Steven Jonas

September 29, 2014

Like many people, Christel de Maeyer felt that her sleep could be better. Presenting at our 2013 conference in Europe, Christel shares what she learned from collecting over three years of sleep data.

What did Christel do?
Christel tracked her sleep for 2 years with various devices. She tested the effects of different variables on her sleep quality, including consumption of alcohol, keeping a consistent wake time and changing her mattress.

How did she do it?
She used the Zeo to track sleep for two years, before switching over to a BodyMedia device. While making changes she monitored how her sleep data changed, as well as how she felt.

What did she learn?
Before self-tracking, Christel felt that she woke up frequently during the night, and the Zeo confirmed this. On average she woke up around 8 to 9 times. She suspected the mattress could be part of the problem. After considerable research, she replaced her mattress (to one that had a foam top), successfully reducing her wake-ups to 4 or 5.

Christel discovered that her sleep patterns looked significantly different after just two glasses of alcohol. Her REM diminishes to nearly 0% (though deep sleep seems unaffected).

Christel also found that total sleep time was less important for how she felt the next day than the combination of REM and deep sleep. Even if she only sleeps for six hours, as long as she gets at least 2 hours of combined REM/deep sleep, she feels good.

In addition to these findings and others she explores in the video above, Christel has taken her lessons and now helps others with sleeping issues. You can find more at her website.