What makes us happy? Activity trackers provide us with the answer.
Do you wake up happier when you sleep more? Does exercising elevate your mood? Are you happier on a weekday or on the weekend? Activity trackers are providing us with answers to these and other questions.
Jawbone, a leading manufacturer of wearables, has analysed data from hundreds of thousands of UP users to find the answer to which parts of our daily routine have the most impact on our mood. Users of Jawbone’s UP app can log when they’re feeling “Amazing”, “Totally Done”, or anything in-between. Jawbone has now sifted through this data to offer interesting insights.
Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout your life. Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety. The way you feel while you’re awake depends in part on what happens while you’re sleeping. During sleep, your body is working to support healthy brain function and maintain your physical health.
Jawbone data shows that longer sleep duration is correlated with improved mood, until you get to 8 hours of sleep. People who sleep between 8 – 9.5 hours during the night tend to wake up happier than those who slept less or more than that. Also, data shows that on nights that you get an extra hour of sleep compared to normal, you wake up 5% happier than you usually do. However, over 2 extra hours of sleep doesn’t significantly improve your mood.
The effects of sleep deprivation are even more drastic. People are twice as unhappy when they’ve lost 2 hours of sleep than they are happier gaining 2 hours of sleep. Some people aren’t aware of the risks of sleep deficiency. In fact, they may not even realize that they’re sleep deficient. Even with limited or poor-quality sleep, they may still think that they can function well.
Jawbone also found that there is a clear relationship between steps on the previous day and the mood of the user in the morning. Better moods correlate with more steps and physical activity.
Results from the study clearly show that getting enough sleep is important. One way to ensure you are getting enough shut eye is by using a fitness tracker that monitors sleep. You can find our overview of the best sleep trackers on the market on this link.
Jawbone also looked at how the mood of the UP Community evolves through the day. Not surprisingly, people tend to be happier in general during weekends. They are also happiest at the start of the day, and the mood typically drops as the day goes by.
On weekdays, people are happiest at 11am on Friday and unhappiest at 2am on Wednesday. On weekends, people are happiest at 10am on Saturday and unhappiest at 11pm on Sunday. It’s interesting to note that during weekdays, we see a spike in mood starting at around 5pm. Maybe something to do with leaving work to go home? Or perhaps just a coincidence…
