If you’re looking to keep an eye on your shut-eye, here’s how to do it with the help of a Garmin watch on your wrist.
One element of staying in good health is having a decent night’s sleep. When you want to keep a closer eye on this, including the different stages of your sleep, your breathing pattern, how often you wake during the night, or other indicators of your overall sleep quality, then a Garmin watch can function as a very useful tracker.
Sleep tracking kicks in automatically when you’re wearing a fully set-up and paired Garmin watch, so this guide just explains that process.
What you’ll need:
- We used a Garmin Forerunner 255, but you can use any Garmin watch that supports sleep tracking (and you can check yours against the full list here)
The Short Version
- You can set your normal sleeping hours in the Garmin Connect app
- Sleep should be tracked automatically when you’re wearing the watch
- You can then observe your sleep quality on the Garmin Connect app, or the watch itself
How to track your sleep on a Garmin watch: Step-by-step
Step
1You can set your normal sleeping hours in the Garmin Connect app
Upon start-up, you’ll likely be asked to set your typical sleeping hours on your watch. If not, you can set this in the Garmin Connect App by tapping on the icon with three lines at the top left, then Settings, then User Settings, and scrolling down to Sleep Settings. This step is not strictly necessary for sleep tracking, but it will not disturb you with notifications during this time.
Step
2Sleep should be tracked automatically when you’re wearing the watch
When you fall asleep wearing your watch, it should automatically detect that you’re sleeping, and will start logging the quality of your sleep without any input. You do not need to click anything, select anything, or choose a routine for this to kick in.
Step
3You can then observe your sleep quality on the Garmin Connect app, or the watch itself
Once you’ve woken up again, you can take a look at your sleep quality either on the watch or, if you’re looking for more detail, on the Garmin Connect mobile app.
Troubleshooting
While the Garmin Connect app can give some advice and prompts about your sleep, you should see a medical professional if your sleep if giving you serious cause for concern.
There are a couple of explanations for this; ether your sleep pattern is simply different to your perception, which is why wearables can be very useful sources of information; or else the tracker is inaccurate, which can sometimes occur. While we have a positive experience with Garmin devices, you should always take your watch’s records with a pinch of salt and use your common sense when interpreting results.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
