Sleep experiment planner
Pick something to test, such as sleep position or a late dinner, and get a night-by-night calendar: a few ordinary nights first, then the two conditions in a shuffled order that keeps each week balanced. Print it or add it to your calendar. It takes no oximeter data and stores nothing.
Your calendar
Pick a date for the first night to see the calendar.
Keep these the same
Anything that changes along with the thing you are testing can skew the result.
- Your pillow and mattress
- Alcohol and late meals
- Bedtime and wake time
- The oximeter, the finger and how snug it sits
- Recording the whole night, every night
- A note each morning about anything unusual: illness, a late night, a drink
Before you start
Most oximeters do not record position. A pillow behind your back or a tennis ball in a shirt pocket helps you stay on your side, and a note in the morning says how it went.
Numbers to look at
Compare the A nights with the B nights on the numbers your device reports.
- ODI
- Oxygen dips per hour. A per-hour rate, so short and long nights compare fairly.
- T90
- The share of the night spent under 90% SpO2.
- Lowest SpO2
- The single lowest reading. It moves a lot with one bad dip or a loose sensor, so look at it last.
- Pulse
- Average and lowest overnight pulse. Alcohol, a late meal and a warm room often show up here.
Background
Keep and tag every night of the plan
This page only plans the nights. An account keeps every recording, lets you tag each night A or B, and shows the averages for each set side by side, so you can see how the change affects your overnight oxygen.
- Every recording saved and searchable
- Compare any nights, any time
- ODI, T90 and CVHR trends over time
- Tag nights with what you changed
- See which habits line up with your numbers
- Describe a night in plain English
Your first 5 nights are free. No card needed.
How the plan is built
It starts with baseline nights, where you change nothing. They show how much your numbers move on their own, which is the yardstick for everything after. Five is a workable minimum.
Then the two conditions come in pairs: each pair is one A night and one B night, in a random order. A week of late nights or a cold spell lands on both conditions instead of one, and neither condition keeps falling on the same day of the week.
Each condition gets 4 to 14 nights. More nights make the comparison steadier. About a week of each is a good start.
Comparing the two sets
When the plan is done, take the average of each number for the A nights and for the B nights, then look at the range of each set. If the ranges overlap a lot, the change made no clear difference to your nights. How many nights to record walks through this, and compare nights puts recordings side by side.
Whatever you see is an association in your own nights, not proof of cause, and it says nothing about anyone else.
Common questions
- What if I miss a night or the sensor comes off?
- Leave that night out of both sets and carry on with the plan. Don't swap the order around to make up for it. If you lose several nights of one condition, add a pair at the end.
- Can I test two things at once?
- Not in one plan. If you change sleep position and alcohol in the same weeks, you can't tell which one made the difference. Finish one experiment, then plan the next.
- Why not do one week of A and then one week of B?
- Because anything else that changes between the two weeks, such as a cold, a busy stretch at work or the weather, gets counted as the effect of the change. Mixing the nights spreads those things across both conditions.
- What do I need to record the nights?
- A pulse oximeter that records overnight, worn every night of the plan, on the same finger. The oximeter picker compares the devices that do this.
- What should I do with the result?
- Think of it as something you noticed about your own nights. If your numbers worry you, or you are thinking of changing anything a doctor prescribed, take the recordings to a doctor first.
Not a medical device. Does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition. Discuss results and changes with a clinician.