When Poor Sleep Means Poor Recovery? The Garmin Fenix 7X Solar

When Poor Sleep Means Poor Recovery? The Garmin Fenix 7X Solar

Dale Matson

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Garmin Fenix uses metrics that don’t just examine the length, depth and quality of sleep. When combined with a stress score that is recorded during the day and during sleep, it shows up as a “Body Battery” score that you begin with each day. Sleep is an important variable in overall health. When stress interferes with sleep, it can contribute to major health problems. https://psychcentral.com/stress/is-stress-the-number-one-killer

When I do a lengthy difficult hike in the mountains, my body battery could be as low as 5 (out of 100) at the end of the day. When I do a hike of that magnitude, it also means that I may have up to 72 hours of recovery or more. That does not mean that I don’t exercise the following day but complete rest would speed up recovery.

During sleep, there is some recovery so that I don’t start the following morning with a body battery of 5 even with a poor night’s sleep. However, If I look at my stress score during sleep based primarily on HRV (Heart Rate Variability), There are some nights that show high stress even during deep sleep. 

I realize that as an older person, I no longer get the quality of sleep that I did as a young person. Additionally, Drinking can also have an effect on the quality of sleep. I don’t drink however. I don’t have sleep apnea, finish eating more than three hours before bed time, and have a BMI of 22. I am retired and have no stressors that I am aware of. So why is my sleep so often stressed? Why do I awaken in the morning with brain fog and fatigue even when I have a recorded sleep time over 8 hours?

What I share with so many folks is PSTD. I have suffered many traumatic events throughout my life. I believe there is a hyper-vigilance that is now “on duty” 24/7. There is a wealth of research about this topic. For example, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4197954/

I thought I would show a couple of charts from a couple of nights sleep that typify what I have been saying.

    While the final screen capture is fairly normal, my stress during sleep is more akin to the first two examples. While I think avoiding caffeine entirely would help and having an ordered/structured day would help, I think at St. Paul would say, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8)