Health and Fitness Calculators
Sleep Debt
Getting sufficient sleep per night is ideal for your overall well-being. Age, health, and other metrics can influence the amount of sleep an individual requires, and tracking sleeping debt can help you stay on top of your overall well-being.
If you track your sleep data, FitnessSyncer will automatically calculate your sleep debt over time, giving you insight into when you may need to make changes to feel better overall.
Your calculated slept debt is 0 minutes. A negative number implies a debt whereas a positive number is a surplus.
How it works
Sleep debt is the gap between the sleep you are aiming for and the sleep you got, carried forward. One short night is a small debt; a run of them is what the number is for.
Debt in minutes = minutes slept - (minutes awake × your target ratio)
Aiming for eight hours and sleeping seven leaves you an hour down for that night, and four such nights in a week leave you four hours down.
What this number is not
It is not something you can pay off hour for hour at the weekend. Research on recovery sleep is clear that a long Sunday restores some of what was lost but not all of it, so the useful reading is the trend rather than the total.
How accurate it is
The arithmetic is exact; the target is a judgment. Most adults need seven to nine hours, and where you sit in that range is personal, so set the target to what leaves you feeling rested rather than to a number from a chart.
Common questions
How much sleep should I be aiming for?
Seven to nine hours covers most adults, with teenagers needing more and the need changing slowly with age. The practical test is whether you wake without an alarm feeling rested.
Does FitnessSyncer track this for me?
Yes. Set your target sleep in your profile and your sleep debt is worked out from every night that arrives from a connected tracker, charted on your Dashboard and in the built-in Sleep report.
Can I catch up on lost sleep?
Partly. A longer night restores alertness quickly, while some of the other effects take longer to recover. A consistent bedtime does more for the number than a long weekend lie-in.
