Night awakenings
How many times you woke during your main sleep, and for how many minutes in total, as estimated by Apple Watch.
Pajdo counts the awake stretches inside your main sleep in Apple Health and adds up their minutes. Naps and the time before you first fall asleep aren't part of it.
Waking up a few times is part of ordinary sleep, and brief awakenings often go unnoticed. The National Sleep Foundation's quality checklist asks adults 18–64 whether they woke once or less and were awake 20 minutes or less in total, and adults 65 and older twice or less and 30 minutes. Its expert panel counted awakenings longer than 5 minutes, while the watch counts short ones too, so your own usual is the better yardstick.
Apple Watch labels some awake time as sleep, so its counts run low and a little noisy. Pajdo only reacts when your last 3 nights average at least 2 more awakenings than usual, well outside your typical spread.
Caffeine adds about 12 minutes of awake time after falling asleep, on average across studies.
What tends to push it up
- Caffeine later in the day
What tends to pull it down
- A workout that day (less time awake)
Worth a try
Make your bedroom cool and dark
The NHS, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the National Sleep Foundation all point the same way: a bedroom that's quiet, dark and comfortably cool. The NSF notes the best temperature differs from person to person.
Small fixes go a long way. Blackout curtains or an eye mask for light, earplugs or gentle background sound for noise.
Try it: tonight, close the curtains fully, turn your phone face down on silent, and make the room a touch cooler than usual. Tweak one thing at a time until it feels right.
Keep reading
Sources
- What Is Sleep Quality?, National Sleep Foundation
- National Sleep Foundation's sleep quality recommendations: first report, National Sleep Foundation (Sleep Health, 2017)
- Estimating Sleep Stages from Apple Watch, Apple (updated October 2025)
- The effect of caffeine on subsequent sleep: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Sleep Medicine Reviews (Gardiner et al., 2023)
- The effects of physical activity on sleep: a meta-analytic review, Journal of Behavioral Medicine (Kredlow et al., 2015)
- How to fall asleep faster and sleep better, NHS Every Mind Matters
- Healthy Sleep Habits, American Academy of Sleep Medicine
- How to Make a Sleep-Friendly Bedroom, National Sleep Foundation
Checked against these sources on September 15, 2026.
This is general wellness information, not medical advice. If a number worries you, or stays away from your usual for a while, talk to a doctor.