Garmin - Stress, readiness, body battery, sleep - Useful?

IMO they are good as a general guide but not 100% reliable. I do find that Body battery is very much on par with how I feel.

I discovered that the Sleep tracking can often be more about lying down in the region of resting heart rate / limited movement - I’ve been awake lying in bed for hours and it tracked me as “light sleep”.

Useful?

They certainly track my performance levels, tiredness etc. The HRV data does seem to help me determine when I'm overtraining and has given me early warning of a couple of normal "Winter Virus" conditions.

The sleep score is also interesting. It showed I get more Deep sleep when Mrs S is away for the night. I think that's just normal "disturbance" through movement. It also tends to be lower when I've had a few beers or a late, heavy meal, so I think it's showing the right trend.

Not sure if I find them useful, i.e. I can see the data and find it interesting but I don't actively make decisions based on it.

Sleep and stress scores show a strong correlation with alcohol, which is interesting.

How often do you take your watch off. Mines a Fenix 6 pro for reference. Sometimes it goes a bit happy but a restart sorts it out. Normally once every 2-3 months.

I find them useful as figures to look at and see if there is any variance. I don't really know what the figures mean, but I wear the watch 24/7 (removed for showering/bathing, but nothing else) so it seems to collate a load of data that gives it the readings.

I've no idea how accurate they are but it is now a consistent base I'm looking at so it does tend to show when things are changing.

I wish I was more focussed on training as suspect it would be even better, but I do try to follow things, I'm just not dedicated enough to really focus on doing it all.

I'm on the beta version of the Garmin Connect app and I'm finding it far more engaging and easy to read/see trends...shows more content 'at a glance' and it seems to work better for me.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret the Load Focus readings - I don't know if it is suggesting I'm short on stuff (and I'm not quite sure what stuff I then need to do) or if that is what my last few 'things' have been focussed on (and should I then focus on something else). However, due to my lack of dedicated focus, I suspect it doesn't actually matter for me.

I find them useful. It knows when I've had alcohol and its helped me to understand where I should be limiting it if I want to be at my best the following day. Its also allowed me to understand my recovery and impacts on my fitness from different intensities of exercise.

All known before of course, but the metrics make it 'real' instead of theoretical.

I don't find them useful at all. sometimes my body battery is showing 0 when I feel alright, and sometimes its showing 7 hours of sleep when I know I had 3

Body Battery never seems to go below 5 for me...it is the lowest I've ever seen it on mine...

I've used my Forerunner 955 consistently for the last year. As above, it's astonishing the impact that alcohol or poor food choices have on stress levels. My recorded stress levels usually drop into the resting zone as soon as I fall asleep, but even a couple of pints, or processed food, and it stays much higher for hours. I've also seen my HRV increase when I've had a consistently clean diet, exercise and rest and drop when I've fallen off the wagon (for instance- going away from home for a few days). I also find the Acute vs Conic load useful for gauging and motivating my exercise levels.
I'm not convinced the sleep tracking is very accurate but Body Battery levels seem about right.

Overall, I'm addicted to it!

I've had a Fenix 6 for 18 months now, feels very accurate as when I'm knackered, it knows.

As others have said, alcohol has a big impact - which is reality.

I wear mine 24/7, only removing for bathing and charging (once every 10 days or so depending on how many activities I've done).

" sometimes my body battery is showing 0 when I feel alright"

0? As in zero? Never seen 0 on mine even after +8 hours of activity in a day has it every hit 0.

Sorry, I keep thinking of more stuff to add to this...

What would be really useful - for a thicko person like me that doesn't quite understand all these results - is a single item reporting a score for your fitness level - it would then track depending on the various elements but would be an overall number or something to confirm what all the findings mean.

It could be 1-1000 and the score level changes are your fitness improves or declines. TrainingPeaks had something that I seemed to understand a bit better and I could see the numbers rising (and falling)...I've not found the equivalent on Garmin and I miss it as a quick glance to see where I'm at.

My riding skill and fitness are sporadic just now - I'm sure the fitness is more down to diet and just not fuelling right...the skill is down to what mince is in my head telling me I'm really not good on a bike and shouldn't be riding stuff. The fuelling I can sort probably easier than the mind games!

Fenix 6s Pro Solar here.

Been wearing it pretty much non-stop since Jan '23, so ~13 months.

Don't think my body battery had ever been fully charged. Just had a look and 91 is the highest with an average high around 65. Will often finish the day at 0.

Sleep score generally never more than "Fair". I think I've seen "Good" few twice. Thing is, I naturally wake after ~6 hours of sleep which Garmin obviously doesn't think is enough. However, this might have something to do with my alcohol consumption..... 😐

The stress function seems to be all over the place. Can't even blame the GF for that right now as I've been on my own for the four weeks... Again, alcohol consumption seems to affect the following days stress levels.

Garmins sleep tracking is pretty poor so this obviously affects the other metrics - obviously there is that quantified scientist guy on youtube that thinks it is poor but if you also google you will find an awful lot of comments and complaints about it.

Will often finish the day at 0.

Weird as per some others I have never seen it drop beneath  5 even when I have been training several hours after it hit it.

Overall body battery isnt overly useful to me since since although its ok, for me, at picking up bad sleep/hangover making me feel crap thats generally obvious anyway and it misses out the feeling crap for other reasons.

I find HRV can be useful if for no other reason than seeing how alcohol affects things and hence encouraging less partaking. That said after not drinking for Feb there are still a bunch of weird swings which dont seem related to heavy training either.

Stress doesnt add a lot although it is funny looking at it after a long drive and seeing it ultra high.

I have had for a couple of years and find it works well and wear it 24/7. Training condition is more of a guide as it likes high intensity over base load - e.g full on weeks skiing and it dropped dramtically. One think it doesnt seem to work with is VO2 max - dont know how it calculates but it doesnt seem to correlate with much. Otherwise I think its excellent

HRV was really interesting when i went skiing, despite sleeping 'OK' HRV was telling me that something was still up, the altitude acclimatisation explained that though. Really interesting and somewhat useful, i mean, it didn't help me adapt any faster, but did help to explain why I couldn't run more than about 3 paces

I the stress is broken on mine. It’s never been above 20 and it’s been under 10 whilst teaching

I don’t wear my watch at night. It appears lots of the fitness measures only really kick in if you run or have power cranks

I gave up on sleep early on, it was telling me I was asleep when I wasn’t etc.

Stress is interesting however, it certainly picks that up very clearly. Even gave me a little warning once, not that I was unaware of the stress at the time!

I've only recently started wearing a Garmin, the training readiness does seem a bit soft, but I've mainly only commuted on the bike this year so haven't stretched myself yet. HRV is interesting, it's tracked some illness this year and it matches how I feel well. I may start backing off stuff when this starts to dip in the future.
And sleep score tells me that when I sleep on my own I recover better, but where's the fun in that? 😉

I find the stress / hrv tracking to be really useful - for my long COVID, anything that spikes the stress levels had a tendency to wipe me out. Noisy environments, booze, bad food, busy social contexts, etc. So it's really handy to keep an eye on that.

I'm currently trying it out to identify particular food triggers. Bread seems to be one, but other glutens are fine. So I'll keep looking...

Body battery is a weird one for someone with severe fatigue. Doesn't exactly track. But it's still interesting to keep an eye on.

As noted, sleep tracking is a bit ropey and I don't really trust it.

What would be really useful – for a thicko person like me that doesn’t quite understand all these results – is a single item reporting a score for your fitness level

@DickBarton have a look at intervals.icu. That has a "Fitness" number, but also a Fatigue number and an estimation of your preparedness. It's free/donateware.

"I don’t wear my watch at night"

You need to wear it 24/7 so it can 'learn' and also track all your data.

Not had alcohol since a sesh with my ex-boss last week - that night my Resting Heart Rate was my highest in a year, at 48BPM.

Last night down at 42BPM 🙂

HRV and RHR change dramatically for me when I drink, I don't really take much notice of the stress but everything else appears to track well according to how I feel. It's good to be able to quantify it and helps encourage better habits.

Training load seems pretty decent but has no concept of periodisation.

what do you do with the data it gives you?

Say it thinks your body battery is low, will it stop you from going on that 6 hour ride? Or running 30km?

If it says you havent slept enough, do you go to bed early?

If your stress score is high, do you stop and do some meditation?

Or is it just some numbers you absorb and dont do anything with?

I dont have one, but am curious.

I get a bit obsessed watching my Resting Heart Rate. Normally sits around 48 but a few days at CoreBike and it was 60!

Thanks @scotroutes, will take a gander.

Body battery? Wtf is body battery? Are you really going to have a rest because your watch is telling you that you're tired? Please tell me there's more to it than that while I search for a suitable emoji. 😀

Normally sits around 48 but a few days at CoreBike and it was 60!

Were you exhibiting or visiting? We noted that few of the exhibitors wanted to actually talk to visitors, preferring instead to catch up on the goss with other reps. Must have been exhausting! 😀 (I didn't stay over this year but my hangover last year was memorable.)

Mixed, generally it doesn't tell me much I don't already know. If I wake up tired and feel like I haven't slept well, generally the data backs it up. As somebody mentioned above, I do keep an eye on my resting heart rate though. It is useful to see my overall fitness and it also spikes when I am unwell, stressed or hungover.

Thanks for the comments folks. It sounds as though it works well for some people and less well for others, so maybe I'm just unlucky.

The kicker for me seems to be that it thinks I'm stressed when I'm asleep, which messes everything else up.

Yesterday was a rather extreme example: Woke up with a body battery of 25. OK, fair enough I'd done a 4-hour trail run on Sunday so that wasn't too surprising. Had a fairly restful day at work for a change and spent the evening reading a book. So lots of time in the "blue zone" with stress below 25 and by the time I went to bed my body battery had gone up to 50. So I gained 25 points during the day. But when I woke up this morning it was only 58. So I'd only gained 8 points in almost 8 hours of sleep, mainly because my overnight stress was consistently over 50.

It's no big deal. I can just ignore it and train based on how I feel (as I've done for the past 40 years). But one of the selling points for the watch was that it could suggest workouts based on how you were responding to training. In practice my daily suggested workout is usually "rest" 🙂

Body battery? Wtf is body battery? Are you really going to have a rest because your watch is telling you that you’re tired?

This. Mostly.

I have had a Fenix 3, 5 & now 6 for years & that data is just exceptionally good at stating the bloody obvious 🙄

If I drink, my stress goes up & I sleep worse, likewise if I eat crap at bad times, my stress goes up & my ‘body battery’ gets hammered. If I wake up & feel like I had a crap nights sleep, my watch tells me that. I’m not sure it’s actually telling me anything I don’t really know already.

Most of those metrics I have turned off now, as they serve no real purpose in telling me different to what I’m actually feeling. The only one I do use at some level is exercise load, just to try and keep myself in a window of activity.

Although, all it does again, is tell me if I’ve beasted myself with a 200+ load activity that I need to recover. Kind get that, because I feel f*cked anyway! 😆

Checked intervals.icu...shouldn't have looked as my fitness score isn't quite what I was hoping!!! Hahaha

Was exhibiting at Core. Lost my voice spoke to that many people.

The Guinness every night won't have helped either

Agreed, body battery on its own isn't really going to tell you anything you don't already know. The (potential) power of all this data is the way it can be combined to produce something useful.

In theory the watch knows how hard I've trained recently, what my current fitness level is and how rested I am and can combine all that to tell me something useful like "today is a good day to do some intervals and you should do them at this pace". In theory it is a tailored training plan that goes beyond what you would normally get as it also knows how well you are recovering (did you eat and rest well after that last session or did you have a few beers, a curry and a restless night). Of course you know what you did last night but it's not always obvious what to do with that information and how to modify your training to account for it.

But all that only works if the data really reflect how you are recovering.

I've just had a look at my heart rate for last night by the way. Down in the 50s to low 60s as I sat on the couch reading. Jumped to 85 as I got ready for bed then dropped back to low 60s as I fell asleep. Up to around 85 again in what it thought was my first REM phase but then stayed in the 75-85 range for the rest of the night (5 hours), which doesn't sound right.

@roverpig - this is a fairly typical chart of my overnight Stress measurement.

and then my Timeline

It does seem that the measured Stress is mostly in my Deep Sleep phase.

Oh - Body Battery for the last 4 weeks...

Thanks @scotroutes I’d love graphs like that 😀 Actually the stages chart isn’t so different it’s the stress that is mostly light orange (with some dark orange peaks).

what do you do with the data it gives you?

For me it's just feedback.

I wonder if there's a measurement issue? I know some folk say that even the HR measurement is a bit flakey for them. Could be skin pigment, hairiness, tightness of strap? My Fenix 6 is pretty consistent.

I've got a Fenix 7 pro saphire solar super duper... I find it's quite accurate, i especially like the the stress scoring, as when i've been around the missus it registers it very clearly!

Had my Garmin Instinct 2 for a few weeks now, finding it very useful.

Ref Measurment - In my pre-purchase research I'd expected to have to keep my HR strap in use for cycling etc - In practice I've found the wrist optical measurement is actually working very well - perhaps they have impproved over time, mine is quite a recent model.

As for the stats - yes, they are useful I think. The constant/frequent HRV (which is something I was already aware of and did measure using a different app) genuinely does warn you of oncoming illness i think - it certainly seems to tie up with how im feeling, and crucially, how I'm going to feel...

Interesting point @scotroutes. Maybe I should try shaving my wrists 😀

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You need to wear it 24/7 so it can ‘learn’ and also track all your data.

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I haven’t worn a watch at night for years. I decided not to start with this one as sleep tracking seems to associated with less sleep

I’m happy I bought a watch with maps and wrist heart rate. The body metrics aren’t floating my boat, which is fine. Interestingly since getting the watch Komoot is starting to make more sense

@DickBarton - for a simple "fitness" plot, there's also crickles.casa.

Interesting to hear that the sleep tracking is gash. I've been thinking about upgrading to an Epix Pro 2 for a while from a Samsung 5 Pro - Garmin supposed to be better for sport tracking/body functions etc.

The Samsung sleep tracking (as far as I can tell from having a reasonably good idea of when I fall asleep/wake up) seems bang on to the minute

I’m not sure the body battery is that useful. I was at allegedly 50% late afternoon but only managed about half an hour on Zwift and actually fell asleep on the sofa beforehand.
It also shows me as resting when I was actually driving back from London today.
I’ve had to switch off the low heart rate warning as my resting rate drops below 40 at times, would be better if it was adjustable, rather than an arbitrary number.

Had my Garmin Instinct 2 for a few weeks now.. In practice I’ve found the wrist optical measurement is actually working very well – perhaps they have impproved over time, mine is quite a recent model.

I have the large version of this watch bought in June last year. IIRC DCRainmaker's review said the latest HR sensors are much better. Mine's pretty good ... occasionally I'm blowing out my arse on a steep climb and it claims i'm dong 89bpm, but generally it seems good.

My sleep scores aren't so great though. Pretty sure i'm not awake as much in the night as it claims. Don't think i've ever got above 80.