I am the same way. My REM is around 2.3-2.5 hours while my deep sleep is 35 minutes in over 7 hours total sleep. I am nearly 50, and have been tired my entire life. My deep sleep usually comes in one cycle only (sometimes 2, but rarely).

There have been nights I go straight from awake to REM sleep too.

I have only had my zeo about a 4-6 weeks, but it is confirming what sleep studies have shown. 

I awake feeling nearly as tired as when I went to bed. 

I wish I had some answers after all these years of dealing with this, but I don't. It would be nice if we could trade a little REM for deep sleep!

I'm thinking that I must be some kind of anomolie.  People are talking about getting 2hr30min REM as very high, yet I am often averaging 3hr (maximum  4hr30, but usually around 45%).  But the people in this thread complain about not enough deep, as if there's some trade-off happening.  I get between 1hr20 and 1hr50 deep sleep, so I don't have this problem.

I've always been an excessive sleeper.  I will often sleep past 10hr and sometimes 11hr, although my weekday work schedule keeps me sleeping more like 7hr or 8hr.  Even on 7hr nights I get 2hr30 REM.

I actually wish I could get by on less sleep, but when I get my 10hr I usually feel good during the day.  I take lots of supplements.  But only occasionally take Tryptophan or Melatonin.

I am exhausted all the time and I just started the Zeo program. I have had trouble sleeping for years. It has been so bad that I have actually fallen asleep at the wheel of the car at luckily stop signs. When it gets that bad, I don't drive anymore.  My deep sleep is my concern. On average it is only 25 minutes. I suffer from Fibromyalgia.  My doctor informs me that people who have this disorder have an inability to acquire deep sleep.  This is why I feel so awful each day.  Growth hormone is not being released and so muscles and nerves are not being rejuvenated.  A diagnostic possibility for some of you who are tired and achy all the time.

I am one of those people who genetically do not need a lot of sleep.  (Yes, I did the genome thing.)  Most of my life I got by on about 4 hours of sleep.  Since I turned 60, I have needed between 5 and 6 hours.  I have been taking Melatonin for over 15 years to help me get to sleep.  I take 5 mg sublingual.  I also take 100 mg of 5HTP before bedtime.  The 5HTP is a precursor to Serotonin, which is also a precursor to Melatonin. 

Of the 5 hours of sleep, I get about one hour of REM and one hour of deep.  Without the 5HTP, all of the deep sleep is in the first half of the night, but with it, I seem to get more and it is throughout the night.

I'm the same way. 20 years old. It used to be, I'd go to sleep, have a lot of really taxing dreams, and wake up exhausted; then spend the rest of the day recovering. Waking up more tired than when you went to bed is really hard to maintain. I got a Zeo and it showed I usually hit REM first, < 10% deep sleep and often >40% REM, sometimes higher than 50%, which is understandably exhausting because REMing is a lot like being awake.

 

I went to a sleep lab and it turned out I had narcolepsy. My sleep kept getting worse until they tried me on Xyrem, which induces deep sleep. According to my Zeo my sleep is a lot more normal now, and I feel so much less fatigued. So although I have a separate problem that was causing the deep sleep deficiency, I can vouch that missing that deep sleep, and replacing it with REM, leads to a really poor night's sleep (although Zeo really likes REM so your ZQ might be really high).

I am 30 years old, and get ~55 min of deep sleep during a "normal" night (below average, but better than those of you posting so far!).

My deep sleep also occurs mainly during the first sleep cycle ... However, I've made an interesting observation about my deep sleep: 

As background, I should explain that one of my main sleep problems is that I will often sleep in the form of 2 (or occasionally 3) widely-spaced naps, rather than a full 7-8 hr night of sleep.  I wake up after my first sleep cycle (usually ~3 hrs), and cannot go back to sleep for another 3 hours.  When this occurs, my second "nap" will look a lot like my first... meaning a lot more deep sleep!

This isn't the type of sleep schedule I'd recommend (it wreaks havoc on my work schedule!)... but it does drastically increase the amount of deep sleep I get.  So if you're desperate enough, perhaps it's worth a try..?

AJ21 said:

I am 23 years old and have been struggling with "insomnia" for many years, with varying severity. I have been using the Zeo for about a year now and the data has indicated that, on average, I get 7 hours 24 minutes total sleep, of which 2 hours 38 minutes is spent in REM (36% of my total sleep, way above average) and only 33 minutes is spent in deep sleep (7% of my total sleep, horribly below average!). No matter how much total sleep I get in a night, my deep sleep period is always pathetically miniscule and I believe is the cause of why I feel so fatigued and unrestored each morning.

 

Does anybody else have this problem too?? I've done as much online research as I can about the issue but haven't found much of anything. I am otherwise healthy and do get exercise, am not on any medications...I also had an overnight sleep test in a lab some months ago and they found no apnea or restless leg or anything else wrong.

 

I'm desperate to know why my brain doesn't know how to sleep properly!! Would be very grateful for any leads...

---

I recommend exercise. I doubled my deep sleep by adding 60 minutes of walking every day. I can't do anything more strenuous. I think a shorter period of harder exercise would work better.

Interesting thread.

 

sealdrich - when you say doubled, from what to what?

 

I have above average REM (about 2:30) but slightly low deep (few minuted over an hour).  I've done some studying on sleep in general (beyond the good info Zeo advises) and one thing that I found was late day eating of lots of protein can have a limiting effect of sleep patterns.  Apparently the amino acids cue up to pass the blood brain barrier and as such the ones associated with sleep (E.g. Tryptophan) are made to wait if ones that come from typical means are in the line.  Given deep sleep typically comes up front, I'm not sure if this limits it or not but may be another thing to try a post over in the personal experiment section.

I'm also experiencing the same issue. I'll normally get around 2.5hrs of REM with 30-45mins of deep sleep in any given night. I'll wake up tired no matter how long I seem to have slept for.

 

My sleeping patterns have been very irregular recently. There are nights where I would go to bed at 10pm, and others where I will not sleep until around 2am in the morning. The graphs also appears to be all over the place. There are some nights where I will have two or three blocks of deep sleep, and others where I will only have a single block.

 

I'm wondering if the irregular sleeping pattern has something to do with the limited deep sleep that I've been getting. How about the rest of you? Have any of you found that regular sleeping patterns have fixed the limited deep sleep issue?

I normally go to bed between 11pm and midnight. Last night however I intentionally went to bed at 10pm and found that I gained an extra 25 minutes of deep sleep (up from ~30 to 55 mins).

 

It's difficult to know if the earlier bed time resulted in the increased deep sleep, but I'll try it again over the next two days and report back on my findings.

I seem to average about an hour of deep sleep per night.

I have about two months of data, which maybe isn't enough to make any guesses. Perusing the data, it seems like the most of my deep sleep is early on in a night of sleep. The big difference between nights when I have a lot of deep sleep - say, 1:45 - and my average is that the first time I go into deep, I stay there a long time: like 45 minutes of deep sleep straight.  Nights when I get my average, I drop in for much less than that.

 

I don't see that there's much correlation with exercise. 

 

I tend to go to bed later - 12:30 to 1:30am.  I have experienced deep sleep well into the morning when it is light. The long stretches, if they happen, only happen the first dip into deep.

 

Getting more would be better, wouldn't it? I'd be interested to hear what others have found.

I'm another one who gets very little deep sleep - I'm 44 and I get 25-30 minutes per night on my better nights, which is half of the average for my age group, according to the Zeo wheel.  Typically, I get about 45mins to 1 hour of REM, and total sleep 5.5 to 6.5 hours.  It was worse when I first got the Zeo, and I'm mostly concerned with my lack of deep sleep, as I feel pretty tired/low energy a lot of the time and I feel like I'm on a never-ending quest for more deep sleep.

I've been working with a Doctor/nutritionist for the past year on this and experimenting with a lot of things over the past three months and tracking them against my sleep stats in an excel spreadsheet - currently I go to bed around 12:30 - 1:00am (and now my deep sleep is down to about 15 mins/night) so it looks like I do better when I get to bed around 10:30.  Exercise doesn't seem to make any difference for me, nor does sunlight exposure, or meditation.  I've tried a long list of supplements, not many of which really seemed to help- melatonin (regular and time-release), l-theanine, phosphorylated serine (reduces cortisol), kava, ashwagandha, tons of magnesium & calcium, benadryl. Xanax works for a night here or there when I'm really desperate, but mainly increases my light sleep and REM, not deep.  Also, 5htp and another GABA formula (Lentra) give me a  paradoxical effect - they keep me awake rather than relaxing me like most people.  As an aside, however, the 5htp has been an unexpected miracle worker for my IBS.

The few things that have helped me stay asleep, and get slightly more deep sleep, are: a thin wool blanket, because wool regulates body temperature better than synthetic fabrics and I was waking up at 2-3am before, feeling too warm. Now this doesn't happen.  Also, the benadryl does help somewhat, to make me drowsy and fall asleep.  I only take one tablet.  I am a type A, kinda high-strung very left-brained person, and the nights I've gotten the most deep sleep are when I had been out with friends during the day/evening, talking, laughing, basically being very relaxed and not "thinking" all day.  I also listen to delta wave mp3's every night, and this helps me fall alseep, but I haven't seen any increase in my deep sleep because of it.

Two other things that have had a decent impact are taking a couple teaspoons of apple cider vinegar before bed, because even a slightly acid stomach seems to keep me awake for hours and obliterate any deep sleep, and liquid progesterone drops (natural, NOT synthetic) have probably worked better than anything else in terms of consistency for total sleep, as well as deep sleep.  I use liquid (vs. pill or cream) because it's very easy to change dosage quickly.  I've been tested and am slightly low in this hormone.  My doctor tells me that men can also be slightly low in this hormone and can try taking it.

I think deep sleep occurs in the first half of the night for most sleepers, but I find that if I can go back to sleep after 7:00 am for a few hours, I can pick up maybe 10 more minutes of deep sleep, which is a big deal to me. 

I'm still pretty far away from where I want to be in terms of deep sleep, and don't feel like I've found any real answers yet, but the Zeo's definitely helping me evaluate the potential solutions.

I would love to hear anything others have found to have a direct impact on increasing their deep sleep.

CindyG, interesting about the wool blanket. Body temperature regulation has been hypothesized to influence deep sleep. When trying to fall asleep, the idea is to cool the core and keep the extremities nice and warm - that mimics the natural tendency at sleep onset. A hot water bottle at your feet and a small cup of ice water just before you crawl into bed? Maybe I should start doing that...

Interesting idea with the wool blanket. Some of these synthetics are nice to stay warm but invariably I wake up sweating during the night. I'll try wool.

 

I'm not done with the exercise/deep sleep exploration.

 

It may depend on the type of exercise. My working hypothesis now is that if the exercise involves strength, as in lifting heavy weights, it may increase deep sleep.  Single modality exercises (like running or rowing) or metabolic conditioning workouts (body weight exercises like pull ups, push ups, etc) done at high intensity don't seem to have this effect.

 

I'll keep track over the next few months, and post again.

AJ21 said:

An interesting table from the article "Slow Wave Sleep Deficient Insomnia: A Problem in Thermo-Downregulation at Sleep Onset":

 Hi to AJ21, CindyG, Steve@Zeo and others interested in deep sleep, 

I meant to post when in mid-August I first saw AJ21's first post.  I know that I feel more energized, motivated and "with-it" when I've had more deep sleep.  Last Wednesday, I had an amazing night's sleep with seven sessions of deep sleep.  These totalled 2 hr 26 minutes of deep sleep and were 38% of my Z-time. I'm hoping to get to the bottom of what set me up for that wonderful night's sleep! Unfortunately, at this point I can only mention the context and the patterns.  Maybe one of you will recognize something I'm not seeing yet.

1)Rising trend.  I got my Zeo December of last year but didn't have it with me for the 3+ months I was in Afghanistan (mid-Jan-April).  Looking at my monthly averages for deep sleep, I see that for Dec 09, my average deep sleep was just under 45 minutes, with steady increases in May, June, July, and then August, with August at about 1 hour 10 minutes. So far, Sept is about 1 hour 5 minutes, despite that "perfect night" and last night which was 31% deep sleep.

 

Two thoughts:  a) I'm somehow getting a bit smarter about sleep and so deep sleep is increasing (plausible but not likely!) and b) there may be some synergies between mood, deep sleep, and day length.  Like many people, my good moods are enhanced by longer day length, i.e., some SAD syndrome issues.  This might explain the dip so far in September, but day length peaked on June 21 and average deep sleep kept increasing in July and August. According to wunderground.com for my zip code, day length is presently 12 hours 38 minutes.  So possibly I have a day length-mood threshold is somewhere north of 12 hours 40 minutes?

 

2) Zeo-graph patterns. 

Looking at the graph of my perfect night, I actually had more trouble getting to sleep than usual. I had been woken by my son coming home (he lives about a mile away) and then talked with him for close to an hour.  It then took me close to half an hour to fall asleep, which is unusual.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to paste in a jpg image of my sleep graph. I won't bore you with the description of the 7 deep sleep episodes, but I do see a new stair pattern twice that night: a bumping progressively up from deep to light to REM to wakefulness with roughly equal time at each time. Other transitions included deep-light-deep (twice) and deep-light-wake (twice).

 

3) Core and room temperature.  My father was a great advocate of sleeping with an open window and for six months of the year this tended to mean a cold room as well. Ditto for me. For enhancing deep sleep, I can't rule the temperature/circadian rhythm factor out, BUT I had been in the two weeks previous previous to my perfect night, trying to get to bed by about 9pm (a la William Dement) so as to increase sleep time with lower core temperature. 

Surprisingly, my "perfect night" got off to a bad start:  I did not get to bed and to sleep (I almost always drop off to sleep within 10 minutes) until 10pm and then my college-age son woke me up 10 minutes later.  I got up to chat with him and I did not go back to bed until about 11pm. Could the false start and late start to my night's sleep have anything to do with it?  One would think not, but I can't rule it out.

4) Wool bed clothes.  I'm 60 and my main exercise is road cycling: several long rides each week and perhaps some 6-7 miles of commuting a day on perhaps three other days.  I've recently started wearing my Smart-Wool cycling tights as the lower half of my pajamas. I love the feel of the wool and it is incredibly protective on a long cold ride, even a wet ride when you get soaked to the skin. Perhaps wool helps to modulate core temps in good ways?

5)I had missed my long Wednesday ride on the day leading to my "perfect sleep" but had driven a new zero-turn lawnmover for about 30 minutes that day.  I haven't driven a tractor or lawn tractor for many years, but did so frequently growing up on my grandmother's farm.  Could that 30 minutes of "tractor experience" have tapped into all those pleasant childhood memories of hay making and lawn cutting after I got to sleep that night?  (Clearly, I'm grasping at straws here-:)

 

6) Or, was it the pleasant pleasurability of unexpectedly chatting with my son, Chris, just before going to sleep that triggering the seven session of deep sleep. Hmm, this would appear to have the most direct causal link and I think resonates well with (I think it was) CindyG's post about spending time with friends having a positive effect on deep sleep.

 

7) Lastly, I was diagnosed about a year ago with severe sleep apnea.  However, the lab didn't bother to test for positional sleep apnea.  Rather than use a CPAP, I now sleep pretty consistently more or less face down with an Asian bolster pillow tilting my hips and chest to the left or right depending on which leg and arm are up on the pillow.  I have lived in Thailand where almost everyone sleeps with one of these pillows.  They seem to improve spine alignment during sleep and in my case also help me avoid airway closures and those nasty oxygen desaturations.

 

sleep well!

 

This post has been really helpful. In fact I was just googling for "increase deep sleep," and stumbled into this. Google didn't know I just got a Zeo (or maybe it did?). I'm going to try some of these tricks -- especially going to bed sooner -- because I have almost NO DEEP SLEEP recorded so far. Scary.

I just had my first night with Zeo, and found that desipite me getting 8.5 hrs of sleep, my deep sleep was only 0:39 minutes or 7%. I'm guessing this is why I feel unrested. I was then looking for what the optimum amounts of each stage was and I can't seem to find it. Can someone point me in the right direction? I've heard 90 mins of deep sleep is a good thing to shoot for but I don't know how accurate that is.

Mika,

This is a common question; like weight, blood pressure, and other biometrics, everyone wants to know where their sleep falls.  Much like weight and blood pressure, there is a range and an average. Generally speaking, as one's age rises Total Z tends to diminish as do times in Deep and REM sleep, while Time in Wake (after having fallen asleep) increases. What is important to note is that each sleep stage does not decrease at the same rate.  For instance, Time in Deep seems to decrease much quicker than Time in REM when compared to age:  http://bit.ly/f9ek11

That said, there is a wide variation in each of these sleep times. Using the table below, let’s look at the sleep breakdown for people in their 50’s. You can see that Total Z averages 6.5 hours per night while the the Total Z range goes from about 5.5 to 7.5 hours each night. These differences are natural, and if your Total Z moves above or below the averages, you’re certainly not alone.  The same variation is true for the range in ZQ by age.  

 

Age	Total Z Range	REM Range	Deep Range	Light Range	ZQ Range
20-29	6.5 – 8.2 hrs	1.1 – 2.0 hrs	35 -131 mins	3.5 -5.6 hrs	66-105
30-39	6.3 -7.9 hrs	1.1 – 2.0 hrs	30 – 119 mins	3.6 -5.6 hrs	62-99
40-49	6.0 – 7.7 hrs	1.0 -1.9 hrs	21 – 105 mins	3.6 -5.6 hrs	57-93
50-59	5.7 – 7.3hrs	0.9 -1.8 hrs	16 – 90 mins	3.6 – 5.6 hrs	52-86
60-69	5.4 – 7.1 hrs	0.8 – 1.7 hrs	15 – 78 mins	3.6 – 5.5 hrs	49-80
70-79	5.2 – 6.8 hrs	0.6 – 1.5 hrs	11 -63 mins	3.7 – 5.5 hrs	44-73

This discussion makes my "TOP TEN of 2010" . 

 

This is a very important subject and thank you all to supplied the good posts.  I'm also suffering from the problem with limited DEEP sleep.

But my problem is serious, because as an athlete, DEEP sleep is vital to the recovery process.  Since getting the ZEO I would have training sessions that didn't seem right. I was weak and thought "am I getting enough sleep"?  ZEO said yes.  Performance said NO. 

 

That question, "Am I getting enough sleep" is the wrong question to be asking.  With Zeo, it's now the type of sleep. 

I'm going to investigate the time of going to sleep since my initial research has shown that DEEP starts around 9pm according to the "biological" timer of the human body. 

 

Does anyone know the hormones that DEEP sleep releases ?  Could levels of Testostrone be connected to Deep Sleep ?

 

Cool . 

Steve@Zeo said:

 

Age	Total Z Range	REM Range	Deep Range	Light Range	ZQ Range
20-29	6.5 – 8.2 hrs	1.1 – 2.0 hrs	35 -131 mins	3.5 -5.6 hrs	66-105
30-39	6.3 -7.9 hrs	1.1 – 2.0 hrs	30 – 119 mins	3.6 -5.6 hrs	62-99
40-49	6.0 – 7.7 hrs	1.0 -1.9 hrs	21 – 105 mins	3.6 -5.6 hrs	57-93
50-59	5.7 – 7.3hrs	0.9 -1.8 hrs	16 – 90 mins	3.6 – 5.6 hrs	52-86
60-69	5.4 – 7.1 hrs	0.8 – 1.7 hrs	15 – 78 mins	3.6 – 5.5 hrs	49-80
70-79	5.2 – 6.8 hrs	0.6 – 1.5 hrs	11 -63 mins	3.7 – 5.5 hrs	44-73

---

I'm wondering if there's more detail on these data. For instance, it would be nice to know the averages & standard deviations in addition to the ranges.

 

Thanks!

Great thread.

 

I've been using Zeo for over a year. I'm a 53y.o. strength athlete. No endurance training.

 

Zeo helped me get over the stress of trying to remember my sleep patterns so I could try to improve them. Once that problem was solved, my focus shifted to deep sleep. As was pointed out, Deep sleep helps with physical recovery. Since I want to get more explosively strong, I need better recovery.

 

My observations w/ Zeo mirror some others: initially all of my Deep sleep occurs before midnight. I never had Deep sleep past midnight. Thus, I go to bed regularly at 10pm. This improved my Deep sleep consistency to about 45-50 minutes.

 

Like others, I tried a variety of supplements and sleep aid prescriptions. The one that started causing post-midnight Deep sleep was DHA-PS (or PS-DHA). This is a phostidylserine (PS) molecule combined with a DHA fatty acid molecule. According to the studies, the addition of the fatty acid molecule improves the ability of the PS to cross the blood-brain barrier and actually effect the hypothalamus (H) and/or pituitary (P). The hypothesis behind this result is that X hours post meal, the amount of circulating glucose decreases enough that the brain gets the signal of hypoglycemia. This causes the H and/or P to send a wake up signal to the adrenal gland and dump enough adrenaline to keep you out of Deep sleep and even wake you up. When this (or whatever it is) woke me up, I'd take another DHA-PS tablet, fall back to sleep and have one or two sometimes three more shorter cycles of Deep sleep past midnight. Nice! I had tried plain PS but had no effect from it.

 

I've also found that the brand of melatonin has an effect on my sleep. I was using LEF brand sublingual melatonin. Due to a lack of that brand on the shelf at the store, I switched to Natural Factors "Stress-Relax" 3mg sub-lingual. Wow, what a difference.

 

I'm now consistently getting 60 minutes of Deep sleep a night. I've even had a night with 80 minutes (this for an over 50y.o. woman!) Woohoo.

 

Full disclosure: I get no remuneration from any supplement or device supplier. I'm just a retired engineer w/ sleep issues I'm trying to solve.

CB57,   Thanks for the great post.  I found the idea that hypoglycemia could be causing awakenings quite intriguing as I often have 10 or more recorded by my Zeo on a given night although most of them I do not remember.  Typically, the first 90-120 minutes of sleep is free of these >2-minute awakenings.  After reading your post, I experimented by eating a snack after awakening and I was delighted to find that this had the effect of preventing awakenings for the next 90+ minutes.  Perhaps I should get a glucose tolerance test.

I'd originally posted that I was getting between 30-45 minutes of deep sleep per night and was quite concerned that this was in the low end of the bell curve for somebody who was 30-39 years old.

 

After reading AJ21's post where he listed the article "Slow Wave Sleep Deficient Insomnia: A Problem in Thermo-Downregulation at Sleep Onset", I was concerned that high body temperatures through the night may have been reducing my ability to descend into and maintain periods of deep sleep. I've since reduced the amount of covering on my bed to the a point where I feel almost uncomfortably cool, and I have noticed that my deep sleep has soared to a consistent 60-80 minutes each night. I've also noticed that I'm waking fewer times during the evening as well.

 

So for those who are looking for a new and simple to implement tactic for getting a few more minutes of deep sleep in, give it a go! :)

benmorris said:

This discussion makes my "TOP TEN of 2010" . 

 

This is a very important subject and thank you all to supplied the good posts.  I'm also suffering from the problem with limited DEEP sleep.

But my problem is serious, because as an athlete, DEEP sleep is vital to the recovery process.  Since getting the ZEO I would have training sessions that didn't seem right. I was weak and thought "am I getting enough sleep"?  ZEO said yes.  Performance said NO. 

 

That question, "Am I getting enough sleep" is the wrong question to be asking.  With Zeo, it's now the type of sleep. 

I'm going to investigate the time of going to sleep since my initial research has shown that DEEP starts around 9pm according to the "biological" timer of the human body. 

 

Does anyone know the hormones that DEEP sleep releases ?  Could levels of Testostrone be connected to Deep Sleep ?

 

Cool . 

---

Hi. I highly recommend a book by Jennifer Ackerman, "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body" in which, on page 160, she mentions that her daughter's pituitary gland, while in deep sleep, "may have begun releasing surges of essential hormones, including gonadotropic hormones" and that the stage "may last a half hour to forty-five minutes". This is mainly in reference to growth. Also, she mentions that Swiss researchers "studied a gene that regulates adenosine in a group of more than one hundred student volunteers, [they] found that the 10 percent of students who had a mutation in the gene gleaned an extra half hour of deep sleep and reported waking up less often than those students without the mutation." So, she says, "how long the stages of deep sleep last for any individual may be affected by genes." On pp. 167 & 168 she mentions a study by a Van Cauter that found that sleep loss impairs the body's ability to perform basic metabolic tasks, such as regulating hormones. There's also discussion of neurotransmitters that are "shut off" during REM sleep (p. 161). The book is excellent on many counts. It brings together the latest scientific research as it applies to all the body's functions in a very readable fashion. It's less than 200 pages and exhaustively researched over many years. Got my copy from Amazon.

briano said:

Steve@Zeo said:

 

Age	Total Z Range	REM Range	Deep Range	Light Range	ZQ Range
20-29	6.5 – 8.2 hrs	1.1 – 2.0 hrs	35 -131 mins	3.5 -5.6 hrs	66-105
30-39	6.3 -7.9 hrs	1.1 – 2.0 hrs	30 – 119 mins	3.6 -5.6 hrs	62-99
40-49	6.0 – 7.7 hrs	1.0 -1.9 hrs	21 – 105 mins	3.6 -5.6 hrs	57-93
50-59	5.7 – 7.3hrs	0.9 -1.8 hrs	16 – 90 mins	3.6 – 5.6 hrs	52-86
60-69	5.4 – 7.1 hrs	0.8 – 1.7 hrs	15 – 78 mins	3.6 – 5.5 hrs	49-80
70-79	5.2 – 6.8 hrs	0.6 – 1.5 hrs	11 -63 mins	3.7 – 5.5 hrs	44-73

---

I'm wondering if there's more detail on these data. For instance, it would be nice to know the averages & standard deviations in addition to the ranges.

 

Thanks!

---

Briano, I'm glad to report that there now is. 

Not only do we have the Sleep Wheel Data--which was pulled from an earlier study--but we also have Zeo user data, in order to see what effect, if any, sleeping in a sleep lab had on the averages.  You can check this all out in a post I wrote, What's Your ZQ?:  http://blog.myzeo.com/whats-your-zq/ 

Zeo data presented is 1 standard deviation from the mean; roughtly 2/3rs of Zeo users pulled fell within this range.

Hope this helps!

Reporting an interesting wrinkle on the deep sleep question: in New Scientist's 5 February 2011 edition, page 8, under the article title "Sleep sorts the memory wheat from the chaff" in the "This Week" section, they report that a study from The Journal of Neuroscience, DOI:10.1523/jneurosci.3575-10.2011, notes "those anticipating a test [also] experienced more slow-wave sleep, known to be linked to memory consolidation". In the experiment, at Univ. of Tubingen in Germany, one group of adults was given the task of learning and told to anticipate a test, and another was tasked but not told to anticipate a test. Those who went to sleep anticipating a test recalled 12% more than those who were not told to anticipate a test. They concluded, "It looks like if you tell someone something is important it gets enhanced more."

to cb57,

i'm wondering what brand of DHA-PS you had success with, and where you buy it.  also, how much are you taking, and when are you taking it?  i have researched the stuff ever since i read your post, but am finding supplements that vary widely in strength and ratios and dosing directions. 

thanks,

dgb333

 

nemesis said:

[...]I've since reduced the amount of covering on my bed to the a point where I feel almost uncomfortably cool, and I have noticed that my deep sleep has soared to a consistent 60-80 minutes each night. I've also noticed that I'm waking fewer times during the evening as well.[...]

---

I reluctantly gave this a try (I love A/C and blankets at night!) by turning off the A/C, turning on a fan and having only a top sheet over me. My Deep has increased from an average of about 13 min./night to 30 min./night. Unfortunately, my REM tanked from an average of over an hour per night to 20 min./night...and as low as 6 min. I still recall (and write down) at least 4 wake-ups each night which is ok as I can easily go back to sleep. My goal is 10% deep and 20% REM.

Steve@Zeo said:

Mika,

This is a common question; like weight, blood pressure, and other biometrics, everyone wants to know where their sleep falls.  Much like weight and blood pressure, there is a range and an average. Generally speaking, as one's age rises Total Z tends to diminish as do times in Deep and REM sleep, while Time in Wake (after having fallen asleep) increases. What is important to note is that each sleep stage does not decrease at the same rate.  For instance, Time in Deep seems to decrease much quicker than Time in REM when compared to age:  http://bit.ly/f9ek11

That said, there is a wide variation in each of these sleep times. Using the table below, let’s look at the sleep breakdown for people in their 50’s. You can see that Total Z averages 6.5 hours per night while the the Total Z range goes from about 5.5 to 7.5 hours each night. These differences are natural, and if your Total Z moves above or below the averages, you’re certainly not alone.  The same variation is true for the range in ZQ by age.  

 

Age	Total Z Range	REM Range	Deep Range	Light Range	ZQ Range
20-29	6.5 – 8.2 hrs	1.1 – 2.0 hrs	35 -131 mins	3.5 -5.6 hrs	66-105
30-39	6.3 -7.9 hrs	1.1 – 2.0 hrs	30 – 119 mins	3.6 -5.6 hrs	62-99
40-49	6.0 – 7.7 hrs	1.0 -1.9 hrs	21 – 105 mins	3.6 -5.6 hrs	57-93
50-59	5.7 – 7.3hrs	0.9 -1.8 hrs	16 – 90 mins	3.6 – 5.6 hrs	52-86
60-69	5.4 – 7.1 hrs	0.8 – 1.7 hrs	15 – 78 mins	3.6 – 5.5 hrs	49-80
70-79	5.2 – 6.8 hrs	0.6 – 1.5 hrs	11 -63 mins	3.7 – 5.5 hrs	44-73

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My first post in the forum.  ;)

 

My concern with a table like the one above is that the range doesn't really tell you what's healthy as opposed to what's typical.  It's further compounded by the fact that it's such a large range for all the age groups, but I'll discuss mine in particular (age 49) and Deep Range.

 

The testing showed 21-105 minutes for my age group, but what percentage of people fell into what range?  If 80% fell into the 100-105 minutes, that's far more revealing of what's normal than the blanket 21-105.  Even if 80% fell into the 21-30 minute range, that doesn't mean it's the healthy range, just that most people don't get enough deep sleep.

I'm using thyroid hormone lab testing as a basis for my concern here.  For years the labs said a range of 1.0-5.5 was normal on TSH because that's where most euthyroid (non-thyroid-symptomatic) people fell in lab tests.  Then a decade ago they started saying that .5-3.5 was normal, and that all those folks with 3.6 to 5.5 were just undiagnosed.  Recently the lab guidelines have been suggested to be reduced to something like 0.3 to 2.0 as normal.  

I've only had my Zeo for a week, and due to a bad headband unit have only been able to get 2 night's sleep recorded, but both nights very low deep time (22 minutes the first, just 7 last night!).  No wonder I feel like the walking dead.  

 

I'm really trying to figure out what it's going to take to finally feel refreshed and able to function throughout the day.

 

Thanks.

Hello Dave62,

Welcome to the forum!  And good luck in getting your deep sleep amounts increased.  Good points about the meaning of ranges!

 

I suppose I am relatively fortunate--at 61--to be often getting >50 minutes of deep sleep a night.  On getting back from a month in Africa, in mid-May, I actually got 1 hour & 26 minutes while sleeping in the Westin Hotel in New Orleans in a room that had windows that didn't open and air conditioning whose air didn't seem that fresh.  I am a big fan of sleeping with open windows and we don't have air conditioning here at home.  My family and I were attending a wedding and it was an enjoyable event.  So was it the 5-hour time shift, the pleasure of spending time with relatives and immediate family, the comfortable bed that was softer then my bed at home, the air conditioning, longer day length than the winter season, or just the ability to unwind after a fairly grueling month "in the field"?  Or some fortuitous mix of several factors? 

Since the deep sleep personal best in New Orleans, I've also had an afternoon nap that was half deep sleep. As I recall the nap was 20-some minutes and the other component was light sleep. 

During a good night, I will start into an initial session of about 20 minutes of deep sleep after about 30 minutes of light sleep.  There will then typically be one more longish sesson fairly soon and then 2 to 4 shorter sessions later in the night.  Getting to sleep by 9am probably does increase my deep sleep, but the record in NOLA was probably after going to sleep about 10pm. 

The Zeo shows me to typically have 4-7 awakenings of >2 minutes per night.  Recently, after a particularly strenuous 90-minute yoga sesson (5-6:30pm I think), I slept through the night without any awakenings and with a reasonable amount of deep sleep.

Best,   Angus

DAVE62 said:

 

My concern with a table like the one above is that the range doesn't really tell you what's healthy as opposed to what's typical.  It's further compounded by the fact that it's such a large range for all the age groups, but I'll discuss mine in particular (age 49) and Deep Range.

 

The testing showed 21-105 minutes for my age group, but what percentage of people fell into what range?  If 80% fell into the 100-105 minutes, that's far more revealing of what's normal than the blanket 21-105.  Even if 80% fell into the 21-30 minute range, that doesn't mean it's the healthy range, just that most people don't get enough deep sleep.

 

I'm really trying to figure out what it's going to take to finally feel refreshed and able to function throughout the day.

 

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The data quoted earlier by Steve@Zeo was pulled from individuals who self-reported as "healthy" in their journals and profile.  By "healthy" we mean no known or reported sleep or underlying health problems of any kind.  As such, this can mean than a reasonably healthy person can get low levels of Deep sleep and still be typical for their age and gender--and feel okay the next day as well. 

 

Think of it like this:  The ranges for typical sleep in healthy individuals is like Body Mass Indez (BMI).  The BMI range is just that--a range of data points that most healthy people cluster around.  The ranges for Deep, REM, Light, and Wake work in a similar manner.  It doesn't matter how many people are around each number, but rather what one can expect from a body that falls into that range.

 

Of course, a healthy (and typical) BMI for one person might be much lower than it is for another.  One person could feel completely out of shape with a BMI of 20 while someone with a BMI of 25 could be much fitter than someone with a BMI of 18.  This is where your own data and your own baseline come into play.  By the same token, if you feel that your own level of Deep sleep (and however many minutes in other stages) is not enough, or that your overall sleep patterns and habits could be much better or much improved, then you now have the power to experiment and track different things to see exactly how they impact your sleep, and then make the necessary changes based on data.     

 

A cavieat:  Science does indeed change its parameters all the time, and sleep is no execption.  However, the ZQ data that we pulled based on what's typical for a self-reported healthy individual was very similar to a slightly earlier study that looked at sleep quality, quantity, and age--and right now, there is little to indicate that it would radcially change in the near future.  

 

Best wishes to you on your journey!

Andi@Zeo