Sleep Cycle

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That would definitely be less bother. I wonder how well the estimate correlates with actual REM?

Interesting study! They started by removing ASD individuals with sleep complaints, psychiatric disorders or neurological comorbidity from the study. So the ASD group is free from other comorbidities as possible. A growing body of evidence indicates that people with autism frequently experience sleep disorders and exhibit atypical sleep architecture.

So if you are not getting sufficient Deep Sleep (Stage 3 & 4) or REM sleep (Stage 5), you are not able to heal your body and mind and prepare yourself for the next day. Referring back to the first paper, the concept that one of the major contributors might be sleep apnea is very interesting. The condition affects the flow of oxygen to the brain. The symptoms of a lack of oxygen to the brain, or brain hypoxia, may be mild or severe and depend on the level and duration of oxygen deprivation.

Mild symptoms of brain hypoxia include:

* temporary loss of memory
* problems moving parts of the body
* inattentiveness
* poor judgment

These symptoms are problems that typify autism and Aspergers.

I looked at the third article. It is essentially "How to interpret the results of a sleep study".

It explains many of the terms used to interpret a sleep study.

One of these terms I found interesting. Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). The ESS provides a validated measure of the patient's general level of daytime sleepiness and provides the physician with an initial screening tool to help assess the sleep debt. The patient self-rates the chances that they would fall asleep while in eight different situations commonly encountered in daily life. It reminded me that before I had my gastric bypass surgery, I would probably score poorly in the ESS. Sometimes when I was with family if the conversation was not interesting I would fall asleep in the middle of their conversations. I couldn't even force myself to keep my eyes open. This was very noticeable to my family. After surgery when I quickly returned to the normal weight category, that problem went away.

Another point is that medication can interfere with obtaining a good nights sleep. Medications that contribute to insomnia include oxycodone, codeine, methylphenidate, ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, phenylephrine, amphetamines, albuterol, theophylline, beta blockers, alpha receptor antagonists, SSRIs, venlafaxine, and duloxitine. Long REM latency may result from use of REM-suppressing medications, including tricyclic anti-depressants (TCAs) or Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor (MAOI), amphetamine, barbiturates, and alcohol. A lack of Deep Sleep (Stage N3) is a side effect of certain medications, including benzodiazepines, TCAs, and barbiturates.

Anyways to sum up the conclusions from these 3 papers through my Aspie filter, I would consider the following recommendations.
1. All Aspies/ASDs should consider having their tonsils and adenoids removed.
2. Supplement with melatonin especially when traveling between regions with different time zones or when the clocks are set forward/backward in daylight savings time.
3. For those Aspies/ASD's that are overweight and obese, have bariatric surgery to bring your weight down to the normal range.
4. Eliminate medications/drugs/alcohol that interfere with getting a good nights sleep.

According to a 2017 article in Sleep Review, The Journal for Sleep Specialist:

Fitbit has validated the ability of wrist-worn trackers that incorporate movement and cardiac sensors, like Fitbit Alta HR, Fitbit Blaze, and Fitbit Charge 2, to accurately determine light, deep, and REM sleep stages. The results of Fitbit’s study, which were scored independently by polysomnography technologists, demonstrate that these devices can be used to track sleep stages with a reasonable degree of accuracy in normal adult sleepers, according to Fitbit. Having the ability to gather reliable sleep stage data on wrist-worn devices can help simplify sleep research and increase public knowledge about sleep.

Source: Study Shows Fitbit Heart Rate-Tracking Devices Accurately Track Light, REM, and Deep Sleep Stages

Thanks, Jimmy. As a skeptical scientist I'm bound to express my doubts about those conclusions, i.e. the study was performed by the company who sell the watches, only the abstract is presented (not raw data), and the Cohen's kappa values seem to indicate only moderate agreement with the gold standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen%27s ... _magnitude

Nonetheless I can't say that I know it doesn't work, just that it might be wise to bear in mind that the device may have its limitations. If it's not too expensive then it might well be worth having a go just to see what comes out of it.

I have idiopathic hypersomnia and suffer from bouts of severe insomnia too.
The IH means no matter how much i sleep, i never feel rested. And i have slept none stop for 37 hours before. There have been times when i would sleep 20 hours a day for weeks on end.
I'm currently going through a bout of insomnia which means in sleeping roughly 3 hours a night max. Some nights i don't sleep at all.

For these conditions I'm on a mix of modafinil, dexamfetamines, zolpidem and melatonin. The way i use the meds is rather weird, even my doctors don't understand it but me and my neurologist are on the same page.

I hear you, I often function on 36-48 hours awake with 12 of sleep. Sometimes it gets worse than that. Nothing helped in significant ways so I basically learned to build my whole life around it.

Yeah, I'm used to a two day cycle. My partner can't believe how i can still function fine, drive, work etc having had no sleep. I'm due another sleep study soon, it'll be interesting to see any differences from my first ones.
Luckily having stims and sleepers means i can cope with it better than before. Still not pleasant though

I'm pretty clinical about the effectiveness of those trackers. I have been using one for the past few months and am often infuriated when my alarm goes off and it tells me that I have achieved a sleep score of 100% after a really disturbed night!

Certainly in childhood I had serious issues getting off. I now think I've "got the knack" but I take a little longer than average to get off. I have in the past had insomnia due to anxiety, but these days I have minimal anxiety and the depression which has replaced it is conducive to sleep.

I certainly dream, which I think is indicative of Stage 5.

I have phrases where I do not find sleep at all restorative. That's actually what triggered the latest bout of monitoring. But I've found no relationship between how "restorative" a night is and how deeply the app says I have slept.

Sometimes, when I am over-tired, I'm still conscious while falling asleep at the point where my hearing cuts out. The trouble is, I'm not used to anything going quiet without a little static pop from the switch, and that abrupt transition startles me into hearing again. Sometimes this repeats a few times.
This year, I learned how much sleep affects my moods, and am trying even harder to get enough.
I have a heart rate monitor that thinks I'm dead. I won't buy a fitbit because things are confusing enough without trying to relate to chancy data run through some NT's attempt at software.