Should I consider doing a sleep study?

Hi everyone. I’ve been off work for the past two weeks (staycation) and have been sleeping without alarms. During the work week, I usually get about 6 hours of sleep, but I’ve found that my natural sleep needs are between 9 to 11 hours.

The issue is, even after 11 hours of sleep, I still wake up exhausted. I’m constantly tired. I’m starting to wonder if it could be due to a lack of deep sleep or if my sleep cycles are “reversed” (with all my REM sleep happening early in the night and deep sleep only briefly and intermittently around 4 a.m., which isn’t helpful when I have to wake up at 6 a.m. for work). Even with 11 hours of sleep, I’m only getting about an hour of deep sleep.

Is this normal? Should I consider doing a sleep study? If the reality is that we’re all just perpetually exhausted, that’s fine, but someone needs to clue me in, lol!

P.S. – All the times/data are from my Apple Watch, so they’re not exact, but they give a general idea.

Healthcare providers usually recommend this test when you have symptoms of conditions that affect sleep, to determine how to treat those conditions or to see if completed treatments worked. These are generally conditions that affect or disrupt your brain, nervous system, breathing, and heart function.

You might want a sleep study because if you have sleep apnea and it’s not found and treated, it can interfere with your quality of life. It can make you too sleepy when you should be awake. It also is linked to problems such as High blood pressure.

Healthcare providers typically suggest this test when you have symptoms of sleep-related conditions. The test helps determine how to treat these conditions or assess if previous treatments were effective. These conditions often impact or disrupt your brain, nervous system, breathing, or heart function.