutes of deep sleep.

I'd love to compare notes with someone else who uses the AutoSleep app.

[nikkwong]

Just went ahead and bought a series 5 Apple Watch because of this comment. I have a long tumultuous history with sleep apnea and have been desperately trying everything to figure out how to improve it. I typically sleep 10 hours per day (the sleep apnea is that bad), so I'm going to start recording with the app you've mentioned and see what happens. Thanks so much! Feel free to each out to my email in bio and we can start comparing once i have some data.

[glaive123]

Awesome! Will definitely reach out and let me know what yours says. My biggest concern is understanding the accuracy of the app. Part of me thinks it's really accurate and the other part doesn't think so.

I think one of the issues with my current bedroom might be noise/air flow (oxygen) which is stopping me from getting the amount of deep sleep I need.

I also have been hacking my CPAP and tested increasing the pressure by 2 per night. Doing this dropped my API's from 2 to nearly 0.

[epmaybe]

How do you know you are healthy?

Edit: This isn't meant to be accusatory, I'm just curious

[glaive123]

No accusation taken.

Well, I'm not sure if my sleep is normal. That's for sure.

Other than Sleep Apnea, which has been treated to a large extent; I feel dramatically more rested after I began using a CPAP (best evidence) and my CPAP reads 0-2 awakenings per night (assuming it's accurate but not verified); although I'm not sure if it's been treated fully because I still need a lot more sleep than other people.

Other than Sleep Apnea, I have no health issues or problems and am very high functioning physically and mentally. I eat a healthy diet and regularly exercise.

So by those measures I think I'm healthy. But I am still in my early thirties.

[ip26]

To be frank most people with sleep apnea aren't.

[glaive123]

Actually, I am very physically fit and eat a healthy diet. I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea at age 20. I likely had it at a minimum since puberty.

[URSpider94]

You’d be surprised. A friend’s 11-year-old daughter who is athletic and slim just got diagnosed the other day, and she is getting a CPAP. Frankly, I think there’s a lot of confirmation bias because fat people who snore are much more likely to go in for a sleep study.

[epmaybe]

Yeah obesity is definitely associated with obstructive sleep apnea, no doubt. But what if they just have a thick neck and are otherwise healthy? I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt

[glaive123]

You are correct, I am actually young and physically fit as well as eat a healthy diet.