As a frequent traveler and someone who has a hard time sleeping in strange hotels, I live with a recipe for many sleepless nights. Seems like the alarm always goes off just when I have just fallen asleep. To help me get a good read on my sleep patterns and to get more restful sleep, I bought the Sleeptracker Pro, a wrist watch that monitors your sleep cycle from barely asleep to REM by tracking a succession of small bodily movements. You set the alarm for, say, 6:30 am and specify a window of time around that (normally I do 15 minutes on either end of my desired wake up time). Within that window, the watch finds the point at which I'm most awake and wakes me then, as opposed to when I'm out silly. I started using mine about 10 months ago and had success as soon as I first put it to use on a business trip. I'd tried using one of those gentle wake up alarm clocks before, but it was more like an airhorn. The Sleeptracker is far more effective (it cab be set to beep or vibrate), plus it's on your wrist so you don't have to remember to pack it. The set up was simple, too. I now find the watch especially useful for when I am traveling across time zones, since it helps me get a more restful sleep. The watch also monitors your sleep pattern over time and you can download the data to your PC to see the trends, which helps to spec out the optimal window you'll need to wake up.

-- Dan Tushinski

Sleeptracker Pro
$164
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Innovative Sleep Solutions