* It helped me figure out I usually get the best rest if I'm in bed at 23:15.

* It automatically calculates what time you need to go to bed if you're running a sleep deficit. (And it calculates how much of a sleep deficit or surplus you have.)

* Most useful of all, it gives me at least 1-2 days of early warning that I might be running a fever or flu - as I see my heart rate, which is usually quite consistent from night to night, leap 5 or 6 BPM over consecutive days.

This is especially important to know during the current outbreak. I can then do whatever I need to do early to shorten the length of whatever illness I might have (take vitamins/extra rest/fluids/etc.)

It also records a history, so you have a record of roughly when the fever starts and ends based on your heart rate, which you can then share with your doctor if necessary.

For me it was a few general trends that I focused on combating due to their clear correlation with poor sleep. They weren't new or groundbreaking, but the data really hammered home the point for me.

Basically the main things were:

- Avoiding alcohol at night entirely (and no more than 1 if it was a social event I felt like drinking at) - Running for at least 3 miles at about 70-80% max heart rate (or shorter distances with higher intensity) guarantees a night of at least 2.5 hours of deep sleep and up to 3.5 according to the app. Otherwise I average around 1 hour of deep sleep on a normal day. - I'm a type 1 diabetic so sleeping with my blood sugar at around 80 mg/dL means I get a full night of restful sleep. When I'm above 120 mg/dL I start losing quality sleep, and above 200 mg/dL I get no deep sleep and low amounts of quality sleep with a higher heart rate.

All these things before the app I had a gut feeling they were minor impacts on my sleep, but turns out they were incredibly impactful. Looking back at my time in college makes me wonder sometimes how much knowledge I didn't retain or learn due to poor sleep and health habits. Hindsight is 20/20 though.