Sleeping Results (With and Without Gaming)

[sirjk]

Hey, guys. I have been recording my deep and REM sleep for a few months because I use to have bad Hypersomnia. I do still sleep a lot sometimes and some days I am still tired for no reason, but it has improved beyond what I thought and me stopping video games has fixed nearly all my sleeping problems. It has been 23 days of writing since I stopped playing video games and now I am waking up at 7am without alarms or care, and I like to say, thank you, Cam!

Deep Sleep: It is very hard to wake up from deep sleep because this is when there is the lowest amount of activity in your body. It is also the part of sleep where your body rebuilds itself, restores energy and hormones are released. 

REM Sleep: After deep sleep, we slip back into Stage 2 for a few minutes before entering 'dream sleep' – known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Each cycle lasts around 1.5 hours and we need to experience all four stages in order to wake up rested.

Reference: http://www.wareable.com/fitness-trackers/sleep-monitors-explained-more-deep-sleep

Note: REM sleep helps with memory, and cognitive skills in real life.

I tried a lot of things to fix my sleep. The only thing I tried and worked was reading before bed after gaming. But, even then I would still be tired the next day. This didn't last long because I was always getting bored. The two main things in my life at the time was gaming and sleeping. When I wasn't gaming, I would feel tired and sleep. This is why last year, my last year of school, I would sleep in class regularly. I read books for about 4 days then stopped because I was too tired all the time.

I use an app on my phone that tracks movement in your sleep. When you are in Deep Sleep, you will never move. When you are in REM, you will toss and turn; move around on your bed. The android app was called Sleep Cycle I think I paid $2 dollars for it. Here were the results for my typical night whilst playing video games. 

Typical Night w/ Gaming

 

 

Typical Night w/ Gaming but Reading One-Two Hours before Sleep

Typical Night Without Gaming

I was getting too much Deep Sleep. Even when I was reading books before bed. And don't even ask how bad the night sleep I was getting when gaming without books. The reason why I posted this because I thought it was interesting how much gaming has an effect on my life. And sleep was always being affected as if I was drunk. For the people who have quit gaming, have you seen an improvement in your sleeping? I can't find any studies on about deep sleep and video games.

Edited September 15, 2016 by sirjk

[WorkInProgress]

I didn't see an improvement but my sleep was luckyily very solid even as I gamed. Maybe this is so ebcause I did only hardcore game from 6am to 16am most of the the time while my wife was at work.

[Cam Adair]

Awesome post. Curious what others have noticed.

[Kevin]

Sometimes I have nightmares to the point where I wake up sweaty and exhausted. I have the suspicion that they occur more frequently after playing games but there are also days of nightmare without games. Playing games often literally causes headaches for me and when combined with vivid dreams, I would wake up the next day with the headache still there. It seems like the games do something but I am not sure.

[Guest]

For me either way I cannont sleep very good.

[Guest]

Alrighty

[KevinV1990]

I didn't notice any improvement in my sleeping. I still wake up in the night quite often, but the weird thing is that it only happens, when I have to work. When I'm free I can sleep the whole night, without waking up. Really want to discover how I could change that, because my energy level is really drained when it gets around 3PM.

[giblets]

I didn't notice any improvement in my sleeping. I still wake up in the night quite often, but the weird thing is that it only happens, when I have to work. When I'm free I can sleep the whole night, without waking up. Really want to discover how I could change that, because my energy level is really drained when it gets around 3PM.

Haha this is me if I have a morning plane to catch. It's your brain stressing out that you will miss your commitments so keeps waking you up early to make sure you're not late. I always do my best to not book morning flights now!

This is an interesting topic. I have been recording my sleeping habits for the last 4 years, ever since I first got a pebble smartwatch, so it would be interesting to compare/benchmark.

[KevinV1990]

I didn't notice any improvement in my sleeping. I still wake up in the night quite often, but the weird thing is that it only happens, when I have to work. When I'm free I can sleep the whole night, without waking up. Really want to discover how I could change that, because my energy level is really drained when it gets around 3PM.

Haha this is me if I have a morning plane to catch. It's your brain stressing out that you will miss your commitments so keeps waking you up early to make sure you're not late. I always do my best to not book morning flights now!

This is an interesting topic. I have been recording my sleeping habits for the last 4 years, ever since I first got a pebble smartwatch, so it would be interesting to compare/benchmark.

Yeah, that is exactly what it is and I hate it . I don't really care about waking up in the middle of the night, but I do care about having less energy the next day.