Zeo Follow-Up

A few weeks ago I posted about my new alarm clock, Zeo. Well, it seems that the rest of the world has finally caught on.

When I first tried it out, I had the inflated hopes of a child with a new fancy toy. I signed up for the interactive Sleep Coaching, monitored and scrutinized every line on all my various charts, and was generally annoying to all my friends. Things were new and cool and I couldn’t get enough of them.

So what about now? It’s been about a month since I started using my Zeo, how are things going these days? Well, I’ll be honest. Things are pretty great. I’m not obsessing about every little curve anymore, but I do make sure to note my ZQ (that’s Sleep Quality, folks) each morning, and every few days I take some time to review my time in each stage of sleep, how many full cycles I get in the night, and make sure to properly punish the cat for waking me up so much during the night.

I don’t fill out my sleep journal every day, but even without all the data it provides, I have still learned a lot. Stephan Fabregas says, “If you can measure it, you can manage it,” and he’s really hit the nail on the head. I thought the most valuable feature of my Zeo was going to be the SmartWake feature when I first started using it, and don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic. Perhaps more importantly, though, I’ve learned about some depressing trends in how I treat my body and my sleep during the work week. I see ZQ scores in the 40s and 50s all week long, and then bask in the glory of a 130 on Saturday. It just isn’t healthy in the long run.

I’ve already begun changing some things. Zeo makes me more accountable to myself, and that’s a good thing.

On a side note, just yesterday morning I found myself starting to wake up and cursing in my half-conscious state. I knew I was going to trigger the SmartWake if I woke up any further, and then my glorious night of sleep would end. Lo and behold, my pretty little alarm jingle started a moment later. Curse you, Zeo. You’re just too smart.