No need for connected watches or high-tech gadgets to measure the quality of your night. Discover the simple formula to calculate your sleep score and finally check if you are really recovering.
Like many French people, you don’t always sleep well? Do you sometimes (or even often) get up in the morning feeling tired? To know the quality of your sleep, a calculation is accepted by doctors: the sleep score. This score is an indicator of physiological health. It is an overall score out of 100% which represents your body’s ability to stay asleep once you lie down. Concretely, it is the ratio between the time you actually slept and the total time spent in bed. Doctors and sleep centers also talk about “sleep efficiency”.
What is a good sleep score? A bad score?
A high sleep score (above 85%) reflects excellent, consolidated and efficient sleep. Your brain “knows” how to sleep: as soon as you are in bed, you sleep. An average sleep score (between 75% and 85%) reflects moderate sleep with probably a fragmented night of micro-awakenings. A low sleep score (below 75%) shows poor sleep. Your bed has become a place of awakening, agitation or reflection. Even if you stay in bed for 10 hours, your “score” is bad because your sleep is diluted. A low sleep score can be explained by several factors: coffee consumption after 4 p.m., alcohol consumption, intensive sport in the evening, too much screen time, an overheated, noisy or bright room, poor bedding, psychological factors (anxiety of the day, etc.), difficult digestion, a medical cause (sleep apnea, restless legs, deficiencies, etc.).
No need for a watch or phone to know your sleep score. Experts confirm that the most valuable data comes not from a sensor, but from your own physiology and a basic calculation: Sleep score = (Total sleep time ÷ Time spent in bed) × 100. For example, you go to bed at 11:00 p.m. and get up at 7:00 a.m. You spent 8 hours (480 minutes) in bed. If it took you 30 minutes to fall asleep and you had two 15-minute awakenings during the night, your actual sleep time is 480 – 30 – 30 = 420 minutes. Your sleep score is therefore: (420 / 480) × 100 = 87.5%. A very good score.
The sleep score is an interesting indicator, but it must not become a source of stress, at the risk of falling into orthosomnia, this obsession with the perfect score which ends up ruining the nights. Relying on your real feelings (did I fall asleep quickly? Do I have good energy in the morning and a stable mood?…) helps to know if the night is really successful. By forgetting the graphs and listening to your feelings, you find a more natural and much less distressing sleep.
For optimal tracking, keep a paper diary for a week. Simply note down your bedtime, estimated falling asleep, nighttime awakenings, and waking up time. This simple mindfulness exercise about your habits is often the first step towards lasting improvement in your daily energy. If the basic advice is not enough and fatigue has impacted your daily life (work, driving, mood) for more than a month, talk to your general practitioner who will check for a possible deficiency or the cause of significant stress. He or she will be able to direct you to a sleep center or a specialized doctor.
