Wearable fitness leader, Fitbit, today unveiled a new, personalized sleep schedule feature to help millions of Fitbit users around the world improve their sleep consistency and overall health.
Available now, Sleep Schedule features on the Fitbit app will help you meet your sleep goals and maintain a more consistent pattern of sleep through these tools:
– Sleep Goal: Based on your sleep data from your Fitbit tracker, you can follow the app’s personalized recommendations or set your target number of hours to make sure you’re getting enough sleep each night.
– Bedtime and Wake Up Targets: Based on your sleep goal and past sleep behavior from your Fitbit tracker, the app will recommend target bedtime and wake up times. You can customize these based on your personal preferences and schedule.
– Bedtime and Wake Up Reminders: To help you reach your sleep goal and regularly go to bed and wake up more consistently, you can receive push notification reminders on your smartphone. You can also set a silent wake alarm on your Fitbit tracker based on your wake up target.
– Sleep Schedule History Chart: Track your sleep consistency over time to determine if you’re meeting your goals or if you need to adjust your sleep schedule.
Fitbit Establishes Panel of Sleep Experts
The new feature was developed in collaboration with Fitbit’s new panel of leading sleep experts that includes:
– Michael Grandner, PhD, MTR, CBSM, the director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona, is certified in Behavioral Sleep Medicine and focuses his research on how sleep and sleep-related behaviors are related to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, neurocognitive functioning, mental health and longevity.
– Allison Siebern, PhD, CBSM, a consulting assistant professor at Stanford University Sleep Medicine Center and director of the Sleep Health Integrative Program at the Fayetteville VA Medical Center in North Carolina, is board certified in behavioral sleep medicine by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. She has over a decade of clinical and research expertise in the field of sleep, including examining the factors associated with successful treatment outcomes using Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi).
– Michael Smith, PhD, CBSM, is a professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Nursing at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Center for Behavior and Health, founder of Johns Hopkins’ Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program and co-directs the NIH-funded Center for Sleep-Related Symptom Science. His research focuses on the neurobehavioral causes, consequences, and treatments of insomnia and sleep loss with an emphasis on the interface between sleep and pain.
Sleep plays a critical role in health and wellbeing, from protecting against cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, to boosting neurocognitive functions, mental health and longevity.
According to Fitbit’s sleep experts, adhering to a consistent sleep routine is one of the most important things people can do to improve their sleep: “If you’re constantly changing your sleep routine, it can have the same effect as giving yourself jetlag because you are continually changing your circadian rhythm, also known as your internal clock, which can negatively impact your health and wellness,” said Michael Grandner, PhD, MTR, CBSM.
“To improve your physical performance, mental health and cognitive functions, you should aim to get a sufficient amount of sleep each night and be consistent with the times you go to sleep and wake up each day. Fitbit’s new Sleep Schedule tool makes it easier for people to see how much sleep they’re actually getting in order to establish a healthy routine – this has the potential to help millions of people around the world improve their sleep and overall wellbeing, which is really exciting.”
Research has shown that getting enough sleep can also positively impact how much you exercise the next day and is vital to post-training recovery, playing an integral role in the body’s ability to repair itself. Additionally, Fitbit data also shows a correlation between consistent bedtimes and daily active minutes, especially for users who go to bed early each night.
Users who sleep an average of 7 to 9 hours nightly also have a lower body mass index (BMI) than those who sleep only 3 to 4 hours per night, while those who are overweight or obese (BMI over 25) on average sleep over an hour (70 minutes) less per week than those with a normal BMI (BMI 18.5-25).
The new Sleep Schedule feature works with all Fitbit devices that automatically track sleep, including Fitbit Surge™, Fitbit Blaze™, Fitbit Charge HR™, Fitbit Alta™, Fitbit Charge™, Fitbit Flex® and through manual sleep tracking with Fitbit One®.
