Finally, a comprehensive list of wearables that track your sleep

Sleep is essential. Allowing your body and mind to recharge every night will leave you refreshed and alert when you wake up. Great sleep helps you perform to your best and stave off diseases. Without enough sleep, your brain cannot function properly and your ability to concentrate, think clearly and process memories can be impaired.

Benefits of great sleep include better productivity and concentration, lower weight gain risk, better calorie regulation, greater athletic performance, lower risk of heart disease, and many more.

Most adults require between seven and nine hours whilst children and teenagers need substantially more sleep. There are many things that can get in the way of us having enough sleep - hectic work schedules, stressful daily lives, disruptive bedroom settings, and medical conditions to name a few.

However, by tracking our sleep and optimising our lifestyle habits to ensure we're able to get the sleep that we need can transform our lives.

So what's the science behind sleep?

We all have our own internal "body clock" which regulates our sleep cycle and controls when we feel tired and ready for bed or refreshed and alert. These clocks operate on a 24-hour cycle or a circadian rhythm.

Our circadian rhythm is influenced by many external factors including our environment's light intensity. Our brain receives signals based on the environment and activates specific hormones, altering our body temperature and regulating our metabolism to either keep us alert or put us to sleep.

For both athletes and non-athletes, sleep is essential for overall health and wellbeing.

For athletes, both increased quantity and quality of sleep helps improve performance in many areas related to the demands of their sports:

• A Stanford study of men's basketball players who increased their sleep to 10 hours a night found a range of positive outcomes. The players were able to sprint faster over a short distance reducing their time from 16.2 seconds to 15.5 seconds, their shooting improved by at least 9% for free throws and 6% for three-points and they reported improved physical and mental well-being
• Varsity tennis players, male and female, who increased their sleep to at least nine hours a week also performed better. The accuracy of the players' serves increased significantly from 36% to almost 42%. The players experienced less sleepiness as well.

For fitness enthusiasts, disrupted sleep can be detrimental and not just by small amounts. As sleep disorder specialist Ralph Downer III, PhD says "Even for a weekender who runs a 5K and has sleep loss, their time may decrease by a couple of minutes, which can make a big difference in how you place in a race," A good night's sleep can be the difference between 10th place and 1st place.

There are many different devices today that effectively track your sleep:

The Withings Sleep Analyzer slides under your mattress and tracks sleep quality and duration along with snoring, heart rate, and sleep apnea giving you a comprehensive overview of your sleeping patterns.

Fitbit's Versa 3 watch automatically recognises when you're asleep and measures the duration of your sleep including the breakdown into light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep.

Eight Sleep's smart mattress tracks your sleep patterns, breathing and heart rates and offers active heating and cooling to allow you to optimise your sleeping conditions.

What steps can we take to make sure that we sleep better?

1. Stick to a sleep schedule - go to bed and get up at the same time every day, try to limit the difference in your sleep schedule on weeknights and weekends to no more than an hour

2. Pay attention to what you eat and drink - don't go to bed hungry or stuffed and restrict nicotine, caffeine and alcohol

3. Create a restful environment - optimise your room for sleeping. Make it cool, dark and quiet.

4. Workout - regular physical activity can promote better sleep.

We spend one third of our lives sleeping, let's make sure we get it right.

Through the Terra API, we provide connections to a range of different devices so that your users can track their sleep.

Below is a list of the wearables that track users' sleep data today:

• Garmin: Vivoactive series, Fenix series, Venu series, Forerunner series, Vivomove series, Lily series, Approach series, Vivosmart series, Instinct series, Enduro, Descent series, Epix, Tactix series, D2 series, Marq series, Quatix series
• Fitbit Sense, Versa, Charge 5, Luxe, Ace 3, Inspire 2, Charge 4,
• Polar Grit X, Grit X Pro, Ignite, Ignite 2, M430 (duration only), Unite, Vantage M, Vantage M2, Vantage V, Vantage V2
• Oura ring Gen 2; Oura ring Gen 3
• Withings Scan Watch, Steel HR
• Eight Sleep Pod Pro Cover, Pod Pro Mattress
• Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, Galaxy Watch 3, Galaxy Watch Active, Galaxy Watch Active 2, Galaxy Watch
• Suunto 9 series, 7 series, 5 series, 3 series (duration, avg. HR only)
• Fossil Gen 6

As always, please let me know if I'm missing any!