7 Sleep Quality Metrics You NEED to Track for Faster Gains and Fat Loss (Root Cause Analysis) | Ep 243
Your wearable says you got 8 hours of sleep, but you're still waking up exhausted. Your sleep efficiency looks good, but your energy levels tell a different story.
Learn the 7 key sleep metrics that actually matter for muscle gains and fat loss, plus how to use Root Cause Analysis, an engineering method that reveals the true sources of poor sleep quality hiding beneath your data.
Whether you're dealing with low energy, poor recovery, or sleep numbers that don't match how you feel, this episode gives you a systematic approach to optimize your sleep for better results in the gym.
A special thank you to Aubrey from Wits & Weights Physique University who inspired this episode with her questions about sleep quality metrics!
Main Takeaways:
The 7 essential sleep metrics and their target ranges for optimal recovery
A simple but powerful technique to uncover your hidden sleep disruptors
Why going to the gym at THIS time of day might be your secret weapon for better sleep
How to test solutions for better sleep based on your personal metrics
The Truth About Sleep Quality Metrics: What Actually Matters for Building Muscle and Losing Fat
Sleep tracking has become increasingly popular among fitness enthusiasts. But with dozens of metrics available on modern wearables, which ones actually impact your gains? Let's cut through the noise and focus on what matters.
The Problem with Traditional Sleep Tracking
Most people focus solely on total sleep time or a generic "sleep score." While getting enough hours is important, it's just the baseline. Your wearable might show 8 hours of sleep, but if you're still waking up exhausted, something's off.
7 Sleep Metrics That Actually Matter
1. Total Sleep Time (7-9 hours)
Don't obsess over hitting exactly 8 hours. Some people thrive on 6.5, while others need 9. The key is consistency and watching how your body responds.
2. Sleep Efficiency (Target: 85%+)
Think of this like your workout efficiency. Are you actually sleeping during your time in bed, or just lying there scrolling through Instagram?
3. Sleep Latency (Target: Under 20 minutes)
This measures how long it takes to fall asleep. If you're consistently taking longer, it's your first clue something's disrupting your sleep system.
4. Wake After Sleep Onset (WASO) (Target: Under 20 minutes)
This reveals hidden stressors keeping you awake throughout the night. High WASO often means compromised recovery.
5. Deep Sleep Duration (Target: 15-20% of total sleep)
This is where the magic happens for muscle recovery. Miss this target, and your gains could suffer.
6. REM Sleep Duration (Target: 20-25% of total sleep)
Critical for mental recovery and decision-making. Low REM sleep might explain those diet-breaking cravings.
7. Sleep Consistency (Target: 30-minute window)
The most underrated metric. Your body craves routine, just like with training and nutrition.
Using Root Cause Analysis to Fix Sleep Issues
Having the numbers is one thing. Knowing what to do with them is another. Here's how to systematically improve your sleep:
Step 1: Identify the Problem Metric
Don't just say "I sleep badly." Pick a specific metric that's off target.
Step 2: Ask "Why" Five Times
Example:
Why is my sleep efficiency low? Because I'm awake too much.
Why am I awake? Because I keep waking up.
Why do I keep waking up? Because my mind races.
Why does my mind race? Because of work deadlines.
Why do deadlines bother me? Because I'm not setting boundaries.
Step 3: Create Solutions
Often, the fix has nothing to do with sleep itself. One of my clients improved their deep sleep simply by moving workouts from evening to morning.
Making It Work for You
The key isn't collecting data for its own sake. It's about using that data to make informed decisions about your training, recovery, and lifestyle. Start by tracking these seven metrics, then use Root Cause Analysis to systematically address any issues.
Remember: Good sleep isn't about following generic advice or trying random "hacks." It's about understanding your personal sleep patterns and optimizing them for maximum gains.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:01
Let's say you just got seven or eight hours of sleep, but you're waking up exhausted, or the numbers on your wearable just don't make sense. Your sleep efficiency looks good, but your energy levels tell a different story. And maybe you're tracking a bunch of metrics, maybe you're not and you're following all the standard advice and the hacks blue light, caffeine, no screen time but something still isn't working with your sleep. Today we're going to get into this what sleep metrics actually matter, what they mean for your recovery and performance, and how to use an engineering approach to identify and fix the real issues disrupting your sleep. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, philip Pape.
Philip Pape: 0:55
Today we're talking about sleep quality. Measuring sleep quality is not as simple as just looking at the total hours or a single score on, say, your Oura ring or your Fitbit or other wearable. When these numbers don't match how we feel, that is when we need a different way, a systematic way to decode what's really happening during those hours in bed. And that's exactly what we're covering in today's episode First, the key metrics that actually matter for measuring sleep quality and then how to use root cause analysis to fix any issues we uncover. Now I want to give a shout out to Aubrey, who is in our group coaching program. She gave us the idea for this topic. I think it is a very critical topic because we all have wearables many of us do and we track all these metrics and it can be confusing and we're like, hey, I'm getting this much deep sleep. What does that mean? What should I be aiming for and how do I link it to how I feel so that I can perform better? And for those of us who want to be lifting and building muscle, we want to be recovered. That can be even more critical. Now, before we dive into this, if you enjoy this show, if you want more content that brings this engineering, this systematic mindset, this data-based way of thinking that allows you to really unlock what's going on with your body, hit the follow button just so you get notified of the next episode, and it will help others find the show as well and ensures that you just won't miss another episode like this.
Philip Pape: 2:21
All right, let's talk about what we are measuring when it comes to sleep quality. You've probably seen dozens of metrics on your wearable device. They're all a little bit different, they all have different levels of accuracy, and what I want to do today is just distill it down to the seven metrics that matter most, and I'm going to give you a target for them. So this is a very prescriptive episode. The first metric is total sleep time. Now, this is the baseline.
Philip Pape: 2:49
This is where you want to get that seven to nine hours of sleep and the thing is, this number doesn't really mean anything without context, and what I mean is you could get consistently six and a half hours of sleep but be pretty refreshed, or you could be getting a very a half hours of sleep but be pretty refreshed, or you could be getting a very restless eight hours of sleep. However, if you are getting far fewer than this range so if you're getting six or less on a regular basis then that could be a problem regardless. In other words, forget about the rest of the metrics until you fix that, even though those other metrics can help. You really have the low-hanging fruit to go after here, which is hours per sleep. I mean hours, excuse me, hours per night. Now, I know many of us. It's very difficult to achieve eight or nine hours, unless your schedule allows for it, or you're retired or some situation like that. But everyone has kind of that sweet spot where they know that it's just too restricted in their sleep and others, you know, six and a half, seven hours, maybe more than enough. It always helps to experiment with more. So anyway, let's start. There's the baseline getting enough sleep. I think you knew that, but it's one of the seven metrics, all right, metrics.
Philip Pape: 3:58
Metric number two is sleep efficiency. This is the percentage of time in bed that you actually sleep. And so think about, from the moment you lay down, put your head on the pillow assuming you're done, you know, doing something active, like reading a book, something like that and then up until the time you wake up and get out of bed. We want 85% of that time to be actually sleeping right. Think of this, like your, you know your workout efficiency right. Are you spending your gym time training or are you scrolling on your phone? So I'm a big fan of efficiency and I think you are. So are you actually sleeping? And that is gonna be another indicator of are you actually making the most of the time in bed? Are you setting yourself up for success ahead of time outside the bedroom, before you get in to give you that high level of efficiency? All right.
Philip Pape: 4:47
Metric number three is sleep latency. This is how long it takes to fall asleep, and ideally this is under 20 minutes, under 20 minutes. Now, I know personally it takes me about five, 10 minutes to fall asleep. Whether that's good or not for an individual, it depends, obviously, if you're just crashing because you're so exhausted day after day, that's a different thing. But conversely, if you have insomnia or you're being kept awake for whatever reason, that is your first clue that something might be off with your sleep system. All right, sleep latency under 20 minutes.
Philip Pape: 5:21
The fourth metric is wake after sleep onset or WASO. I don't know if people pronounce that, but wake after sleep onset is the total time that you spend awake after you initially fall asleep. Let me repeat that again it's the time, it's the awake time throughout the night after you've initially fallen asleep. And if you have like an aura ring or another wearable that shows you a little graph throughout the night with the different types of sleep and you'll see at the very top usually is higher number than that reveals that you have something stressing you out that keeps waking you up. You know, as long as it's not your spouse kicking you and waking you up and it's internal to you. That's what it reveals.
Philip Pape: 6:15
All right, let's continue with the fifth metric, which is deep sleep duration. Now, this is where the magic happens for recovery physical recovery, cognitive recovery or no, pardon me, that's physical recovery. The next one is cognitive, physical recovery. That's deep sleep, which you know, for those of us lifting, where we have lots of stress on our muscular system during the day, we really want that and we want to target 15 to 20% of total sleep time. So you notice a pattern here 20, 20, 20. It's kind of a good number to remember. We want at least 15 to 20%.
Philip Pape: 6:52
Sometimes, when you look at deep sleep on your graph and you see, oh, I slept eight hours and and an hour and a half or two hours was deep sleep, you might think, oh, that doesn't seem very much. Is that okay? Yeah, it's okay, it's totally normal to be. If you're at least 15%, it's probably okay. If you're not hitting that number, then your training recovery is gonna be compromised. And that's where, like with my clients when they submit their biofeedback to me, and their recovery and soreness is higher than it should be given, than it should be given all the other variables, given their food and everything else.
Philip Pape: 7:22
We look at sleep quality and even if they're getting enough sleep, there could be a sleep quality issue preventing deep sleep. The sixth metric, number six, is REM sleep duration. Now this is for mental recovery and again, here's a little bit higher. We want to aim for 20 to 25%, but again, the magic number 20 is a nice theme here, right? Deep sleep is 15 to 20. Rem sleep is 20 to 25% of your total sleep time. So REM should be a little bit longer than deep sleep. And this directly impacts your focus in your decision-making, which again translates to everything you do, including your training. But also you know how emotionally susceptible you might be to decision fatigue, with your diet, for example. So if you're worried about cravings and over-consuming food, oftentimes a lack of sleep and low sleep quality is what leads to these higher cravings, a very well-established link in the literature.
Philip Pape: 8:21
And then the final metric and you're probably thinking is Philip going to mention this as a metric is sleep consistency, and I think this is the most important in a way, assuming you have your bases covered, like the hours of sleep, I think consistency, the variation in your sleep and wake times or the lack thereof, right, the very low variation where you are going to bed and waking up within about the same 30 minute window every single day, including weekends. This might be the most underrated metric of all, and you can extrapolate that idea to anything you're doing related to your body. It has to do with our rhythms, circadian rhythms, ultradian rhythms, the idea that the body relaxes and responds very well homeostatically and metabolically to consistency consistent eating patterns and eating windows, consistent amounts of food, consistent training, consistent moving and, of course, consistent sleep. All right Now. And, of course, consistent sleep, all right Now. This is where most sleep advice stops right, like you've got your numbers, you know your targets, but then what do you actually do when they're not where they should be? And I think with wearables, that's the trap that we get into. I have an aura ring and I love looking at the data, but then it's like what do you do with it? Same thing with our training, with our nutrition. It's great to track. I highly encourage tracking, but oftentimes people say, well, I tracked my calories and I didn't lose weight. Well, tracking doesn't do that for you. Tracking just gives you the information to be informed from which you can make decisions and for sleep.
Philip Pape: 9:55
This is where root cause analysis comes in, which is the engineering framework I am linking with in this episode. So root cause analysis kind of what it sounds like, right, it's a method engineers use to dig beneath the surface level symptoms and find the true, the root source, the root cause of the problem. Right, not just the surface thing that you put a bandaid on, but the actual root cause. It's kind of like when we have pain in our joints and you think that it's because you're doing a specific lift, but in reality it's some other lifestyle modification or movement pattern you're doing that's leading down the chain to that problem. Okay, so let's apply root cause analysis to your sleep quality.
Philip Pape: 10:41
So step one is finding your specific problem using the metrics that we just discussed, the seven metrics. Don't just say, oh, I sleep badly or I have poor sleep. We need to identify exactly which ones are off target. Maybe your sleep efficiency is low, maybe your deep sleep percentage is below 15%, it's, you know, 10% or very low. So that's step one, of course, is just identifying the information and which ones are an issue. Step two is using what engineers call the five wise technique, and I think I did an episode specifically on this in the past, but it's a very common framework I use with myself and with clients all the time, and you can use it any day, for any issue, and it's super effective.
Philip Pape: 11:21
Okay, and here's how it goes. Let's say that your sleep efficiency is only 75%, right, instead of 80. What's the target for that? 85%? I'm going crazy here. So let's say it's only 75%. So you would ask yourself a why? Question. Why is my sleep efficiency low? Because I'm spending too much time awake in bed. Why is my sleep efficiency low Because I'm spending too much time awake in bed? Why am I awake so much? Because I keep waking up through the night. Why do I keep waking up? Because my mind starts racing when I do. Why does my mind race? Because I'm worried about work deadlines. Why am I worried about deadlines? Because I'm not setting clear boundaries with my time, and so you can keep asking why it doesn't have to just be five, you can go three or you can go eight, whatever gets you to the root cause. And notice what happened there. We started with a sleep metric. Right, our sleep efficiency is low. Okay, that's not the problem. The problem is a lifestyle factor that we need to address, related to setting boundaries with your time, better time management, whatever it is, and with fitness and nutrition. We often find that's the case Like it has nothing to do with the fitness and nutrition. I mean almost never.
Philip Pape: 12:32
I just talked to a new client yesterday. We did our onboarding call and immediately two or three of these types of problems or challenges came up, such as, you know, skipping workouts, and so I asked why, well, sometimes I run out of time. Well, why? Well, I try to go in the afternoon and then work gets late. Why, why, why. And so it came down to why don't we just work out of the morning, right? Or why don't we work out three days instead of four? You know, you can get down to the real thing so that you no longer have the excuse, and it might reveal connections that you might never have considered right.
Philip Pape: 13:07
Another one she came up with was meal planning. She says I don't have time for meal prep. I said why, well, meal prep takes like four hours. Well, why? Well, I'm trying to make all these fancy recipes and, you know, prepackage them. Oh, okay, so then we can get to the root cause of hey, how about you just get a family package of chicken breasts and a giant thing of green beans and cook them in like half an hour on a Sunday, and then you have your lunch for the whole week. By the way, do you like eating the same thing every day? Oh yeah, no problem. Great, perfect solution for you, right? Okay?
Philip Pape: 13:37
So that's step two is doing the five why technique to get at the root cause. And so that's step two is doing the 5-Y technique to get at the root cause. And then step three is creating the solution tree. So you're going to map out the connections from your root cause, because it could be multiple, all right, so it could be multiple. So you're doing your 5-Y and then you're doing it a few more times and then you can identify the easiest place to make a change, right?
Philip Pape: 14:03
So in the example I gave you, setting better work boundaries might have a bigger impact on sleep than taking another supplement, right? Like I just need melatonin, or buying a better mattress or wearing a sleep mask. Like there's, you know, uh, different connections where you can make changes, and some changes for you will be more low hanging fruit than others, and then it could be something else for someone else. And then the last step, of course, is test it out and verify that the change actually helps. If you make one change at a time and then you track guess what? The exact same metrics we just talked about, which you're already tracking, you'll see the difference. You'll see the difference and I can give you a couple simple examples for me. Right, if I drink alcohol, I know my HRV is going to be off, my resting heart rate is going to be high, my resilience score goes down and I don't feel as well rested. It all links together. It all links together. If I don't wear a sleep mask, sometimes my sleep quality is lower because of all the blue light leaking in from, like our night lights and other lights in the house. And you just start to make these connections.
Philip Pape: 15:04
Now here's something fascinating that I've noticed working with clients the solution to poor sleep often has nothing to do with sleep itself. Right, I think I've kind of alluded to this a couple of times with my other examples I had. I had a client whose sleep percentage was really low, like consistently low, and we just did this simple why technique, the five whys, and we discovered, okay, he's training close, too close to bedtime. I had just assumed he was training around four because he had been training in the afternoon, but it was actually getting closer and closer to bedtime and then his core temperature was going up. His cortisol was, you know, getting thrown off. And again, this is not a cortisol is a root of all problems, issue whatsoever. Cortisol is just a downstream indicator of stuff. Um, and so again, guess what? We moved his workouts to the mornings. It instantly improved his sleep metrics.
Philip Pape: 15:49
By the way, that is one of my favorite hacks to train in the morning. Don't tell me that you're not a morning person. Think about it and and see if it. Try it out. That's what I would say. Try it out because it has so many benefits. It allows you to manage your time because you get it out of the way. Now your time is yours for the rest of the day. It's gives you a big energy boost in the morning. It actually helps with your stress and your cortisol throughout the day by taking care of that active, pent up energy in the morning. Um, you sleep better when you train early in the day, and then it's often easier to manage your diet because now you've already accounted for the training window and now the rest of the day kind of falls in line. It's predictable, right. So there's a lot of benefits.
Philip Pape: 16:27
Okay, that was a side of a side thing, but I think it is one important way to potentially improve sleep for a lot of people. So you probably know that I love combining these precise measurements with systematic problem solving. The numbers tell us what's happening, but the engineering approach shows us why, and then that is where the solutions emerge. All right. So measuring sleep quality, it's not just collecting data for its own sake. Right, we want to use the data in an intelligent way to improve your recovery, your performance, your health, your cravings, your fat loss, your muscle building, all of that fun stuff. And if you combine those any metrics, really, you can apply this to your food tracking, to your biofeedback, to your lifting progress. You combine it with simple root cause analysis, like we talked about here.
Philip Pape: 17:13
I literally gave you the whole framework, the five why technique. It's not that hard. You can, number one, know exactly which aspects of the thing in this case sleep need attention. Number two, you could identify the true source of any issues. And then, number three, make targeted changes and at the end of the day, you are in control. It is fully under your control to improve your sleep, and it's not just following like the list of hacks. Here's 10 hacks to improve your sleep. It's not that. It's understanding your personal sleep patterns and then systematically optimizing them.
Philip Pape: 17:42
All right again, if you enjoyed today's episode, if you want more of this type of content, please hit the follow button. Support me by doing that. That would be amazing. I get to see how many followers we have and then it helps others find the show. It helps with the algorithm and you can reach more people who can benefit from these things and also share this episode with anybody you feel is struggling with sleep. Save, bookmark, add it to a playlist, whatever, so that you get it in the future, because I think the information here is among the most valuable that I've ever shared when it comes to sleep and will help you tremendously in one of the things that will unlock tons of recovery and gains in the gym and success with your diet. All right until next time, keep using those wits, lifting some weights and remember, sometimes the best solution is hiding in your own data just waiting to be discovered. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.
