November Sleep Results

On November 2nd, I announced that November was Ipecac Gets Some Sleep Month. My goal was to improve my really poor sleep record in order to improve my health. I promised that I would update as events warranted, but I was asleep, so events didn't really happen. Probably should have realized that.

Anyway, how did it go? Anecdotally, I didn't think it was a fantastic success. I often stayed up later than I had planned to and never consistently got even seven hours of sleep.  Non-anecdotally, I crunched some data and compared my November stats with that of October to see if there was any improvement.

All stats were recorded using my Fitbit to measure actual sleep time, not just time in bed.  Click to enlarge.

Now let's break that down.

First, let's look at the October Stats:

Avg. sleep per night  -  6.37 hours
Median night  -  5.67 hours
Number of days slept 6 or more hours = 13
Number of days slept less than 5 hours =  6
Least amount of sleep  -  October 1  -  4.15 hours
Most amount of sleep  -  October 30  -  10.93 hours

And here are the November stats:

Avg. sleep per night  -  6.39 hours
Median night  -  6.08 hours
Number of days slept 6 or more hours = 18
Number of days slept less than 5 hours =  1
Least amount of sleep  -  November 2  -  4.73 hours
Most amount of sleep  -  November 12  -  9.57 hours

My average hours of sleep per night marginally improved from 6.37 to 6.39 hours. But October had much greater swings and so the average is improved by those few really high sleep days (including October 30 where I apparently slept almost eleven hours). The Median, however, showed a marked improvement from 5.67 hours to 6.08 hours, almost half an hour more. Best of all, the number of days I slept at least six hours went from 13 to 18.

The chart below has a trendline that tells the story. My hours of sleep definitely improved. Click to enlarge.

Thus ends my month of sleep. I didn't abandon the goal on December 1st; I've been trying to keep to a better schedule so the positive trend can continue. This first week in December has been a mixed bag. But I'll keep at it. I really need the sleep.