If you use Mood Tracker, can I get some input?

I have been tracking on a daily basis so when i get to the last question about "average hours of sleep in the last week" I always answer with the hours I got the previous night. Which is never much LOL

HOWEVER, I am wondering what you guys would do as far as recording sleep data with my situation, which is that I sleep an absolute maximum of 5 hours a night, but it's always in 2 (or more) spurts. Actually 5 hours is a blissful gift, my true average is 4.5 or less. I nap every day usually in the morning though, which augments my total sleep hours for the day in its entirety... so should I include the nap hours in my total average "per night" (MT's wording) or is it more strictly for recording hours slept in the time period that is generally accepted as the correct time for sleeping.

I also have difficulty with the question about whether my sleep has been more or less than usual. If I ONLY count the nighttime sleep hours then it's pretty even, just never enough; if I include the nap hours then it can vary widely.

I'm confused. I want to get the best use out of this tracker I just don't know what I should be doing here!

Hello phrick,

The question I think is a mean average question and I include my nap hours as well.

My dreams are so intense that I feel as if I haven't slept at all most nights, but I still put the time I last remember looking at the clock, and the time I take my morning meds which is most often when I wake up.

Hope this helps,

Rhiannon

it does help, thank you! And it makes things seem not as urgently in need of a freak-out, I mean last night I slept a mere 2 hours from 10:30 till 12:23 and only recorded that and MT practically crashed from shock or something you know the scale says 30+ is a significant concern; my sleep # was 65 but if I go back and factor the extra 4 hours of nap, I get a much nicer number out of it.

Dear phrick,

I do feel for you. I know my sleep pattern is abysmal and yours is worse than mine by a long shot.

I will have runs for about 2 months or so at a time when I will just sit up watching wildlife dvds into the early hours say about 3.30 to 4.30 am (I love animals),
and my eyes are like pools of mud by the time I have 2 or 3 hrs sleep.

I really do hope your pattern improves, it really isn't good for you,

Rhiannon

Phrick, I'm right there with you in the same sleep pattern! I tend to make my own trackers, with things worded the way I want them. They're for us/to give to our doctor(s) so it makes more sense to me to either figure out a better way of working on a sleep problem I believe I have or to correlate it better to my moods.

I take different meds at various times and have other things that come and go (what I eat and when) and might be affecting my moods so I try to get everything "together" rather than have something standardize that someone else created for "their" purposes.

What is the problem you are trying to solve? Does your doctor want to know about your sleep or are you trying something on your own because of a book or suggestion of someone else? Can you see how your sleep might be affecting your moods? In what way does it all matter? My sleep is pretty constantly erratic and I'm not, at the moment, worrying about it. So, if that is your case, I'd put down "5 hrs." and not mess with the details. That's your "average" and that appears to be what it asks?

But if you're interested in sleep and your moods, make up another sheet or print the sheet you're using and use the back, something; and break out your sleep each day; what time it is when you wake, "why" you wake, approximately what time you get back to sleep (did you doze and look at the clock every half hour for 3 hours or do you get back to sleep in 15 minutes and sleep for another hour and a half? That sort of thing). The other day I got up at 4:30 a.m. because I couldn't sleep anymore. I didn't nap that day though but often I'll go back to bed around 10:30 and sleep until 2:30 or 3:00. Some nights are bad a couple nights in a row and then I sleep well; some nights I "cheat" and take a Tylenol PM which guarantees I'll sleep "enough" and then work my way back to not sleeping well for too long.

If I were working on my sleep at the moment (I assume you are working on your "moods" instead?) I'd be more consistent; make sure I could take my meds at a particular time, would go to bed every night during a particular window, take/not take extra meds/aids (antacids, allergy, Tylenol PM, etc.) at "scheduled" times, consistently, etc. and see what "happened" if I slept "freely" for a week or took Tylenol PM every other night for a week or, etc. I'd set up a particular experiment, geared to helping my sleep (would eat at a particular time in the evening, take my meds at standardized/good times, have fixed bedtime and bedtime practices, etc.). Yes some things that would help me sleep would help my daytime moods too and vice versa but I might go about worrying specifically about my moods differently than specifically about my sleep or than if I wanted to do both together.

We're very complicated. It's hard to know what influences what to what extent at "this" particular period of time. Anything and everything could be important or not. I'd do and record things the way you could best "see" and understand them yourself. You do know that just recording these things, not "doing" anything different, just recording what you do, helps you? Any sort of attention you pay to yourself, yourself will respond. That's how we're built.