The Oura App contains several graphs to help you track and interpret your sleep patterns, including:
- Sleep stage hypnogram: a breakdown of the stages of sleep you entered (awake, REM, light, and deep)
- Nighttime movement graph: how much, and when, you moved during your sleep
- Body Clock: a 24-hour clock face with color-coded sections to compare your optimal sleep window to your current sleep patterns
- Sleep timing graph: a vertical bar chart that shows your time in bed, time asleep, and any awake time interruptions during the night
You can also use an iOS widget to put the hypnogram on your Apple device's home screen.
How to Use the Hypnogram
How to Use the Nighttime Movement Graph
How to Use the Body Clock
How to Use the Sleep Timing Graph
How to Use the Hypnogram Widget
Things to Keep in Mind
More Information
How to Use the Hypnogram
A hypnogram is a graph of sleep cycles throughout the night. In the Oura App, your hypnogram can be found in the Sleep tab beneath the sleep contributors.
Sleep cycles typically consist of ~90 minute groupings, each containing some amount of light, deep, and REM sleep. But keep in mind that sleep varies from person to person, so a sleep cycle may not always have all three stages, and may not always last 90 minutes.
The average amount of time spent in each sleep stage is:
- Awake: 2-5%
- Light: 45-55%
- Deep: 13-23%
- REM: 20-25%
Try to optimize for less awake time and more restorative (deep/REM) sleep. Also keep in mind that light sleep is not "wasted sleep." Half your sleep is usually light sleep, and it is a natural and healthy part of the sleep cycle. Find more information on our blog: Light Sleep: What Is It and What Are the Benefits?
The number above the hypnogram is your "Time asleep." This is not the same as your total time in bed, which may include periods of time awake. For adults, it is recommended to get 7-9 hours of time asleep per night.
Things to look out for:
- More REM sleep than normal: This may be a sign you’re recovering from prolonged sleep deprivation. Check out our blog for tips on getting more REM sleep.
- More deep sleep than normal: This may be the result of a recent hard workout, or behavioral changes you’ve implemented to improve your sleep quality. See this blog article for more ways to increase deep sleep.
How to Use the Nighttime Movement Graph
The nighttime movement graph is located directly beneath your hypnogram in the Oura App's Sleep tab. Tap the icon to expand or collapse your nighttime movement graph.
Vertical lines on the graph each represent five minute increments and correlate with movement in your sleep—the more movement, the taller the line. Short lines can indicate tossing and turning or general restlessness. Tall lines may correlate to times when you were awake. Compare your nighttime movement graph to the hypnogram to see which sleep stage was associated with the amount of motion.
Very low movement typically correlates to long periods of deep or REM sleep, a good sign of high-quality rest. More information about the nighttime movement graph can be found on our blog.
How to Use the Body Clock
Your Body Clock is located on the Home tab of your Oura App.
The graph will tell you how closely your sleep rhythm's midpoint from the night before was aligned to the midpoint of an optimal sleep window, as determined by your chronotype. If necessary, the Body Clock will provide guidance on how much to adjust your sleep timing in order to align with your circadian rhythm.
Tap the Body Clock card to open a more detailed version:
The outer ring of the clockface indicates your sleep schedule from the night before. The inner ring is your optimal sleep schedule based on your chronotype. You can use the Body Clock to see at a glance how closely the two schedules are aligned.
Tap the info ⓘ icon in the upper righthand corner of the app for more information on circadian rhythms. Tap the chronotype description at the bottom of the Body Clock screen for more information on your specific chronotype.
How to Use the Sleep Timing Graph
Sleep regularity is a Readiness Score contributor that measures how consistent your bedtime and wake-up times have been. In the Trends section of your Oura App, you can find data visualizations of your sleep regularity patterns by day, week, month, or year.
Below the sleep regularity trend chart is a graph of your sleep timing, which shows your time in bed, time asleep, and any awake time interruptions during the night.
The sleep timing chart represents the consistency of your sleep as vertical bars. The time you went to bed is at the top of the graph, with wake time at the bottom. Time in bed is visualized with a faint, dark blue bar. Time asleep is visualized with a solid, bright blue bar. Any interruptions to your sleep during the night appear as gaps in the bar.
Scroll left and right to see more data. The y-axis of the chart is fixed to your median sleep time plus two hours. Any data outside that time, such as a very early bed time or very late wake up time, cuts off at the upper or lower edges of the graph.
Weekly, monthly, and yearly views of your sleep regularity trends display averages of your sleep timing for those time periods.
How to Use the Hypnogram Widget
There are three available iOS widgets (small, medium, and large) available to display the most recent night of data on your device's home screen. These are available to Oura members using iOS devices and any generation Oura Ring.
The widgets display:
- Small: sleep stages
- Medium: sleep stages and sleep/wake time
- Large: sleep stages, sleep/wake time, and ring battery status
To install a sleep graph widget:
- Touch and hold your device's home screen
- Tap the Add (+) button
- Select a widget and widget size
- Tap Done
Things to Keep in Mind
The Oura Ring is not a medical device and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, monitor, or prevent medical conditions or illnesses. Please do not make any changes to your medication, daily routines, nutrition, sleep schedule, or workouts without first consulting your doctor or another medical professional.
Every body is different. Instead of trying to hit specific numbers, keep an eye on changes in your data compared to your baselines and overall trends.
Make use of tags and trends to see what factors may be impacting your sleep.
More Information
REM Sleep: What Is It and How to Get More
Deep Sleep: What Is It and How to Get More
Light Sleep: What Is It and What Are the Benefits?
