So, I’ve been using the Apple Watch Series 11 for a few days now. And out of all the features that it comes with, Sleep Score was the one I was most interested in. So, let’s talk about it.
Getting Started with Sleep Tracking
For starters, if you have the Apple Watch Series 6 or newer, you can use Sleep Score with Watch OS 26 and track your sleep. And in regard to it tracking your sleep, the information it gives is fairly modest, but also quite telling.
How to Access Your Sleep Data
Let’s first talk about accessing it. To track your sleep, go to your iPhone and under the Apple Watch app, go to sleep and enable track sleep with Apple Watch. Then you just wear your watch to bed and leave it on as you sleep. And the next day, press the dial on the watch and then scroll down until you see sleep where you’ll see your sleep score.
Understanding Your Sleep Score
Your sleep score ranges from 1 to 100 that reflects how well you slept at night. If you press the eye icon, you can see what goes into the total, including your sleep duration, bedtime consistency, and interruptions, which in my opinion is super simple, maybe too simple. Sleep is a very complex part of our lives and there are so many factors that contribute to us getting good quality sleep. So the simple sleep score definitely doesn’t encompass all of that.
But thankfully there’s more under the hood because if you scroll down from your sleep score, you can get a lot more detail on how well you slept the night before, including your overall wake time, REM score, and deep sleep. And I am no sleep expert, but if you’re looking to deep dive into your sleep, this is probably the information you should be looking at.
Is Sleep Score About Science or Hygiene?
But going back to sleep score, for the past couple of days, I’ve been looking into how exactly to use it most effectively to improve my sleep. And I think I found the right answer. This Reddit post on your screen describes sleep score less about judging the quality of your sleep and more about your sleep hygiene.
You see, if you look at my intended bedtime for my Apple Watch that I arbitrarily set, if I don’t go to bed at that time, my sleep score automatically goes down. Which, don’t judge my bedtime. last couple of nights. It was the weekend, so I finally got to sleep in a bit. But because of that factor, in addition to multiple interruptions I had for one night, my sleep score was not a perfect 100.
So sleep score really seems to be a good judgment for how well you got ready for bed and how long you slept uninterrupted for as opposed to how well you slept in regard to sleep science. In other words, sleep score focuses on the simplicity of sleep.
The Verdict: Is It Worth Using?
There are other apps that you can use for more detailed sleep tracking with the Apple Watch, but judging sleep score for what it actually is, I think it’s pretty informative. Is it a simple little feature? Absolutely. Very simple. But does it tell you a bit more about yourself? A little bit. Yes.
For me, at least through the future, I know I should be consistent with my sleep schedule on the weekdays. And I learned that yes, I do wake up in the middle of the night. At least it’s the middle of the night for me because I can hear my dad wake up early in the morning for him. So, it’s a little gimmicky, but I think sleep score is a great way to get yourself started with sleep tracking as a whole.
Judging your score on if it’s high or low can motivate you to improve on your sleep hygiene a little. For instance, with me, I can maybe stick to the bedtime reminder with my Apple Watch and also sleep with earplugs on. But for the average Apple Watch user, I think sleep score is actually a good enough metric for someone to learn about their sleep and also have the option to be sucked into the science.
Best part is though that you don’t have to be obsessed with it if you don’t want to because of the simplicity. That’s something I was a bit worried about with myself actually getting fixated on achieving that perfect sleep score and when I don’t get that almost placeboing myself into having a bad day. Thankfully, that’s something that this simple sleep score actually keeps me kind of away from.
But there’s still the option to deep dive into your sleep health if you want because just within the same app, you can see how much you stayed in REM, how much deep sleep you got, how long you were awake, all that good stuff. From there, you can judge your real sleep score if interested. But for those who want something that just gives them a general idea of their sleep, sleep score is a simple yet informative feature that does that.
So that was sleep score in a nutshell for the Apple Watch. What do you think? Do you like it? Let me know in the comments section down below. my name is Cirrus. It’s spelled like Cyrus Pix Rooster. Just take out the ter. Thank you very much for reading and have a wonderful day. Peace.
