This is a great question and for the most part the only way I could have answered it in the past was based on how I felt in the morning. I would usually either be very groggy and tired or ready to go. But I had no way of actually measuring the quality of my sleep, or lack of.
Over the last two months I have been using an iPhone applications of all things, to monitor the quality of my sleep. It is called Sleep Cycle, and is the best .99 cents I have EVER spent. Here is a graph my sleeping pattern from a random night:
Wait how can an iPhone application determine what sleep phase you are in?
I know this is everyone’s first reaction when I tell them about this program and show them an example of a nights sleep. So here is how it works, iPhones have a built-in accelerometer, this is the component of the phone that senses movement. This is how when you are looking at a photo if you turn the phone sideways it will flip the photo for you, or how some of those cool games work by moving the phone around. So you place the iPhone under your pillow and based upon your movements thorugh out the night it can determine what sleep cycle you are in. I have found that the Sleep Cycle application is very accurate in detecting movement. Also the application well tell you what time you went to bed, when you woke up and your average amount of sleep per night.
What is the point of knowing your sleep patterns?
The is more intelligence to the Sleep Cycle application then simply recording your sleep patterns for you to review later. As of right now I have 2 months worth of sleep data which although is interesting to me, probably not that useful for most people. The main purpose of the application is to wake you up during a light sleep phase. Meaning it is a bio-alarm clock so to speak. The application within 30 minutes of your set wake up time will wake you up when it senses you are not in deep sleep, but instead in a lighter sleep phase. It has been shown that being woken up during a deep sleep phase makes one feel groggy and tired, but being awaken during a lighter sleep phase, you usually feel more rested.
So yes sometimes I will get woken up 15-20 minutes earlier than I want, but it is well worth it for feeling rested, and hey I can always use that extra time in the morning for something. And if that isn’t cool enough, the sounds they have for their alarms are 100 X better than the standard ones that come with the iPhone. They make you feel like your waking up in a soft cloud. This is by far my favorite application I own, and the developers did a great job on it, and are thinking outside the box.
Check out the Sleep Cycle Application:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sleepcycle