Get the lowdown on your nightly patterns

As cyclists, we know the benefits of collecting data; the more information we have, the more targeted our approaches can be. Sleep is no different. Knowing how much sleep you are getting – and its quality – is the first step to making improvements.

By tracking your sleep, you are putting yourself in a position to change your sleeping habits. It’s very easy to think you are getting sufficient sleep because you have gone to bed at an acceptable hour. But the time it takes from your head hitting the pillow to falling asleep can be significant – or the time it takes after bedtime for you to stop scrolling and put your phone to one side. Sleep trackers allow you to see the time you have spent sleeping and reveal how regularly you get enough sleep.

Garmin, Fitbit and Withings all produce watches with sleep-tracking capabilities. These devices use a combination of heart rate sensors and accelerometers to detect when you fall asleep and determine the quality. However, the cost of these and the requirement to sleep with something on your wrist can be off-putting.

Instead, you can use an app on your phone to track your sleep. Sleep Cycle is one app that determines your sleep by using the microphone to detect sound produced from your movements. You may be concerned about being recorded, but with the Sleep Cycle app your data is not sent anywhere – it is processed locally on your phone and then deleted.

Although tracking sleep will not directly improve it, having a great understanding about your circadian rhythms is the basis to take control.