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how does the watch help improve your sleep? Does just having the knowledge of how much you're sleeping encourage you to get in bed earlier

The watch tells you how much sleep you are getting in each phase. Deep sleep is very important. You can track how much deep sleep you are getting and if you are not getting enough you can improve your lifestyle habits to hopefully increase your deep sleep. 

"While all stages of sleep are necessary for good health, deep sleep offers specific physical and mental benefits. During deep sleep, your body releases growth hormone and works to build and repair muscles, bones, and tissue, and immune system functioning."

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/stages-of-sleep/deep-sleep#:~:text=Why%….

Why Is Deep Sleep Important?

While all stages of sleep are necessary for good health, deep sleep offers specific physical and mental benefits. During deep sleep, your body releases growth hormone and works to build and repair muscles, bones, and tissue, and immune system functioning. Additionally, slow-wave sleep may be important for regulating glucose metabolism⁸. Elite athletes value slow-wave sleep as it helps replenish energy stores⁹.

Deep sleep is important for cognitive function and memory¹⁰, and it is thought to play a role in language learning, ¹¹motor skills¹², and the developing brain¹³.

Throughout the day, you receive information inputs¹⁴ that strengthen the synapses, or points of communication¹⁵, in the networks of your brain. However, your brain cannot take on information forever without rest.

Researchers suggest that deep sleep plays a role in preparing your synapses for the next day. Put another way, your brain evaluates new memories and then preserves and consolidates¹⁶ only the ones that are most relevant to avoid saturating memory pathways. Although this theory is still under investigation, evidence shows that people obtain a higher proportion of deep sleep after learning a new task, and show higher concentrations of slow waves in brain areas related to the task.

The results of this process are evident: after a night of good sleep, you are better prepared to take on new information and adapt to new environments.

How Much Deep Sleep Do You Need?

To calculate how much deep sleep you need, first determine how much sleep you need overall. Most adults should aim for seven to nine hours¹⁷ of sleep each night. Between 13% and 23%¹⁸ of that time should be spent in deep sleep. If you get seven hours of sleep each night, then you spend approximately 55 to 97 minutes each night in deep sleep.

To a certain extent, the body self-regulates amounts of deep sleep. For example, you might spend more time in deep sleep if you are recovering from sleep deprivation or if you regularly experience short sleep, such as over the course of a work week¹⁹. People may also experience more deep sleep when sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea²⁰ are treated. By contrast, people who nap frequently²¹ may experience less deep sleep during subsequent naps, as part of their deep sleep needs have already been fulfilled.

As people age, they tend to have less deep sleep. They usually get more stage 2 sleep instead.

Sleep Disorders Associated with Deep Sleep

Sleep disorders that are specifically linked to deep sleep are called disorders of arousal²² and include sleepwalking, sleep terrors, and confusional arousals. While adults can experience these disorders, they are more common in children and adolescents.

Typically episodes of these disorders are short and the sleeper does not remember them. However, the events can impact your waking hours. Some sleepers with disorders of arousal experience excessive daytime sleepiness²³. Others may accidentally injure themselves or others during an arousal episode.

Measurements of the brain waves of sleepwalkers have found that many individuals continue to experience a certain proportion of slow waves — which are characteristic of deep sleep — during a sleepwalking episode. Adult sleepwalkers also display variances in slow-wave activity during the rest of the night.

What Happens When You Don’t Get Enough Deep Sleep?

In addition to causing feelings of fatigue, a lack of deep sleep can have a number of impacts on your body.

Because deep sleep is part of the memory formation process, you may struggle to consolidate memories after nights without enough deep sleep. Even after one night of insufficient sleep you may experience difficulty learning or remembering information.

On a physical level, insufficient deep sleep may decrease your immune response to vaccines²⁴ and leave you more vulnerable to infection. During deep sleep, potentially harmful waste products are eliminated from the brain. As a result, disruptions to deep sleep may also drive advancement of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s²⁵ and Parkinson’s²⁶.

Additionally, sleep deprivation is associated with hormonal changes that drive our appetite for high-calorie food²⁷. Going short on slow-wave sleep, in particular, is believed to contribute to insulin resistance and the development of type 2 diabetes and heart disease²⁸. Catching up on sleep²⁹ may reverse some of these effects.

Who Doesn’t Get Enough Deep Sleep?

As deep sleep occurs in multiple stints throughout the sleep period, anyone who sleeps for less than the recommended amount of hours is likely to obtain insufficient deep sleep. Fragmented sleep due to sleep disorders or sleeping at times that are not concordant with your natural sleep-wake rhythm³⁰ may also diminish the percentage of slow-wave sleep.

Some people with insomnia experience changes in their sleep cycles and as a result may have more stage 1 sleep and less deep sleep. Stress and ³¹aging can also reduce levels of deep sleep³². Additionally, people with conditions such as schizophrenia³³ and Alzheimer’s disease³⁴ experience less slow wave sleep.

Recently, some researchers have observed that people with a damaged hippocampus, or memory center of the brain, experience much less slow wave sleep³⁵ than people with an undamaged hippocampus. Experts propose that the memory signals sent by the hippocampus are a necessary trigger for creating the slow delta waves seen in deep sleep. Accordingly, problems with memory formation may represent a cause, rather than a consequence, of less deep sleep.

Signs You May Not Be Getting Enough Deep Sleep

Some indications you are not getting enough deep sleep include:

• Feeling unrefreshed and drowsy
• Reduced alertness and attention³⁶
• Trouble learning and forming new memories
• Cravings for high-calorie food

Tips for Getting More Deep Sleep

Ensuring you get sufficient sleep overall can help you get the deep sleep you need. By establishing consistent sleep and wake times, you can develop a healthy sleep routine for your body. Practicing good sleep hygiene can also help you get more sleep in total. Healthy sleep habits include:

• Exercising regularly
• Reducing caffeine intake in the afternoon and evening
• Ensuring you have a quiet, cool, and dark sleep environment
• Creating a relaxing routine to wind down in the evening

There are some additional steps you can try to encourage more deep sleep:

• Take a Warm Bath: Heating your body at least an hour before bedtime³⁷ may help induce slow-wave sleep. The warmth from the bath draws heat to your hands and feet which then dissipates. The process allows you to cool down to a comfortable temperature for sleeping.
• Improve Your Diet: What you eat and drink before bedtime impacts your sleep. One small study found that people eating a diet high in saturated fats obtained less slow-wave sleep³⁸. People who ate more fiber were more likely to have more deep sleep.
• Listen to Binaural Beats: Binaural beats³⁹ are created by listening to two slightly different tones, one in each ear. The difference between the frequencies of those tones creates a perceived third tone, or binaural beat. If certain frequencies are used, your brain waves can then be induced to match the frequency of that beat. Limited research suggests that listening to delta wave binaural beats may help induce delta waves in the brain and therefore stage 3 sleep.